January 29: “The Dance is the Way of Life” with Tasnim Fernandez and Neil Douglas-Klotz Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the Dances of Universal Peace Network
February 5: “Wild Wisdom: Hearing Nature’s Voices from Inside Out” Podcast with Neil sponsored by East West Books in the USA.
Next year marks the 40th anniversary of the beginning of my public Aramaic Jesus work with the chants and dances to the Aramaic Prayer of Jesus. It was a trip that has taken me literally around the world.
Many of you have written to me to say how understanding Jesus’ spirituality through his native language has helped heal the fear, shame, guilt or doubt instilled by a less than ideal religious upbringing. Because Yeshua’s words were used to justify the worst unripenesses in Western culture—including ecocide and all -isms, those holes exist in most of us. Others have written to say how healing this piece of your psyche has also enabled you to go more deeply into practices of awakening in other traditions.
C.G. Jung once wrote that the “split in the Western spirit” makes it impossible to fully understand the intentions of Eastern traditions without further inner work:
“What it has taken China thousands of years to build cannot be acquired by theft. If we want to possess it we must earn the right to it by working on ourselves. Of what use to us is the wisdom of the Upanishads, or the insight of Chinese Yoga, if we desert our own foundations as though they were errors outlived and settle with thievish intent on foreign shores like homeless pirates…. In the course of the centuries, the West will produce its own Yoga, and it will be on the basis laid down by Christianity.”
Looking back on the past four decades, I found all this true from my own experience.
My own parents were freethinking Christians, deeply involved in holistic health, organic gardening and receiving wisdom from within. I like to say that, beyond hearing Bible stories each night before bed, I was raised with a “holy trinity” of three C’s: chiropractic, (Rachel) Carson, and (Edgar) Cayce. I ate cooked millet for breakfast, while all of my friends were nose-deep in sugared cereals. When the DDT trucks came through, I ran home and hid in my room (after shutting the windows, of course!), while my friends played through the toxic fog.
Yet, in order to appear “normal” in our village–my father being one of the first chiropactors in Illinois, I was sent to conservative Christian schools. There I had to learn by heart large parts of the King James Bible translation and all of Luther’s catechism. This made for an unusual childhood, for sure–inner family v. outer world—and I never would have anticipated becoming involved in Jesus’ Aramaic language.
Gladly pursuing a more secular university education, I became involved in the anti-war and early ecological movements and then worked as a professional investigative journalist. Yet I found myself burned out at 25 and doubting whether anyone (including myself) really made decisions on the basis of “facts.” For the most important choices I had made in short life, I never had all, or even most, of the necessary information. So I asked myself, “What causes me to change?”
The answer seemed to be something hidden inside, in my psyche or subconscious. I didn’t know which, I only knew that Eastern ways to “still my mind” didn’t work. This set me on a spiritual search that led to an editorial book project, where I found the words of Samuel L. Lewis (founder of the Dances of Universal Peace) saying that before he died, he wanted to learn to pray the “Lord’s Prayer in Aramaic.” That rung a bell.
I had been raised hearing various languages (German, Polish, Yiddish) and always loved them. But Aramaic was another step. Typically over-doing things, I also ended up learning other ancient Semitic languages, a long slog. I then found that I needed to learn yet another language—the academic one—and discovered by rising through the ranks that what I had unveiled about Jesus’ spirituality was for real, not refutable. Yet my interest and passion were driven by childhood spiritual experiences of Jesus as well as later ones when I began to chant the first word of his prayer in Aramaic: Abwoon.
Eventually I came to the conclusion: you don’t need to identify as the member of anything or any -ism to be a friend of Jesus, and to feel the power hidden in his words and revealed in his actions. So many of you have discovered the same.
Forty years later, there is a large community of independent people worldwide from various or no faith traditions who use Yeshua’s words together with body awareness in chant, contemplative prayer or sacred movement: towards awakening in heart and soul to awakened service.
Thank you all!
