Andrew Harvey – The Sufi Way of the Beloved

Module 1: The Sufi Vision of the Way of the Beloved (August 10)

Drawing from mystical commentaries on the Koran and the tradition of the Prophet’s sacred sayings known as the Hadiths, we’ll explore Sufism in a Koranic context as the core love and wisdom way of Islam. You’ll also gain an overview of the seven most important and radical of the Prophet’s Hadiths and discover how they illumine a 4-part path of tremendous rigor, passion and beauty in uniting with the Beloved.

In this module, you’ll discover:

• A vision of the Koran’s mystical sublimity
• An overview of the Prophet’s mystical teaching on divinization
• An understanding of the core map of the path to the Beloved
• A practice of the name of God, Allah, will be offered as a means to sustain absorption and surrender

Module 2: Two Martyrs of Love (August 17)

This week, we’ll celebrate the work and lives of two Sufi masters who obeyed the Prophet’s Hadith, “die before you die,”martyring their illusory false selves to live in the splendor of presence and radically inspiring the unfolding of Sufism.

Al-Hallaj paid for his celebrated proclamation of An-al-haqq (I am the supreme reality) by being executed, but experienced his death in such an ecstatic way that the mystical heart of Islam was permanently transformed. Rabia, Islam’s greatest woman mystic and the first to call God the Beloved, took the path of humble disappearance into the One, leaving us a handful of mystical signposts of the rarest clarity to the path of union.

In this module, you’ll discover:

• The mystical birth in Al-Hallaj’s death and the way it transformed a tradition
• The role of extreme suffering in extreme transformation
• Three of Rabia’s most potent poems
• A prayer practice with Rabia’s great prayer to the Beloved that will help you align with the One

Module 3: The Glory of the Glory Ibn Arabi (August 24)

Ibn Arabi, the greatest of all Sufi philosophers and a sublime mystical poet, was born in Spain in 1165. He became a Sufi at 20, and after a lifetime of traveling and teaching, settled in Damascus, where he died in 1223.

In this module, we will concentrate on the three most original and inspiring aspects of Ibn Arabi’s work: his revelation of the unique sacred path and dignity of each human being, his exploration of reality as a perpetually fresh unfolding of the One, and his vision of ecstatic sacramental relationship from his account of a revelatory love for a young girl in The Interpreter of Ardent Desires.

In this module, you’ll discover:

• The glory of the Beloved as conveyed to Islam’s greatest philosophical genius
• The blessing vision of Islam and how it reflects the sacredness of the human
• A radical vision of the potential fusion of human and divine love and its revelations
• The core Sufi practice of remembrance that enables you to stay aligned with the Beloved

LIVE Integration Session #1 (August 31)

In this special session, you’ll be able to engage with Andrew to further explore the course material and deepen your understanding. Andrew will also be looking forward to hearing about what you personally experienced while putting the principles and practices from the first three sessions into action.

Module 4: Radiant Bewilderment as the Gate to Oneness (September 7)

Mystical poet Attar was born during the 12th century in Nishapur in northeast Iran. After wandering the Middle East and India, he returned and settled in his hometown, where he ran a small pharmacy and wrote perhaps the greatest of all long mystical poems, The Conference of the Birds.

This week, we will celebrate this astonishing masterpiece and concentrate on three crucial aspects of Attar’s vision: his understanding of the different types of human nature and the subtle addictions we adhere to, his unfolding of his way to the Beloved in a journey through “seven different valleys of consciousness,” and his amazing and paradoxical vision of the last bewildering stages to union with the Beloved and the nature of union itself.

In this module, you’ll discover:

• The rigor and range of Sufi psychology
• Attar’s inspired mystical poetry, a favorite of Rumi’s
• A fiercely realistic sense of the rigor of the real path to union
• A practice of burning in the heart for the Beloved

Module 5: The Way of Passion (September 14)

Rumi has been called “the rose of glory of Sufism.” The global renaissance of Rumi’s works reveals how essential his message of universal love is for the healing of our world crisis. This week, we’ll explore Rumi’s vision and experience of the way of the Beloved through three essential themes: the role of human love and friendship for all beings in divine awakening, the need to be possessed by divine passion to be born into divine identity, the deep meaning of the dark night process, called fana in Sufism, that prepares the birth of the embodied divine human.

In this module, you’ll discover:

• Rumi’s personal journey to embodying the Beloved
• How to awaken divine passion in yourself
• The new energy released by divine passion in the divinization process
• A practice of invoking a descent of light into mind, heart, soul and the cells of the body

LIVE Integration Session #2 (September 21)

In this special session, you’ll be able to engage with Andrew to further explore the course material and deepen your understanding. Andrew will also be looking forward to hearing about what you personally experienced while putting the principles and practices from the preceding two sessions into action.

Module 6: The Way of Fierce Truth
An Invocation of the Transforming Presence of Shams (September 28)

Shams of Tabriz lives in the glory of the poetry and realization of Rumi, where he is called among other things, “a wolf who is a shepherd, a black lion and a sword of truth.” We also have in the brilliant fragments of Shams’ Maquamat, diamonds of fierce transmission that reveal him as an incendiary of truth.

Weaving Rumi’s poems, Shams’ words, and stories of Shams from the Sufi tradition, Andrew will present a sustained invocation of Shams’ ferocious and glorious embodiment of the Beloved and the way it continues to challenge all of us to ultimate visceral authenticity. A special emphasis will be placed on Shams’ vision and practice of dance as a way to radical embodiment.

