Seeking Recognition

Carl Jablonski (Moineddin) and friend John Connor at the Quanset Huts in Iowa City where graduate students like Otis (Mansur) Johnson and wife Niki (Taj Inayat) Carolyn Buckmaster were living in 1966.

  This offering from Letters from Moineddin consists of a copy of a letter to W.D. Begg (March 9, 1978) seeking "to gain 'official' recognition from the Pirs of Ajmer that the Ruhaniat is a bona fide branch of the Chishti work." Mr. Begg had authored a biography of Moineddin Chishti; hence, Moineddin assumed he might help S.I.R.S. obtain "recognition." First, there is Moineddin's letter to Mansur the day after March 10, 1978. Then, a copy of Moineddin's letter to Begg.
 

Garden of Inayat

910 Railroad Ave.

Novato Calif. 94947

March 10, 1978

Dear Mansur,

Peace and blessings of baraka be with you!

Many thanks for your letter of Saint Valentine’s Day, including your enclosure to Zardusht and the news clipping of the recent tidal wave. Heard you attended the OTEC Conference in Miami with Shamcher and Sabira recently. Today, inshallah, Shamcher embarks for Egypt to continue his line of concentration. I believe the satisfaction of God and man will rise appreciably should Shamcher’s career culminate in success—as it is no doubt bound to do, God-willing. The hope is that he may live to see the success of his efforts. To me, such success would be tantamount to Murshid’s wish to see two or three of his disciples reach spiritual illumination (as per Sunseed), though the spheres may be unique in each case.

As to the tassawuri Mohammed letter, one hesitates to even mention one’s practices as such normally. Maybe I think that such mention will put people off, and indeed it probably would put some people off. But then I remember that you are my friend and that I have no reason to fear anything. I am grateful for your interpretation that one’s “reliance on practices as preparation…to pain the highest possible operational consciousness” was stated so clearly, because that is actually why one does the practices.

But, like Murshid story of how when he said to his Estern hosts, “I ain’t a saint” resulted in his hosts advertising him as “Ai-aint, a saint, will speak at such and such a time and place”—one must cop to not being operationally high much of the time. In fact, one of my current main concentrations is to put a little more meat on these bones, so I am doing a lot of exra eating which tends to place the centration of blood in the abdomen and one forgets the smiling forehead for the time being.

Thank God, after an overlong bout with bronchitis plus a bladder infestion for which I had minor surgery recently, my health slowly but surely returns. The fluctuations of my physical body are so severe at times that the mind cannot withstand the strain; it is like those movies where you see a battering ram being used against the castle door. Or, in another sense I could characterize these fluctuations as “the mountains are high, and the valleys are very wide and deep.”

Enclosed with this letter is a xerox written yesterday to W.D. Begg. The purpose of the letter to Begg is a further attempt to gain “official” recognigion from the Pirs of Ajmer that the Ruhaniat is a bona fide branch of the Chishti work. As I wrote to Shahabuddin, if Mr. Begg and his colleagues can recognize Pir Vilayat’s work on the one hand, and Robert Thompson’s work as head of the “Chishti Mission” in Tucson on the other hand—surely the work of the Ruhaniat must strike a balance somewhere in between, inshallah.

As you can see from the stationery being used, we are working at the Garden of Inayat office this morning. I told Hassan before he left for work that henceforth I would refer to this domicile as “Hassan’s Khankah” because the impression kept occurring as if Murshid were speaking to my heart from within. When the next Bismillah comes out sometime in April, you can read about our confirmation of Hassan and others as Sheikhs; there will also be snapshot of the occasion which took place during the last celebration of Murshid’s URS.

Not only are mureeds, new and old blooming beautifully; there are hundreds of new buds on the rose bushes here. Now, I am not so advanced that I can claim, as Murshid claimed during his visit to Kew Gardens to be able to see everything in bloom even though it was the off-season and no blooms were manifest; I can see the future of all these beautiful pink buds. But when one is given the vision of the bud, it’s not much of a trick to envision the bloom in fullness.

Allah bless you all,

Moineddin