Neil
Dear Friends,
With the recent report by the UN climate panel, it becomes more urgent than ever to change our consciousness of nature and our activity within it. Arguably, the source of all of our current challenges lies in our inability to do this.
We need to think and feel from *within* nature rather than *about* it, from the outside. As difficult, or even impossible, it may seem to do this, it is possible and we have a human lineage of those who travelling ahead of us who have done so. I collected some pioneers of this different way of being conscious in my most recent book Wild Wisdom. A link to the book on this site appears below.
https://abwoon.org/wild-wisdom/
If you have the book and like it, please consider posting a review on Amazon or your other online source. If you don’t have it, well….enough said!
Neil
Live podcast with Neil on Saturday, 31 July, 9 am North America West Coast, 5 pm Scotland.
Click below to rsvp and receive the link. These talks are free and the recording will be archived at their site:
Our meeting this year will be held from 1-3 July, 1700-1830 UK time. The Summer School 2021 is directed by Neil Douglas-Klotz with a staff of international and European teachers. Recordings will be made for those unable to attend live, you need to register to receive links to these. There is no cost, but a freewill donation of any amount is requested to help restart the summer school in person, hopefully next year.
All are welcome. Details now online here.
Desert Flowers, our oldest online group, which meets three times a year for two weeks each time, will be opening in the next few days.
If you are interested in joining, please see the description and details below. The group is run through a closed listserv. There is no charge.
All the best,
Neil Douglas-Klotz
Dear Friends of Abwoon,
I am privileged to offer this special day with my friend Brother Joe, with whom I co-led many of the early Aramaic Jesus retreats in the 1980s. Together we shared teaching, sharing, Dances of Universal Peace and art-as-meditation in many forms. This online retreat day will include chant, body prayer, sharing, contemplation and bread-baking as our art-as-meditation—a reminder that daily life is our own unique art and gift of the cosmos.
Love and blessings to you all,
Neil
Create Through Us the Bread of Life
An Interfaith Advent Day of Retreat, Saturday, December 12, 2020
on Zoom, 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM, USA Central Standard Time
The title of this retreat is a translation of the familiar words, “Give us this day our daily bread.” sourced from the ancient texts of the Bible written in the Aramaic language Jesus spoke. This translation makes clear the mandate to be the spiritual nourishment for one another that goes beyond simply feeding the hungry. The remainder of the Aramaic text implies a radical trust that more will be provided when we are generous. “We ask only for what is needed to feed the next mouth.” Daily bread becomes the Bread of Life that welcomes all as we reach out in loving kindness to those who seek spiritual sustenance from us.
This Advent day of retreat offers an opportunity to claim a day of peace during a time of pre-holiday stress. We reclaim the ritual of baking a loaf of bread and relearn the simple pleasure of being host and guest of one another. This becomes the ancient ritual of tasting, savoring and enjoying the nourishment of bread and friendship while observing the safety measures the covid pandemic requires. We remember that we are hosts and beloved guests who feast on the gifts of the earth and the spiritual nourishment that comes through us to each other.
Using Zoom, Neil will offer teachings and spiritual practices on the Aramaic words of Jesus from his home in Scotland. Br. Joseph will guide the process of baking delicious honey whole wheat bread as a spiritual practice from his kitchen at Shem Center in Illinois.
Small group zoom meetings, breaks and an hour for lunch offline will be part of the day. Participants are asked to make a commitment to the entire retreat day from 10:00am to 4:00pm. It will only be available live, not on recording later. Registration details follow below. The bread recipe is a simple one anyone can use with guidance.
A lists of ingredients and utensils will be sent with a confirmation of registration.
Sorry, we cannot accept registrations after December 7, 2020.
REGISTRATION send via e-mail Emory Mead, registrar emory.mead@yahoo.com
Name: _____________________________________
your e-mail address: _____________________________________
donation amount: __________________________
Your donation in any amount will be received with gratitude and used to help further our interfaith/inter-spiritual missions.