In this module, you’ll discover:

• An initiation into the radioactive grace field of Shams’ mysterious and still alive presence
• An immersion in the cauldron of paradox that is Shams’ teachings
• A vision of sacred dance as a way of embodying divine truth, beauty and energy
• A practice of saying the name Allah with the black light

Module 7: A Sufi Vision for the World (October 5)

Dara Shikoh (1615-1659) was the eldest son and heir apparent of the Mughal emperor of India, Shah Jahan, who built the Taj Majal. His younger brother, Araungzeb, seized the empire by imprisoning his father, torturing and beheading his brother and having Dara Shikoh’s naked body dragged through the streets of Delhi. This was all the more tragic as Dara Shikoh was an enlightened Sufi mystic philosopher and poet who had a vision inspired by Sufi mysticism of an India united beyond religious divisions in the depths of a mystical love of the Beloved. Had Dara Shikoh become emperor, the history of India and of Islam would have been radically different.

During this final module of the program, you will explore the extraordinary journey of Dara Shikoh’s life, the healing power of his knowledge of the deep union between Hindu and Islamic mysticism, and the significance of his adventure in the identity struggle that is now splitting and wounding the world. We’ll end with a vision of how the truths of Sufi mysticism could transform Islam and the nature of our reality.

In this module, you’ll discover:

• An introduction to one of the most inspiring sacred activists of Islam
• A vision of the mystical unity of Hindu and Islamic revelation
• A vision of a world unified in sacred diversity through a universal mysticism
• A 7-part body prayer that enables you to realize yourself as the living instrument of the Beloved’s love in action

LIVE Integration Session #3 (October 12)

In this special session, you’ll be able to engage with Andrew to further explore the course material and deepen your understanding. Andrew will also be looking forward to hearing about what you personally experienced while putting the principles and practices from the last two sessions into action.

In the Fire of Grace
Video With Banafsheh Sayyad

In this video experience, Banafsheh Sayyad, the great legendary sacred dancer interprets five stages of the soul’s archetypal journey to union with the Beloved, in movement that marries serene grounded peace with fierce gorgeous passion, just as Rumi’s mystical vision does. She is accompanied by Andrew Harvey as the voice of Rumi summoning her deeper into the flames of death and rebirth.

Banafsheh Sayyad, the founder of Dance of Oneness®, is a Persian sacred dancer, choreographer and transformational teacher. Awarded for her innovative dance, she is among the few bearers of authentic Persian dance in the world, an innovator of Sufi dance previously performed only by men, and one of the few artists who has mastered a fusion of high-level dance technique with spiritual embodiment. Her Dance of Oneness® is a science of embodiment — living our fullest potential through loving our body, our Self and living as a lover. It fuses the art of dance: rigorous technique and self-expression, healing and spiritual embodiment. Banafsheh performs and teaches internationally, initiating thousands into the wisdom of their bodies and living the sacred in everyday life. With an MFA in Dance and an MA in Chinese Medicine, she is dedicated to individual and collective healing through conscious movement. Banafsheh comes from a long lineage of pioneering performing artists. Her father, the legendary Iranian filmmaker, theater director and actor, Parviz Sayyad, hailed as the Charlie Chaplin of Iran, is the most famous Iranian of his time. Banafsheh’s film, In the Fire of Grace, with Andrew Harvey, traces Rumi’s journey of the soul in dance.

The Conference of the Birds
Audio Reading From Andrew Harvey

In this audio presentation, Andrew reads rich excerpts from perhaps the greatest of all long mystical poems by mystical poet Attar, The Conference of the Birds. Andrew dives into the deepest mystical meanings of this masterpiece by Rumi’s favorite poet.

The Eternal Wine: Poems of Rumi for Our Time
Audio Recording From Andrew Harvey

A selection of Rumi readings specifically selected by Andrew for their relevance to our current world crisis. Andrew calls this “Rumi for our time.” These highly thought- and emotion-invoking readings will assist you in exploring your spirituality and provide you with a catalyst to look within for your own answers to the questions that currently perplex all of us. This special selection of Rumi readings is set to moving ambient music and read by Andrew himself.

The Sufi Vision of Sacred Activism
Audio Dialogue With Andrew Harvey and Charles Upton

In this audio dialogue, Andrew discussed with Charles the essay he wrote as a result of many conversations on sacred activism and its relationship to Sufism and the larger Islamic traditions. They go into the fundamental principles of the vision Charles has outlined for us so you can take it deeply to heart and work with it. They explore the concept that being a sacred activist requires a death to the false self and the separatist ego. It requires giving up the fantasy — which is the block to any sacred action coming through you — that on your own, in your own individual separate nature, you exist in any meaningful way. You have to show up and be there for God’s action and God’s gift and for your opportunity to submit.

Charles Upton, born in 1948, is a San Francisco poet by background, a writer on metaphysics, “metaphysics and social criticism,” eschatology, demonology, the metaphysical exegesis of mythopoeia, and Islamic themes. His books in this last category include Virtues of the Prophet, Reflections of Tasawwuf and, with Dr. John Andrew Morrow, The Words of Allah to the Prophet Muhammad: Forty Sacred Sayings. He is also the conceiver of the Covenants Initiative, an international movement of Muslims to protect persecuted Christians, based on Dr. Morrow’s book The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of the World. He was raised as a Catholic and educated entirely in Catholic schools. In 1988 he embraced Islam. Since that time, under two shaykhs, he has followed the Sufi path.

Dancing as the Beloved of the Beloved
Audio Dialogue With Andrew and Banafsheh Sayyad

Banafsheh Sayyad will initiate us into a vision of sacred dance as a radiant way to embody the beloved. This way was taught by Shams and Rumi; they expressed their tremendous spiritual passion for each other and for God through dancing. They discovered that sacred dancing initiates us directly into the dance of the universe and into the deathless bliss energy that is manifesting everything.