Submitted by Anna Latifa Vandevenne (Belgium)
Join us with your prayers!
Fifty years ago, I joined the human rights organization, Amnesty International by writing letters on behalf of people whose Human Rights were violated. In that time, before computer availability, handwriting letters for “prisoners of conscience” was for me an occasion for prayer and meditation. I have, for many years, prayed the Nayaz prayer of Hazrat Inayat Khan for everyone in need. I love the universality of the words: “through the Rays of the Sun, through the Waves of the Air, through the All-pervading Life in space.” After a while, the Nayaz prayer became a natural flow. So the “Nayaz-Sister-Brotherhood” project began in 2014. We received the blessing of Bawa, and the blessing of Halim Knobel, who coordinated the effort, in accord with the European kinship council.
People for whom prayer and meditation is an important practice in their lives, and who want to work towards more justice in the world, can join us in the Nayaz-Sister-Brotherhood. We request that participants give their attention 2 times a week to a list of 10 people. Members who want to join us with their prayers and meditations receive every month the Name list (of 10 people) and the Briefing (the newsletter with any good news) from the Nayazsisterbrotherhood-team.
To keep these people in the focus of our prayers is for Nayaz-Sister-Brotherhood a loving service to, and from, God. These efforts make God a reality! Most important in this effort is that everyone’s heart-felt prayer comes from his or her personal inner intention, to keep our sisters and brothers who are prisoners of conscience safe, in our prayers.
Being active in this work, we’ve had the opportunity to meet people who were released by worldwide actions. Some of them, including Moses Akatugba (Nigeria), Theodora Vasquez (El Salvador), Judith Maroyi (Congo), Suzana N. Alias from ICAD-Abolition of Death Penalty- (Malaysia), Alfred Woodfox (USA), came to Belgium to thank the people of Amnesty International. My conviction of the importance of spiritual work and action for Human Rights has been strengthened!
Finally, I would like to end with a message from Bawa:
“We need today the religion of tolerance. In daily life we cannot all meet on the same ground, being so different, having such different capacities, states of evolution, and tasks. So if we had no tolerance, no desire to forgive, we could never bring harmony into our soul; for to live in the world is not easy and every moment of the day demand a victory. If there is anything to learn, it is tolerance.”
Let’s keep the message of tolerance as a sacred promise in our kinship:
Beloved Lord, Almighty God!
Through the rays of the sun,
Through the waves of the air,
Through the All-pervading Life in space,
purify and revivify our body, our mind, our heart and our soul,
And we pray, heal our humanity
for the sake of our planet.
Amaan, Amayn, Amin
Additional Information available by email: Nayazsisterbrotherhood@gmail.com
• English : https://inayatiyya.nl/nayaz-eng/
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• Nederlands: https://inayatiyya.nl/centra/centrum-universel-schilde-vlaanderen/nayaz-nl/