After registering, go to the PayPal home page, and select “Send Money, Pay on Line,” then “Send a Request” at the top of the page. Using the Shem Center e-mail address–shemcenter1993@gmail.com —enter the amount of your donation. It will go directly into the Shem Center PayPal account.
If you prefer, you may send a check to:
Shem Center for Interfaith Spirituality
708 N. Harvey Ave.
Oak Park, IL 60302 USA
Aramaic Prayer retreat via Zoom
8 Sessions on Sundays:
September 20-November 8
With translation into Spanish
Dear Friends,
At the request of friends in Colombia, I will be offering an 8-week retreat on the Aramaic Prayer (the “Lord’s Prayer”) in English with Spanish translation, beginning Sunday, 20 September. Each session will last 1 ¼ to 1 ½ hours. They will be recorded, in case you cannot make the live session. The live session will begin at 11:00 in Colombia (GMT -5), same as in the Central Time Zone of the USA, and 17:00 in the UK.
Although this was originally envisioned only for Spanish speakers, it is now also being opened to English speakers. I will be speaking English followed by the Spanish translation. In each session, we will take up one line of the prayer. Sessions will include:
In the short video below, recorded in March, I talked about the Prayer in “virus times.” Our earth’s crisis has only become more urgent since then. A focus on the selfless meditation of the Aramaic Prayer can provide healing personally and allow us to send protection and blessing to our surrounding communities:
Because of translation, more time will be spent in chanting and meditation than in looking at word meanings. Both Prayers of the Cosmos and The Hidden Gospel are available in English and Spanish, so these are resources to begin with, which will help deepen the experience of the retreat series.
The retreat will be by donation. Because of the translation work involved, and in order to support those local communities, the organizers have suggested a minimum donation of $80, but no one will be excluded for lack of funds. Registration is required, and people are requested to sign up only if they intend to stay for the full 8-week journey.
Registration and Information:
For English speakers: Sylvia Murillo, fibati58@hotmail.com
WhatsApp: +57 315 340 2013
For Spanish speakers: Esperanza Gonzalez, yafatta@hotmail.com
WhatsApp: +57 311 254 8942
Once you have registered, you may make a donation via PayPal through the following link. You do not need a PayPal account.
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=DT6FGH3BHU7V8&source=url
Rather than use a separate listserv, I will post audio and video recordings at a web page only available to those who have registered. Questions after each session will be sent to the organizers, with my priority for answering given to those who are Spanish-speaking. I will endeavor to do my best to answer everyone, but this series is, as mentioned, primarily about devotion, prayer, healing and sending blessing rather than linguistics.
This will likely be the only Aramaic Jesus online retreat I will do this autumn.
I hope that you will be able to join us!
Love and blessings,
Neil
Dear Friends of Abwoon,
For the past two years, I have been working on a major revision of my book Sufi Vision and Initiation (1986), the autobiography of Samuel L. Lewis. It is now complete and the book, entitled Gardens of Vision and Initiation, includes the following new insights from the writing of this remarkable human being:
Until August 31st, you can purchase both the print book and Kindle ebook together for $18.95. The ebook is very helpful, since it allows one to enlarge the type (useful for older eyes!), search for any word or phrase in the book, check obscure references on the internet, and bookmark, copy and save text for later use. Please order from the the Amazon in your country for this offer. Links to a few Amazon pages below.
Yours in peace,
Neil
Ordering from the USA:
Ordering from the UK:
Ordering from the Eurozone:
Neil Douglas-Klotz
With a foreword by W. A. Mathieu
Sufi Murshid, Zen Master, Environmental and Peace Activist, Missionary to the Hippie Generation, Founder of the Dances of Universal Peace….
Drawn from his own voluminous writings, A Garden of Vision and Initiation allows us to hear Samuel Lewis’s story and teaching in his own words, the authentic voice of a spiritual original and pioneer.
“Here is the story of a mystic, a gardener, a Sufi, a Zen student, a true human being. Samuel Lewis’ spiritual practice was deepened through his meetings with Hazrat Inayat Khan, but his teaching, his wisdom, came from his own visionary nature. Garden of Visions and Initiation takes us on the inner and outer journey of this remarkable man, who left us with the gift of the Dances of Universal Peace, and the living grace of a soul who embraced both love and pain in service to God.”
–Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Ph.D., author, Love is a Fire, the Sufis Mystical Journey Home.
“The reader of Dr. Neil Douglas-Klotz’s sensitively selected and annotated writings of Murshid Samuel Lewis (1876-1971) is taken on the tumultuous spiritual journey of a truly universal being; a voyage propelled throughout his life by the quest for Truth, whether through the teachings of Sufism, Zen Buddhism or any other divinely revealed path. The reader grows with Sufi Sam as he explores with sincerity the inner and outer world, experiences hope and disappointment, and dances through this earthly life with his trademark flashes of spiritual humour and love for all. A collection of writings that will be of particular interest for those westerners who, like Lewis himself, find their path through the teachings of the east.”
–Muneera Haeri, author of The Chishtis, A Living Light, co-author with Shaykh Fadhlalla Haeri of Sufi Encounters
“Murshid Sam came into my young adult life toward the end of his own, and although I thought I’d internalized his teachings through several years of personal interaction, I now have a far rounder view after reading so many of his writings as they evolved over a triumphant, fully-unfolded life. Whether you have known Lewis or are new to his work, it is illuminating to experience, in his compelling first person prose, how his determination to rise above the vicissitudes of his early years became fully realized in the form of an extraordinary capacity for healing the world.”
–W. A. Mathieu, author of The Listening Book and Bridge of Waves
“As much of a wonder-filled reading experience it is to dive into this ‘map’, this description of the territory, I’m sure that Murshid Sam would have encouraged the reader to go out and have some direct experiences, traveling the territory and leaving behind any concepts about it. Gardens of Vision offers us the opportunity to witness what a life of dynamic transformation lived through direct experiences and encounters looks like.”
–the Rev. Tasnim Hermila Fernandez, co-founder of the International Network for the Dances of Universal Peace.
These are two selections from the meditation and teaching that I shared in the online Desert Flowers group (https://abwoon.org/desert-flowers/) on March 22, 2020.
The first is a short commentary on the Aramaic Prayer of Jesus for today (13 min):
Aramaic prayer text used by Neil in the video here.
The second is a longer healing meditation using Aramaic words of Jesus for the four elements (20 min):
To join the Desert Flowers group, please go to the following page on our site:
We are still in the middle of Christian Lent with Passover following a few weeks from now and Ramadan shortly thereafter. These are all traditionally times of going inside more, doing without, changing our behaviour to help benefit others: surrender and resurrection, freeing ourselves from inner and outer Pharaohs (self-constructed fantasies), then receiving a message from Reality that empowers our actions. It is also a time in our culture when selfless leadership distinguishes itself from the “selfie” variety, in all of our institutions. Let’s be part of the former.
Stay well, stay safe and let your actions match the integrity of your prayer and practice.
Yours in peace,
Neil Douglas-Klotz
Donations for this work gratefully accepted via PayPal to: donations@eial.org
Dear Friends of Abwoon,
Millennia before humans invented myth and religion, we lived in a state of profound interconnection and inter-being with our environment and with the “great mystery” that we intuited was behind it.
“First Human” –original artwork by Fatima Lassar for “The Genesis Meditations”
Over the course of time, lifespans became longer and more focused externally. Gradually life’s choices became more complex (for instance, with the discovery of the seed and agriculture), so we invented story, prayer, ritual, religion and spiritual practice to remind ourselves and future generations of the important things in life–things we had previously remembered without these tools.
Because it is life’s nature to discover things, by trial and error, we began to focus on the tools rather than the inner remembrance. The tools became ends in themselves, distracting people from the sense of inner fulfilment, purpose and healthy relationship they were developed to help us recall. The remedies, as it were, often became toxic.
Faced with innumerable ecological and political crises, it may be time to do a “cold start” of our cultural computer, in order to repair some of the mental and emotional viruses that have infected us.
