Spiritual Letter 51 - Original Version                         About Spiritual Letter 51
Title: "Harvesting Our Past To Improve Our Future"
Date: September, 2, 2003
Written by: Shaikh Muhaiyaddeen (Louie Beutler)
Written to: Ahamed Muhaiyaddeen (Jonathan Granoff)


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Bismillahir-Rahmanir-Rahim. In the name of God, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate. Al-salam 'alaykum wa-rahmat Allah wa barakatuhu kulluhu. Wa 'alaykum al-salam wa-rahmat Allah wa-barakatuhu kulluhu.  May all the peace, the beneficence, and the blessing of God be upon us all.  May God help us all.

My love you (anbu), my dearest loving brothers and sisters - Shaikh Muhaiyaddeen (Louie Beutler).
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Outline of Spiritual Letter:

1.  Introduction - to Spiritual Letter 51
2.  Posting Of Your Beautiful Letter - "On Security and Peace", to the on-line Bawa
          Muhaiyaddeen Library
3.  Wisdom Stories From the UN - from the heart of Ahamed Muhaiyaddeen and of
          Shaikh Muhaiyaddeen, "Harvesting The Past To Improve The Future"
4.  A Bawa Story - "Whatever happens to us is meant to correct us, to improve us"

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Text of Spiritual Letter:
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1. Introduction - to Spiritual Letter 51

Bismillahir-Rahmanir-Rahim. In the name of God, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate. Al-salam 'alaykum wa-rahmat Allah wa barakatuhu kulluhu. Wa 'alaykum al-salam wa-rahmat Allah wa-barakatuhu kulluhu.  May all the peace, the beneficence, and the blessing of God be upon us all.  May God help us all.

My love you (anbu), my dearest loving brother Ahamed Muhaiyaddeen (Jonathan Granoff) - Shaikh Muhaiyaddeen (Louie Beutler).

Thank you, and all praise be to God and to our Father, Shaikh Muhammad Rahim Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (may God be pleased with Him), for the beautiful clarity that you have given all of us today with your letter, "On Security And Peace".  A letter that we just received, September 2nd, 2003, the day after our "Labor Day" celebration in America. 

May what you have shared with us become the true "Labor of Love" within each of our hearts, living at the feet of our Shaikh, and of God within Him, as your letter clearly demonstrates that you are so living, my dearest loving brother.  Al-hamdu lillah. Allahu Akbar.
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2.  Posting Of Your Beautiful Letter - "On Security And Peace", to the on-line Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Library

In anticipation of your permission, which we now ask, we have posted your beautiful letter, "On Security And Peace", to the on-line Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Library, which this child has had the grace to develop, while living at the feet of our Father, Shaikh Muhammad Rahim Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (may God be pleased with Him).

We have added your wisdom letter to the Children's Part of the Library, in the Spiritual Letters section, and we have given it the heading, Spiritual Letter 52, "On Security And Peace". 

In addition to the "Original Version" of your letter, we have taken the liberty to provided an "Outline & Summary Version" of your letter, to help us navigate around the letter using Hypertext, and to help in our detailed study of the letter, and of the many wisdom points contained within it. 

This "Outline & Summary Version" of your letter can be accessed at the top of the "Original Version" of the letter, which  automatically comes us when you click on
Spiritual Letter 52
.  Once there, just click on "Outline & Summary".

As with most material in our on-line library, which includes both material by Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (may God be pleased with Him), the Father's Part of the Library, and by the Children of Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (may God be pleased with each of Us), the Children's Part of the Library, your letter is now a separate Web Page in the library, which can be directly accessed as Spiritual Letter 52, by typing in the following Web Address or URL: www.SpritualLetter052.homestead.com, into the address field of any Web Browser.  If you like, please click above or HERE to check it out.

Also, your letter can be accessed from the Home Page - Spiritual Letters, by clicking on the heading: Spiritual Letter 52, from this Home Page.  If you like, please click above or HERE to check this out.

Please send us any additional material that you may have, or develop in the future, that you would like to include in our on-line library, as a Spiritual Letter in the Children's Part of our Library, and this child will add it in a similar fashion, or if you like, we could create additional sections to our on-line library, and add the new material there.

For example, with your wonderful work on the UN we may want to start a new section in the present library, called, "Wisdom Stories from the UN", or we could start a whole separate Web Site for this material, and call it something like,

          "The Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Library - UN Branch".

For example, we have always loved, and have shared many, many times, with our brothers and sisters, the following beautiful story that you told to us one day at one of the Fellowship meetings, a story about one of your experiences at the U.N, which we now share back to you, from this child's memory of it, and God willing, from this child's heart to your heart, and to the heart of all of our brothers and sisters.
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3.  Wisdom Stories From the UN - from the heart of Ahamed Muhaiyaddeen and Shaikh Muhaiyaddeen

UN Wisdom Story 001: "Harvesting Our Past To Improve Our Future"

One day at the Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, the following story was told to us by our dearest loving brother, Ahamed Muhaiyaddeen (Jonathan Granoff)

"We were invited one day to speak at the UN to a group of very distinguished lawyers, because of my experience in International Law, which is something they regularly did, that is, inviting different lawyers to come and speak to them about their legal specialties, and their experiences in that field.

However, when we got there we suggest to this distinguished group of lawyers, that rather than listening to me talk about some esoteric aspect of law, that instead we could spend the time in a very different, and perhaps, much more useful way.

Being lawyers, this approach really got them interested, and they immediately asked what I had in mind.  And we told them the following:

Since collectively they represented an incredible body of knowledge and experience, we could try to harvest what they each had individually learned of great significance, up to this point in their lives, and then use it to collectively guide all of us into the future.

