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Past
Events
Please
join us to welcome our guest speaker:
Shaykha Fariha al Jerrahi.
Sheikha Fariha is
the guide for the Nur Ashki Jerrahi Sufi Order. (www.nurashkijerrahi.org)
She conducts spiritual and educational meetings for her
dervishes in 16 circles around the world. According to her:
“La ilahe ilallah is the sword of light revealing truth,
dissolving the layers of limited self. It flashes in the open
space of Being, devouring all illusion, just as the staff of
Moses, aleyhi salam, swallowed up the tricks of the magicians.
It is the first name we are given because it is the most
powerful against the limited self. The daily practice of
zhikr moves our awareness from the theatre in our head to the
truth of our heart. We learn to focus our attention single
pointedly, not drifting in the waves of thoughts and emotions.
The goal is to become one with the Truth and to live as an
infinite vessel of Love.”
Some excerpts from
Invitation to Union
by
Shaykha Fariha al Jerrahi:
"In the words of Hazreti Ali, may Allah be pleased with him,
“Praise is the heaviest of that which is weighed, and the most
valuable of all that is treasured.” The beat of our heart, the
flow of the breath, our entire existence is praise. Our path
is to become conscious of this praise, to know ourselves as
pure praise of Allah.
The Self-revealing nature of Allah
manifests in the Most Beautiful Names given to humanity. The
Divine Names, Attributes of the Real, are infinite and
ceaselessly flowing from the hidden Essence, like rays from a
vast cosmic sun. They take form within the precious human
heart and as the entire creation
of manifest Being. The people of knowledge have identified three thousand
distinct ones.
"Love, intimacy,
and constant remembrance are the glorious way. Essentially love,
love, and more love. Tariqat, the path of ease, unfolds in the
Bismillahirrahmanirrahim—in the all-encompassing womb of Love.
Allah is all-embracing, all-forgiving, all-providing Mother.
Allah is glorious Truth and Supreme Reality. Allah is intimate
lover and watchful guide. Allah is hidden Mystery. The path of
ease opens the heart to adore our Beloved in all beautiful
forms, and to cry out with all the beautiful names. We are with
our Beloved in the open space, in the great freedom of only Hu,
where Love alone is real.
How many thousand
thousand times
have You told me I am Yours
O Love tell me one more time
How many pens and how many oceans of ink
have flowed in Love’s name
O Love send me oceans more
How many universes of hearts
have been broken in Love’s cause
O Love I offer You one more
How many tears for eons of years
have filled Love’s beakers
O Love I can’t stop crying
How many swans in the heavens of Love
have cried Your name
and passed away from life and form
O Love take me too
Shaykha
Fariha was born into a socially committed, eclectic Catholic
family in Houston, Texas in 1947 and has lived at various
times in Los Angeles, Mexico and New York, where she currently
resides. At the age of 19 she began a conscious search for
God. Ten years later she met her teacher, Shaykh Muzaffer Ozak
of Istanbul. Through Shaykh Muzaffer she also met Lex Hixon,
who became his disciple in the same year. At the passing of
the Master, she became the disciple of Lex Hixon, by this time
called Shaykh Nur al-Jerrahi.
Shaykh Muzaffer
came to the West to meet Nur and to plant the seeds of Sufism in
the hearts of the American lovers. From this transmission Nur
envisioned a radical and illumined path of the heart which he
called Universal Islam. When Shaykh Nur passed in 1995, Fariha
took on the role of guiding the Nur Ashki Jerrahi Sufi Order.
Through this lineage, she and her representatives offer the
nectar of teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him,
which guide the seeker to self-knowledge and immersion in God.
The sacred practices of zikr, prayer, charitable living, fasting
and retreat are all embraced.
Every Thursday,
Fariha with her husband Ali and the dervishes invite all seekers
into the circle of zikr at the Masjid al-Farah in New York City.
Click for direction.
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guide for the Nur Ashki Jerrahi Sufi
Order. She conducts spiritual and
educational meetings for her dervishes in
16 circles around the world.