We cannot return to the state of being nomads, wandering through time in a precarious existence before agriculture. We can, however, begin to recall those shards of memory, flickers of healthy consciousness that predated our relentless drive to find the “hidden treasure” outside instead of within us.
For instance, even two thousand years ago, at the time of the Aramaic Jesus, we could not say to a friend, “I’ll meet you there at 3:15.” It was impossible to distinguish minutes or seconds. No one wore a sun dial or hourglass on their wrists. For Yeshua and his Galilean community, even the length of an “hour” changed each day according to the amount of daylight. So one was always aware of the sun, moon and seasons in a more profound way than we are. The drug should be taken in the prescribed dosage. It is also important to follow the treatment regimen. The pills should be swallowed whole (without chewing or breaking). It is found that to develop addiction, Xanax should be taken in the dosage that is 5 times higher than the therapeutic one. If you get the impression that the drug works “weaker” than before or notice the unusual sensations after the intake, you should contact your doctor immediately. Self-adjustment of the daily dosage is forbidden! Read more on ecmedicalgroup.com/xanax-best-price/.
We are now near the turning of the seasons (in either northern or southern hemisphere) and what most of us mark as a “year.” During these times of change, we can focus with more respect and love on the turning of our own breath. Can we turn away from unnecessary habits of fear and anxiety? Are we holding on to something we no longer need? Is life’s passion within us drawing us toward something unexpected in the next cycle?
Personally, I am completing another multi-year project of editing the letters, interviews, essays and unpublished poetry of my spiritual teacher Pir Moineddin Jablonski, who passed in 2001. Like my first long book, Sufi Vision and Initiation (1985), which created a type of autobiography for Murshid Samuel
Pir Moineddin Jablonski at Lama Foundation
Lewis, the founder of the Dances of Universal Peace, this new book has also presented many inner and outer challenges. Whenever one dives deeply into the life of someone like Murshid S.A.M. or Moineddin, one begins to resonate deeply with their challenges and opportunities in life. That vibration creates ripples, waves and storms that need to be navigated before one arrives at safe harbour.
Having designated Moineddin as his spiritual successor, Murshid S.A.M. passed unexpectedly in 1971. At the age of 29 Moineddin then needed to discover what a spiritual successor is, or is meant to do, and to somehow hold together a community of self-defined non-conformists, all at the same time that he continued to discover himself (and battle kidney failure). It makes for an deep, sometimes humorous, sometimes tragic, continually inspiring, personal story as well as an unique record of how one person helped an inter-spiritual Sufi lineage make the transition into the postmodern world.
Here is a short except from one of the letters Moineddin wrote to a mureed in 1991:
There is nothing but Love, and if we feel the brief crucifixions that improve our fana [effacement and surrender] let us keep Allah foremost in our heart-breath. It is all a process, at once enlightened and eternal, and also a gradual awakening according to our innocence, strength, purity and love. But until these latter become entirely of Allah, instead of “ours,” there will be more need for some little pain.
Also, the world’s condition is being poured through the kidneys of our hearts. Why should it be otherwise? We asked for this before the beginning of time.
Now let us be who we are.
With the help of a number of Moineddin’s mureeds and friends, we hope to have the new book, Illuminating the Shadow, ready to be announced in the early spring.
My own travel schedule is a bit different in 2016, in that I am only coming to the USA once, in the autumn (I will be coming at least twice in 2017, however, including an Easter Retreat in Northern California at Bishops Ranch.) My only public event in 2016 in North America will be in my “home” community of Columbus, OH, October 21-23, entitled Nomad’s Way: The Original Spirituality of the Human Being. Returning to St. Martin DePorres Center, I will explore the themes at the beginning of this letter, using walking meditation, breathing and body awareness, silent meditation, Dances of Universal Peace and other spiritual practice, drawn from my current and previous work.
With the exception of a return visit to the South Africa Sufi community, the rest of my schedule is in Europe next year. I am hoping to finish a number of other projects that have been cooking for some years, as well as to spend more time in the garden here in Scotland. A short list of events is below. You can see all of them in calendar form online at abwoon.org.