And that we could do this by having each of them answer the following question,

          "What was the most significant thing that has happened in their life?"

They immediately all agreed, and we spent the next hour going around the table with each distinguished lawyer answering this question.

When it was all over, they all looked at me in surprise at the answers they had all given, and after a long pause, we shared the following with them:

All of you have said, in one way or another, that the most significant thing that has happened to you in your life was centered around a tragedy, a great difficulty, a significant loss, a severe illness, and things of this nature.

And each of you have shared that in the context of these dangers, difficulties, troubles, and suffering that you experienced significant movement or progress in your life, as long as you did not let these things overwhelm you, as long as you reached deep within yourself for the strength to endure them, to overcome them, to transcend them, and to some how come out the other end of them, in the process having learned a great deal about yourself, about others, and about the human condition, about what it means to be truly alive, and to be truly human. 

They all agreed.

And in closing we shared with them the main wisdom point that we had taken from the sharing of their personal experiences with me, which was:

Everything seems to be backwards in our life.  For example, growing up most of us come to the point in our life where we try to avoid the very things that will help us truly mature, learn, and move forward in our life, we try to avoid tragedies, difficulties, loss, illness, and things of this nature, we try to reduce as much as we can the dangers, difficulties, troubles, and suffering of our life, rather then embracing them as the vehicle of true learning and enlightenment for our life, instead we seek security, comfort, and pleasure.

Again they all agreed, thanked me for coming, and for taking them through this wonderful process of harvesting their past to improve their future.
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4.  A Bawa Story - "Whatever happens to us is meant to correct us, to improve us"

In closing my dearest loving brother of my heart, of the One Open Heart of our Father,
Shaikh Muhammad Rahim Bawa Muhaiyaddeen
(may God be pleased with  Him), we would like to share the following quotation from Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (may God be pleased with Him), which appeared in the Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship Calendar, a few years ago, that helped this child get over a traffic accident that left us very shaken and wondering.

I was stopped at a red light and a bread truck behind me did not quite stop in time and slammed into the back of my little Toyota Pick-Up Truck, knocking off my prayer hat, and giving me quite a jolt.

We seemed to be very disoriented for a couple of days, although we were able to function at home and at work, and then everything returned to "Louie normal".  But then we started to question "why".  And as this child has learned  to do on the path, that is, as we have learned to do living with Bawa in our life, as an integral part of our life, as the center of our life, we kept handing our questioning over to Bawa, making it His problem, His question, not mine, and tried to continue on with my life. 

The questioning kept coming, and we kept handing it to Bawa, as we had learned to do for many, many years, and we were content with that.  But then one day Bawa said to me,

          "Review the calendars."

So we went back and started to re-read all of the Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship Calendars, with no anticipation of finding anything significant, but more as just carrying out what Bawa told me to do.  For me that was enough then, and is enough now, staying at the feet of my Shaikh in everything that we do, like writing this letter to you, my dearest loving brother Ahamed Muhaiyaddeen.

But then we came across the following quotation, which changed my life then, and continues to change my life, each time it is read or recited, which is usually each day in my morning prayers.

In the quote, Bawa teaches us,

          "Whatever happens to us is meant to correct us, to improve us. Any suffering
          that befalls us is meant to help us go one step forward. As long as we have
          absolute certitude in God, then no matter what dangers, difficulties, troubles,
          and suffering that comes to us, they will only make us move forward."

          "These things help us to progress, to move forward on the path. Never forget
          your goal which is to reveal God. Therefore, if you receive a blow on the back
          that is a signal to move forward some more, that is a sign to progress."

This wisdom point so beautifully fit with what had happened to this child, being hit from the back with a blow, from the bread truck behind me, that we had to immediately say "Al-hamdu lillah" for what had happened, and for the quote from the life and teaching
of Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (may God be pleased with Him), that had been beautifully put in front of me, and then move on with our life, grateful that God is in charge, and guiding our life in every way, whether we know it or not, whether we like it or not, whether we even want it or not, because that is our true birthright, our true heritage, the true destiny of our soul.

And this wisdom point, and this quote from Bawa, has helped this child again and again, as we are hit with something in the world, from the right, the left, the front, and the back, as we continue to drive back to God, sitting on God's lap, while our wisdom, while Bawa, teaching us "what we do not know".  Al-hamdu lillah.  Allahu Akbar.

Such is the life of your brother, Shaikh Muhaiyaddeen (Louie Beutler).
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5.  Closing Prayer & Comments

May all the peace, the beneficence, and the blessing of God be upon us all.  May God help us all.

We have all been so blessed by God to come together in the heart of Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (may God be pleased with Him) in our life, to receive the gift of God for our age, the life and teaching of God for our age, which is the life and teaching of
Bawa Muhaiyaddeen
(may God be pleased with Him) both within and outside of us, and to have the opportunity now to share with each other, and with all of our brothers and sisters living in the world today, what has grown and is growing within our hearts, as a result of our meeting His Holiness, and of our surrendering all of our life to God within Him.  Al-hamdu lillah.  Allahu Akbar.

Please give my love and salams to your wife and children, and to all of your friends.   Please tell them that Shaikh Muhaiyaddeen (Louie Beutler) loves them very, very much, and that they are always in my prayers, as you are, my dearest loving brother, and share these wisdom points with them, because only then do they really become yours.  That is the learning of this child.

Finally, please let us know about any improvement that we can make in our on-line Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Library that will allow us to better serve your needs, and the needs of our brothers and sisters.

My love you (anbu) - Shaikh Muhaiyaddeen (Louie Beutler)


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This page was last updated on: September 4, 2003