February 24, 2008 

"The capacity of the mind is broad and huge, like the vast sky.
Do not sit with a mind fixed on emptiness.
If you do, you will fall into a neutral kind of emptiness.
Emptiness includes the sun, moon, stars, and planets, the great earth,
mountains and rivers, all trees and grasses, bad men and good men,
bad things and good things, heaven and hell.
They are all in the midst of emptiness."

— His Holiness Hui-neng (638-713)

Hui-neng as an illiterate peasant boy, experienced awakening while delivering firewood to an inn when he overheard a
reading of the Diamond Sutra by a guest. He later became the 6th Patriarch of Ch'an Buddhism (Japanese Zen), advocated
the direct approach to practice and enlightenment, and is considered the founder of the "Sudden Enlightenment"
school of Buddhism.

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.

Dedication of This Month's HeartStream Pulse
We dedicate the HeartStream Pulse this month to Mysticism.
In this season, we honor the sowing and tending of new seeds for a future that we will co-create with the beloved within and without, for ourselves, our loved one's, and our community. We also honor Visioning as it is practiced in all the world's cultures, philosophies and faiths.

This month's HeartStream Pulse may have events not yet posted on the current HeartStream Local Events Calendar.

Mariam Baker to Teach the Great Whirling Dance
Monthly Series Starts Saturday March 8th, 2-4 pm at the Garden

The secret turning in us makes the universe turn. Head unaware of feet, and feet head.
Neither cares. They keep turning. - Rumi

Turn, Turn, Turn ... Turn Toward the Beloved

As she promised, Mariam Baker will be coming to the Garden Sanctuary to teach the Mevlana Turn - the Whirling Dance of the Dervishes and topics of Sufi Mystic Philosophy in a monthly class beginning Saturday March 8th from 2 to 4 pm.

This journey into dance and mystic union has been excitedly anticipated as it will include instruction and practice in the 'Turn' which Mevlana Jelalludin Rumi brought to the world to celebrate ecstatic union with the beloved in dance. This wonderful series will also include many important topics of Sufi philosphy and wisdom in an atmosphere of love, ecstasy and union with the beloved.

The Sema is derived from Rumi's habit of occasionally whirling in ecstatic joy in the streets of Konya, capital of the Seljuk Turkish Sultanate of Rum, and his home for the greater part of his life. It is a familiar aspect of modern Sufism - sometimes called 'Islamic mysticism' after the influence of Rumi.

The whirling dervish reaches a state of mystical ecstasy after long whirling. During the Sema whirling dance of the dervishes, the dancer holds up the right hand to catch the energy of the devine goodness of existence, while the left hand stays low to release back to the earth everything corrupt that flows into them in the course of their life.

Come and join us for this exciting monthly series with Mariam Baker at the Garden.

Mariam Baker - Biographical Portrait
World traveler, student, mother of five children, Mariam Baker is a treasure hunter for tools of personal and planetary growth and healing. Her work is imbued with passion and devotion. She serves as a specialist in women's and religious studies, and embodied spirituality, presenting lectures & workshops thorough the United States, Canada, Russia, Europe and Australia.

She functions as Atesh Baz - senior teacher in the Mevlevi Order of the whirling dervishes of Turkey, and is a senior teacher and center leader for the Mevlevi Order of America, facilitating classes internationally in the great whirling dance, the practice of turn and other meditative practices in the tradition of Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi.

Initiated into the Inayati Chistia lineage of Sufism of Hazrat Inayat Khan and Murshid Samuel Lewis, Mariam was a student and friend of the late Moineddin Jablonski.

Click here for directions to the Garden Sanctuary in Santa Cruz. For more information contact Tofah at (831) 479-9278 or Adora (831) 566-9678.

Sunday Night Dances at the Palomar Ballroom
Sunday Night Dances of Universal Peace

Join the caravan of love traveling to the Palomar to sweep out the chambers of our heart and to remember the beloved in dance, song and prayer!

Come meet with your Sufi community beloveds on Sunday Evenings at 7 to 9 pm at the Palomar Ballroom for Dances of Universal Peace. We are making our vision of an expanding Dance circle a reality.