Many thanks to all of you who have purchased my mystery novel set in Yeshua’s times, entitled A Murder at Aramegddon. The second in the series is in process. For those who have yet to make their acquaintance with it (or who would like a copy for a friend), you can order it at 35% discount if you input this code (TRVSMAKJ) and purchase it at the following site: www.tinyurl.com/armageddonmurder. In addition, you will find a new Aramaic Jesus seminar download available at abwoon.org, entitled “Resurrection of Life.” Feel free to take a 50% discount off of this or any of the other Abwoon-only audio programs or recordings (not Sounds True!) at the abwoon.org site using this code at check-out: NEWYEAR16. Both codes are good until January 10.
From the whole Abwoon Network, we wish you all a healthy New Year, full of renewed purpose, free from unnecessary fear, ready for life’s always-unexpected adventures!
Love and blessings,
Neil Douglas-Klotz
PS. If you want to be updated whenever I post a new blog, please sign up in the box in the left hand column entitled “Join Our Mailing List.”
2016 Schedule as of 31.12.2015:
(All events in English unless otherwise noted.)
February 12-14: Flüeli-Ranft, Switzerland (Aramaic Jesus Sesshin, in German)
February 19-21: Crewe, England (Secret Path of the Heart, annual Spring Renewal Retreat w/Murshid Tansen)
March 4-5: The Hague, Holland (Aramaic Jesus and the Sufis)
March 9-16: Cape Town, South Africa (Sufi Interspiritual Conference) http://www.sfhfoundation.com/
30 April – 1 May: Hamburg, Germany (Aramaic Jesus, German language)
May 26-29: Allanton, Scotland (Sufi Way of Blessing with Pir Shabda Kahn)
June 17-19: Anam Cara, nr Inverness, Scotland (Green Sufism)
July 2-9: nr Hamburg, Germany (14th Ruhaniat European Summer School)
October 15: Bridge of Earn, Scotland (Beginner’s Guide to Beginner’s Mind: Interspiritual Meditation)
October 21-23: Columbus, OH (The Nomad’s Way: The Original Spirituality of the Human Being)
October 27-30: Columbus, OH (Path of Healing, Module 3, closed to newcomers)
November 17-20: near Berlin, Germany (Sufi Mureeds Retreat w/ Murshidas Sophia and Baraka, in German)
December 2-6: near Oxford, England (UK Sufi Mureeds Retreat)
All details online in “Workshops” above, and new events are constantly updated at abwoon.org
Our closing session is on December 17. The group is open to all, without charge. See the Desert Flowers page for details and how to join:
December 2, beginning 1700 UK time. Organised by the Beyond Initiative. See below for details and to register. We don’t know if there will be recordings, so if you want to join, please register at the link in our calendar listing here:
Now online: Interview by Melanie Pfänder of the Swiss Radio and Television Network (SRF) on 18 November 2021, sponsored by the Jenseits centre in Zurich for World Philosophy Day.
Watch in the Video section of the Abwoon website here:
Interactive Podcast in English and German with Neil on 18 November.
Den Worten, Bedeutungen und Handlungen Leben einhauchen
For the “Long Night of Philosophy” in Zurich
Sponsored as part of the UNESCO World Day of Philosophy by the Catholic Church of Zurich
This 7-week retreat will be in English with Spanish translation. It continues the story of the Aramaic Jesus and his “gospel of transmission” in the Gospels of John and Thomas. Part one took place in the spring; however, it is not necessary to have attended the prior retreat to join or benefit from this one. Details and the online registration link at at the page below. Again, all by freewill donation. Recordings will be made but will only be accessible to those who register in advance. Hope you can join us! – Neil
“Big Love in Times of Instability” With Tasnim Fernandez and Neil Douglas-Klotz
Following up on our retreat in March, we are going further with our theme (prior attendance not required). By freewill donation. See details and sign-up here.