March 2017 Message

Dearest Family,

Spring Equinox Blessings!!!

So happy to be home for a few weeks before heading first to the Jamiat Aam in Madison and then New Zealand and Australia in the beginning of April.

I’ve been catching up on work and hosting my mureed Tariq and his wife Razia from New Delhi who made their first trip to the US. Work in the garden includes planting all the spring and summer crops before traveling again.

A few months back, Netanel, who is the “Pir” of the Jewish Maimounia Inayati Order which was begun by Reb Zalman Schafer-Shalomi, wrote to us that he had inner guidance to help bring Murshida Rabia Martin more into the limelight of those who made a contribution to the early days of the Sufi Message in the West. He was searching for her gravesite, her Mazar. By chance I found a newspaper clipping (see below) that said where her Memorial was. She died August 31, 1947, three days before my birth! A half a year ago Netanel along with his partner Alia Wittman found the grave. This past Sunday we made a group pilgrimage to her grave about 15 minutes from the Mentorgarten in San Francisco, along with Murshid Wali Ali, Tawwaba and many other beloveds. Having been to Khwaja Moineddin Chishti’s Dargah only a few weeks before we laid a Chaddar (tomb cover) from Khwaja’s place on Murshida Rabia’s Mazar.

Aside from the Wazifa practice this month, I would like to reintroduce the breathing practice known as Kasab, which Hazrat Inayat Khan gave to all mureeds a few years after taking Bayat. It is to build capacity and strength, Click to download the pdf Kasab with Text. It gives the practice as I learned it, and there are many references to the practice in the Githas. I invite us all to practice it every day this month and then if we can make a habit of the practice, every day for the rest of our lives! Just like the Purification Breaths!

Much love,

Shabda

MurshidaRabiaMartin Murshida Rabia Martin

Murshida Rabia Martin death announcement

WAZIFA PRACTICE

TO WELCOME THE SPRING

RECITE YA FATTAH 101X OR 301X

18. Ya Fattah (yaa fat-TAAḤ)

Al-Fattah means both to begin and to open. Through it you begin to open your heart to the infinite possibilities of the divine presence. With al-Fattah, the opening is continuous. It is an enlightenment that keeps happening. Al-Fattah brings great power to clear the way of obstacles and open the path of your life for success. It is the one who opens the heart to love and ecstasy.

Al-Fattah means to open something with something else, a key. It is the key to opening the heart to Allah, the key to finding the God within. Reciting Ya Fattah is a very powerful practice because, even in the midst of despair, it brings the possibility of awakening to love and ecstasy. Its activity in us is opening up the veils of darkness over the heart to uncover the light within. Al-Fattah is the continuous action of all that will be accomplished. Invocation of Ya Fattah sets up the dynamic of going deeper and deeper in the process of opening.

If you have more time then recite 1001x YA FATTAH

From handwritten letters from Hazrat Inayat Khan to Murshida Rabia Martin from 1911-1926! They are full of transmission and intimacy!

From the letter dated 19 Nov 1918 from Scotland to San Francisco. From the body of the letter:

"Fikr, nimaz and all meditations is necessary. Make a point to repeat word “Ya Fattah” as your wazifa to whisper to your self a thousand times every day and think of opening all sources for the accomplishment of your life’s blessed mission. I myself, and all the sincere members of our Order are indeed proud of you. Your photograph is placed in “Khankah” and the members point out to the notice of the visitors and strangers that this is Murshid’s first mureed in the Western World and first Murshida in the West. And every one of them know and admire how you have striven in your life and are striving hard to bring our blessed order to a great glory in your land. My only wish and prayer is to be with you once again."

To hear the pronunciation: Ya Fattah

TEXT and COMMENTARY to STUDY

This month we continue reading Yours in the Infinite, a series of letters from Hazrat Inayat Khan to Murshida Rabia Martin. Read pages 57-72. Click here to download the document.

1KauaiRetreat Kauai Retreat with about 15 people missing from photo