“Every kind word or glance softens your heart,
and every hurtful word or act closes or hardens your heart.
To ignore God in the hearts of others is to separate ourselves from the union we so desire.”
—Sheikh Tosun Bayrak al-Jerrahi al-Halveti

Welcome to the HeartStream Pulse Newsletter!
      The HeartStream Pulse is sent as a service to our HeartStream Sufi Community as a communications forum. The Pulse will include: notices whenever a personal need arises, services to offer, housing available, items for sale, notices about interest/discussion groups, and community-related information to share.

      We dedicate the HeartStream Pulse this month to the harvest of blessings from the Beloved, from each other and from the bounty of wisdom within ourselves.

The HeartStream Visioning Circle is changing its meeting date to the 4th Thurs of each month. This month's meeting will be Thursday Sept 27th at 7:30 – 9:00pm at The Garden.
Please come with your inspirations from camp – and your hopes and dreams for this community. Refreshments will be served. For more information contact Laura Bathrick at (831) 462-6766 or laurabathrick@sbcglobal.net

Community Events
Gratitude for a Successful South Bay Sufi Camp 2007
- by Leela Lisa Kelly Ball, camp director

Many thanks go out to all involved in making the South Bay Camp at Happy Valley such a success this year. We were particularly blessed to have Pir Shabda Kahn join us and bring along the fantastic raga singer, Shanti Sharma, from India. One of our community members also let us know that the Qawwali musical group Fana-Fi-Allah was available the Friday night of camp so we got even more rich blessings in the musical realm.

Celebrate the Harvest of Our Blessings with A Zhikr Shabbat Evening
- By Tofah Eileen
September brings to us the Fall Equinox and the harvest. It is a time of lengthening nights and a time to catch our breath after the work of the summer. It is a time in many spiritual traditions when one turns their sight inward in reflection and contemplation. This year Rosh Hashanah began on Wed Sept 13 and is the Judaic head of the year and is a celebration of renewal and rebirth. The tradition calls for 10 days of reconciliation with God and man and ultimately one asks to be put into the book of life for another year. In Islam, Ramadan began on the same day and is the beginning of a month of fasting everyday from before dawn to sunset. It is considered the most venerated, blessed and spiritually-beneficial month of the Islamic year. Prayers, fasting, charity, and self-accountability are especially stressed at this time. During the day, Muslims abstain from eating, drinking, smoking, having sex, and arguing and fighting including, anger, envy, greed, lust, backstabbing, and gossip. It is a practice designed to help one become more aware of the conflicting forces of our lower and higher natures. It is a time to become aware of the material nature that constantly seeks material gratification and our spiritual nature which seeks only one thing – God.

Both Islam and Judaism follow a lunar calendar. Sukkot is the Jewish festival of fulfillment that occurs on the full moon following Rosh Hashanah and is a time for gathering in the benefits that flow from repentance and forgiveness. The harvest takes on the form of joy, peace and harmony with the physical world around us. On this same full moon is celebrated the Night of Power the most venerated day in the Islamic world which commemorates the first of 10 meetings with the Angel Gabriel and the revelation of the Quran to Mohammad. According to the Quran, at this time God determines the course of the world for the rest of the year.

This year we will be building a Sukkah (a leaky roofed harvest hut) on the labyrinth at The Garden on Monday morning the 24th. It is a structure open to the light of the moon and the stars, covered with palms or evergreens and in which we dangle the fruits and vegetables of the harvest. It will be capable of holding 50 – 60 people and on Friday Sept. 28, on this very auspicious full moon, the Sufi community will host along with the Jewish renewal community Chadesh Yamenu the first Sukkot Shabbat Zhikr. Please join us as we pray in Hebrew and Arabic the Zhikrs of Remembrance of the Beloved. It will begin at 7:00pm. Carpooling is essential. Bring harvest vegetables to decorate the Sukkah and palm branches to cover the top with on Monday morning the 24th and join us in the construction if you are capable. For more information call Jay at 831-479-9278.

The HeartStream Community will be adding another Friday to the regular Zhikr schedule. Gather with the beloveds on every 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Fridays of the month. Tofah and Anwar will be leading this year with frequent guest leaders coming to the community. Stay tuned for announcements.

After Zhikr Refreshments - Doing Zhikr creates strong ties. For some, it takes them into a profound attunement to the beloved in which they wish to linger. For others, the need to talk to one another becomes very important. So, thanks to Don Sakoda (donzini@yahoo.com) who has repaired the roof on the gazebo, we will begin offering tea and refreshments after Zhikr on Friday nights in the gazebo. Please honor those who wish to be in silence by going quietly out to the gazebo to socialize. Also, please bring refreshments. We will eat whatever you bring.

• Through our consciousness of generosity, the Heart Stream flows out providing momentum for Divine Ideas to become manifest.
• Through our consciousness of generosity we tend to those in need.
• Through our consciousness of generosity, we challenge and transform our fear of scarcity and are healed of lack and what Mother Teresa called a poverty in America deeper than any she had ever experienced – that of separation and isolation.
• Through our consciousness of generosity, we provide programs that bring alive the Mystical Teachings of all the great masters and allow the Divine Ideal to become manifest.

A very special, decorative shirt, hand-made for Murshid Moinuddin in the '60s by Fatima who was one of Murshid Sams origional mureeds, was auctioned at the South Bay Sufi Camp '07 and purchased by Micheal Howe of Santa Cruz. It was given by Fatima to Huzur Nawaz after being well loved and much used and Huzur this August passed it to the community to be offered for the fund-raising auction.