		We have now met several times at the Palomar dancing with over 50 of our Sufi beloveds. There is plenty of room to move and turn freely with two full circles of dancers. Nancy, Tofah, Hafiza Vanessa, and Leela Lisa have co-led the Dances. The Palomar dates back to the 1930's, and is located at 1344 Pacific Ave. in Santa Cruz on the 2nd floor (Mezzanine) above El Palomar Restaurant. You can enter the building from the parking area on Front St. or from Pacific Ave. Once inside the Palomar Inn, take the stairs or the elevator to the second floor. The ballroom will be on your left (down a couple of steps and through the doors). For more info, click here. For map and directions, click here.

In the Mezzanine area you can meet and chat before and after the dances. Nearby there are coffee and tea shops, ice cream parlors, cookie stores and bookstores. You can even go to dinner and then dance.

For easy local parking, see http://www.ci.santa-cruz.ca.us/pw/trafeng/parking/1.html. Next to the Palomar is the garage at the corner of Soquel and Front St. ($1.50 for 3 hrs). Directions from the garage to the ballroom are at http://www.palomarballroom.com/ballroom.php. Also, there is a free garage a block away (#10 on the map) between River St. and Front St. next to the Galleria Office Complex. On Sundays, all levels of the garage are free and open 24 hours a day.

Our next class in the series Deepening in Presence and Love will be Saturday, February 23rd, from 1 to 3-ishq pm, near Happy Valley Rd.

This relaxed gathering is open to mureeds from all the lineages of Pir-o-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan, with permission of your guide. We work with the written transmission of H.I.K. and Murshid S.A.M. and Sufi practices emphasizing embodied spirituality. These may include the breath, wazifa, Dances and Walks of Universal Peace, zikr, meditation and sohbet (spiritual conversation).

Please contact Jilani at 476-8620 or jilani@esterly.com for more information, specifics on papers to read, and to let me know you're coming.

HeartStream Women - You are invited to join with your Sufi Women's Community in a Play Day Celebration each month.

Here are some pix of the henna body art created by Anita at our Sufi Sisters 'Henna' play date in January.

You're invited to come and join your Sufi Sisters' Play Day when we go for a sojourn to the Sea Shore to see the Sea Lions at spectacular Point Lobos near Monterey.

The date and other information will be emailed out on Wayne's 'Sufi Community Events Calendar'. To be added to Wayne's email list, send an email to events@sufievents, and include your name and email address. Wayne's email list is private and never sold to or used by another organization.

You can email me, Adora, at adoradeva@got.net or call 566-9678 for more information or with your Play Day ideas.

Sufi Heritage: Fulfill the Divine Purpose of Creation This Spring
By Nina Amir

As creation begins anew in spring, we are reminded of the creation process and of the One who originally brought forth creation and who continues to co-create with us. Spring also reminds us of the great abundance in the world, which we sometimes forget exists. We forget, because we don’t always experience it ourselves.

A huge amount of Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition, concerns itself with the structure and methodology of creation and manifestation, and many Kabbalists stressed the practical applications of this wisdom.

According to some of the greatest Kabbalists, or Jewish mystics, however, Kabbalah's true purpose revolves around drawing close to and serving the One rather than attempting to use the teachings for material gain. Yet, we can learn to consciously create what we need and desire using a Kabbalistic technology while also drawing close to and serving the One. In the process, we actually fulfill the Divine purpose of creation.

You see, before creation of the universe as we know it, only the One existed. Called Ein Sof (Without End) by the Kabbalists, the One felt a desire to give. Thus, Ein Sof created a container to receive all of the Divine goodness that would become available via the act of creation: the physical world and all that exists in it including human beings. This explains why we human beings possess an inherent and complimentary desire to that of the Divine – a desire to receive.

Despite the fact that the Divine flow of goodness remains constantly available to us, many of us don’t find ourselves able to access it. In other words, we don’t always receive what we want or need, let alone what we dream of having. We may be built as containers for Divine goodness and plenty but our containers often remain empty. Something blocks us from receiving...

