. . . from the Sufi Murshids
In addition to the classes the murshids offer their students, they prepare a variety of publications, give formal and informal talks, and publish essays for friends and colleagues who request them.
Murshida Ivy Oneita Duce
February 25, 1895 – September 9, 1981
From How a Master Works...
“Meher Baba had love enough to flood the world. When you were in his presence, it was overpowering. I have hosted Baba in my houses in New York, Washington, and California. I have seen strong men, businessmen, lawyers, doctors, as well as those in many menial jobs just stand there and cry like babies. Why? Because they did not really know what love was until they saw him.”
— Murshida Duce
“Born on my birthday
and born to love and serve me,
you are forever blessed.”
— A cable from Meher Baba to Murshida Duce, 1965
Meher Baba’s Diamond, published in 2023, pairs Jane Adams’s sketch portraits of Murshida Duce with a lively selection of quotes from Murshida’s classes and talks, most of which have never been published before. It also includes illuminating commentary on her life from Murshid MacKie and Murshida Conner.
In 1970 Irwin and Edward Luck filmed an interview with Murshida Duce in her apartment in San Francisco. Using a handheld Super 8 camera, they captured Murshida telling stories about her life with Meher Baba in a lively, informal conversation.
Murshid James S. B. MacKie
May 21, 1932 – June 10, 2001
Introduction to
The Elements
In the first of 15 classes in this series, Murshid MacKie introduces Sufism’s “Consortium of the Arts” and the oratorio called The Elements, which was produced in 1992.
Using musical themes, song, and spoken narrative, four spiritual students characterized by the four elements – Air, Water, Fire, and Earth – express their four apparently separate approaches to God and ask for the privilege of new learning.
From the time Murshida Duce and Dr. James MacKie began their collaboration in 1974 until the day of her passing in 1981, they spent countless hours in private conversation, discussing topics of mutual interest.
This volume, affectionately called "The Pink Pamphlet", is Dr. MacKie’s condensation of the central themes they discussed together.
...
Murshida
Carol Weyland Conner
October 28, 1942 – April 22, 2023
Murshida Conner’s Blog
Every Thursday for the last eleven years of her tenure, Murshida Conner sent a message to her Sufi companions. These messages provided information and insights about her activities and those of her students. Beginning in February 2020, she began to intersperse her usual messages with messages on current events. A selection of those messages, beginning with “Understanding the Onslaught of Recent World Events”, are posted below.
In 2019 Murshida Conner asked her students to begin repeating a prayer she entitled the
“Universal Prayer”.
May the light of His Silence
break in every heart.
Let there be peace and love
among all beings of the universe.
Listen
Meher Baba’s Work in America
Explaining why she developed this 60-part series of classes, Murshida Conner said,
"In recent months, we have seen the world, and especially America, face daunting challenges. They have tested the social fabric of our nation and called into question many of America’s founding principles and beliefs. These events [culminated] on January 6, 2021, when a violent mob staged an armed assault on the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to prevent Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 election....
I thought it might be important at this time to revisit my series of talks on Meher Baba’s work in America. This is a broad, wide-ranging set of discussions that present a spiritual history of the North American continent and the formation and development of the United States. From this perspective, one sees that in every way – down to the last detail – this continent has been prepared by divine design for a singular purpose and destiny. We encounter this understanding in the prayers and stories of the native peoples. It guided the thoughts, words, and deeds of many early colonists and the nation’s founders and great leaders. It is expressed in the luminous essays and poetry of our great Transcendentalist writers: Emerson, Whitman, Emily Dickinson –and many others who have been stimulated to the height of their poetic expression by the joyful energy and inspiring beauty of this sacred land.
On this continent, Divinity arranged a new experiment in nationhood, never before seen in recorded history: a nation founded not on a single ethnic, cultural, or religious identity, which are qualities of separateness or individuality, but on qualities associated with the new epoch to come – higher principles such as liberty, equality, and social and political unity overriding astonishing outer diversity. Our nation’s history is the record of a step forward in divine experimentation toward a final form of government that is slated to emerge in the new divine era. The story I will unfold in these classes shows how the principles and goals at the root of our nation have been, and continue to be, explored, tested, tempered, and refined.
The emergence of democratic government in America signaled the end of the long-dominant age of empire that had typified humanity’s childhood. Democracy, like empire, is also based on multiple separateness – not in a single emperor or king but in the shifting balance of competing partisan interests – and might be associated with humanity’s adolescence. It is a transitional phase, an intermediate step toward an entirely novel form of governance, brand new and never seen on Earth before, emerging in parallel with the Divine Man and the New Consciousness. In this ultimate form, mankind will voluntarily follow Truth, Wisdom, Purity, and Love, as in man’s maturity, this nation and all humanity everywhere on Earth will be united in universal brotherhood in service to the ultimate divine purpose.
Murshid Walker Lambert
March 12, 1978 –