The purchase of this beloved Sufi memorabilia marked the beginning of our community's 'Partnership of Support', generating a consciousness of generosity in our actions, which includes contribution and volunteer service providing momentum for 'Divine Ideas to become manifest in our HeartStream Sufi Community'.

“The work of the Sufi is not to collect all the rainwater in its own tanks,
but to work and make a way for the stream of the message to flow,
supplying water to the fields of the world.”
- Hazrat Inayat Khan

After receiving a picture of the shirt, Fatima writes About Murshid Moinuddin's Shirt:
"The shirt is authentic. I don't remember making it, but I'm sure I did. I recognize the material as an Indian bedspread and I remember the material used for the patch on the arm.

Can you tell if the stitching was done on a machine or by hand? ...anyone who sews will be able to tell...I'd like to know. I didn't have a sewing machine until 1973. Maybe I borrowed Jayanara's machine. I can't believe I made clothes by hand! I know I made the clothes that I'm wearing in pictures. Can you tell if the stitching was done on a machine or by hand? ...anyone who sews will be able to tell...I'd like to know. It certainly looks like it got lots of wear!"
(Yes, it definitely appears to be hand-made.)

Huzur Nawaz affectionately writes about Murshid Moinuddin and the shirt:
Fatima gave me the shirt in the early seventies. [It is] a shirt that Fatima made for Moinuddin while the two of them were still Mureeds of Murshid Sam, probably in the late sixties. Moinuddin subsequently was designated by Murshid Sam to be his successor with the title, "Caliph", and was soon given the title of "Murshid" by Pir Vilayat. Murshid Moinuddin had a benign, sweet and dignified presence. It was a great pleasure to live with him. Like Murshid Sam, he loved to pun and had a great singing voice!

About Michael Howe with his extraordinary new shirt
- by Cynthia Meyers

Nearly a local in Santa Cruz, Michael Howe has lived on the west side of Santa Cruz for over 20 years. A year ago, the gentle nudging of a friend first brought Michael to the Dances of Universal Peace. The sense of community support and open hearted connection he found there inspired him to become a regular Sunday night dance participant, as well as a participant at the Mendocino and South Bay Sufi Camps.

Michael is presently taking an extended break from work to spend time with himself and his extraordinary sister Margaret who has Alzheimers. He says that, "During this time I'm finding myself being drawn more deeply into the things in my life that are helping me to open my heart and expand my spirituality". Regular activities such as Yoga, Nia, Dances of Universal Peace, riding his bike on West cliff, and even Salsa Rueda, Michael says, are a catalyst for expanding his spirituality, opening his heart, connecting him more deeply to others and allowing him to be more comfortable in his own skin (and new shirt).

The HeartStream Sufi Community extends a heart full welcome and many Ya Fattahs to Caitlin McLeod on her entering into the stream of the Sufi path through initiation. May your way be blessed and fruitful.

I have been on a spiritual journey my entire life. In 1974 I was initiated into Siddha Yoga by Swami Muktananda, also known as Baba. I lived under his guidance at his ashram in India for five years and three more in the United States, until he took mahasamadhi in 1982.

When Baba was alive I danced in his divine ecstasy. He was my “everything.” Then when he died, part of my heart died along with him. Even though he installed a successor, Swami Chidvilasananda, also known as Gurumayi, who is still my guiding light, I could not get over his death. I withdrew and intensified my practices; I studied the scriptures, and led a life of renunciation and meditation. But we had been taught that in order to assimilate the highest truths of yoga, one had to be able to live the teachings in the marketplace. Even though I had a very rich inner life I refused to “come down from the mountain;” the divine form of my Baba was gone.

Gurumayi helped me in many ways to make the transition from the mountain to the market. One way was by validating a gift of intuition I have had since I was very young. She gave me the name “SPIF” (simple, practical, inexpensive and fast) and told me to start a business with it. Now I am an intuitive consultant using these principles in readings with people who have questions about their lives. In these readings I see their stumbling blocks and I redirect them to their “higher self.” I hear the divine voice within giving the instructions, and am only the messenger for these insights. My web site is http://www.ispif.com.

I am also an artist. I had a business as a sculptor for many years. Art has always been part of my background and has always fed my soul. Art lets me express myself through tangible forms from the divinity within.

After my first Sufi dance (in February) I had a dream where Gurumayi was Sufi dancing. She told me; “to be able to find the inner guru, one must live naturally.” I then had a beautiful dream of Hazrat Inayat Khan initiating me. He was holding me in the form of a cross and we were whirling so fast, we became one. He also told me he would talk with me every day, which has come in the form of the daily quotes from the “Bowl of Saki.” This confused me since I knew I had already been initiated Swami Muktananda. So I asked for another dream to clarify this confusion. In this next dream Baba told me he and Inayat Khan were the same, and if I thought differently, I would remain separated from the divine love.

I want to thank the Sufi community for a warm, safe and inviting place for this transition. There is no path more natural than that of the Sufis. Now, because of this new love of the Sufis, the part of my heart that was closed when my Baba died has reopened, and I am again dancing in divine ecstasy. The love is in the formless and the form; my two worlds are finally coming back.  

Bowl of Saki -To receive a daily quote from Hazrat Inayat Khan's Bowl of Saki plus commentary click here http://wahiduddin,net/saki/sub.htm