Click here to read or print the full text of "Fulfill the Divine Purpose..." by Nina Amir (pdf).
_________

Nina Amir, journalist, author, speaker, teacher, and Kabbalistic conscious creation coach, is the author of The Kabbalah of Conscious Creation, 4 Mystical Steps to Manifesting Your Dreams and Desires. She will be teaching a class based on the principles in this article at The Garden on Saturday, March 15 from 7-8:30 pm and a workshop on Sunday, March 16 from 11 am - 5 pm. Saturday evening class: $10; Sunday workshop: $60.

Register in advance for the Saturday class and Sunday workshop together. The Friday class is free. (only $60 for both class and workshop.) Early-bird: Sign up for both class and workshop by March 5th and pay only $50. (Taking both the class and workshop is recommended, since the class provides vital information used during the workshop.) This class is appropriate for anyone from any religious background or spiritual path.

For more information or to register, e-mail Nina at or call (408) 353-1943. For more information on Nina or her work, visit www.purespiritcreations.com.

Faces of the Beloved: Yeshua: The Unknown Jesus
By Dr. Lewis Keizer

The Master Yeshua taught and initiated disciples in a context of Jewish mysticism that was never transmitted to gentile church Christianity. Only recently have scholars been able to reconstruct the powerful Kabbalistic traditions that reveal the inner-circle teachings and practices of the Master. They have little in common with modern Jewish or Christian religion, but share a great deal with the shamanic and initiatic mysteries of Egypt, Greece, Persia, and India.

Yeshua’s Teacher was Mother God, known to him as the Ruach Ha-Qodesh and to others of the Palestinian Wisdom Schools as Hochmah, Shekinah, or the Kabbalistic Mrs. God herself—Matronit. The Master made the interior ascent to the Throne or Merkabah of God and initiated others into it, including his greatest woman disciple Miriam of Magdala. The New Testament misunderstands his initiation of James, Peter, and John into Merkabah mysticism as the so-called Transfiguration.

Mar Yeshua was a Baal Shem Tov who knew the priestly secret of effectively intoning the Name of God as a series of harmonic mantras. When he celebrated the Messianic Shabbat Banquet with his disciples and intoned psalms, they were not those found in the Christian Bible. They were contemporary Messianic psalms like the mystic Odes of Solomon, which celebrated the marriage of Heaven and Earth in the coming New Humanity (Bar Enash, “Son of God”) and called upon Godhead as Father-Mother:

The Holy Spirit opened Her bosom, and mixed the milk of the two breasts of the Father. Then She gave the mixture to the generation without their knowing, and those who have received it are in the perfection of the right hand.

The Master taught the dynamics of chakra attunement through the Hebrew understanding of the sevenfold dual yetzerim or spiritual impulses, plus a mystic eighth, engraved into the soul at its creation. Those disciples who strive to become shalem or spiritually perfected must make the dual impulses into one—a single eye, a single heart, and single mind. By doing so, they become pure in heart to see God and to live in the Divine Malkuth or Sovereignty. This was not a “Kingdom,” as misunderstood in Christianity, but a state of existing in the New World of the New Humanity: When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter the Malkuth.

I will present an Easter Yeshua Seminar and Retreat at the Land of Medicine Buddha in Soquel March 21-23. For details and registration go to www.hometemple.org and scroll down. In addition to spiritual study in multimedia PowerPoint format with discussion, there will be a Full-Moon Solstice Meditation and Vigil, Messianic Shabbat Meal, Spirit Walk, Sunday Divine Communion, Sacred Dance, and Love Feast.

Best preparation for the event is my new novel Yeshua: The Unknown Jesus, which can be accessed by clicking here. Dr. Lewis Keizer, was on the former Faculty of Religious Studies, U.C.S.C.

Click here to print the full text of Yeshua: The Unknown Jesus, by Dr. Lewis Keizer (pdf).

Sharing Baraca - The Talking Stick
Do you have something to share? We want to hear what inspires you, fills your heart, and makes you go Ahhhhhla. Please submit your article or story or ideas for an upcoming issue to Tofah Eileen.

SUFI EVENTS