A Journal of Mystical Inclinations Toward the One

Jennifer Alia

May 28, 2006

Saffron: The Point of Conception
by Jennifer Alia Wittman

Six years ago we left behind all that had been and traveled to India, for the investiture of a young Sufi leader, who was to become the head of his order, the next in a lineage that goes back to the prophets of all ages, or so some say.

We met in the Amsterdam airport and boarded the same airliner to Delhi, not yet friends, even though some of us had known one another since birth or shortly thereafter. I was uneasy and felt crowded, as I worked my way onto the plane of sixty or so odd Sufi-looking folks and hundreds of Indians jockeying for new seat arrangements. Members of my group were scattered throughout the plane, yet a felt cohesion was forming as we recognized one another in the aisles and across the rows.

Personally I was attempting to appear relaxed but reserved, an experienced traveler. Inside I felt drawn towards something that would become my life, and at the same time terrified about all of the relationships and protocols, the unknown unknowns to come. Often new people scare me, and there were so many on the plane, so many going on this trip, so many that seemed to be part of this thing that was to seed itself during our time traveling together.

Our first hotel was an obscene, imperialistic place, and while I should have felt offended by this opulence in the midst of dire poverty, the marble and teak interiors, as well as the men to serve every need, made coming to a place like India more special and enjoyable. It also served as a useful counterpoint to the place we would spend most of our waking time in New Delhi, the Nizammudin Aulia Basti.

The “basti” is a poor ghetto, a Muslim community where thousands of people live along networks of narrow lanes, lined with tiny shops selling everything imaginable -- hats, meats, jewelry, internet usage, chai, sweets. We would wander though this maze, soak up the life there, visit with merchants and new friends, and be fascinated by the cows, sheep, goats, chickens, rabbits, cats and other animals living as part of the community.

Nizammudin Aulia Basti is also a very holy place. Within its exterior walls are three sacred sites – three dargahs or tombs – of masters from the Chishti line of Sufism. The neighborhood is named for Nizammudin Aulia whose dargah is down a narrow, long corridor. At the entrance, we would buy rose garlands, take off our shoes, and follow the crowd to a large courtyard where musicians offered qawwals, women peered through marble lattice-work walls surrounding the tomb, and men paid homage to the great saint inside.

Next to Nizammudin Aulia is the tomb of Amir Khusrow, his devoted student, and outside the walls and down the path is the dargah of the Sufi master Pir-o-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan, the grandfather of the one about to take his place as Pir, or most senior teacher, of the order he founded.

For the investiture of the new Pir, hundreds of Canadians, Americans, Europeans, New Zealanders, Australians, and Indians came together at Inayat Khan’s dargah. The five-day event included musical performances, talks, ceremonies, and many communal meals. With crowds of people everywhere, the fifteen of us under age 30 naturally formed our own sub-community, and held on to one another through it all.

The events of this first week of the trip are now not easily recognizable from one another. It was a settling in time for me, with too many things going on at once, in a country where countering energies forced me to abandon all I had brought with me. An intentional melting was going on, even if none of us knew it at the time.

In addition to this melting, mostly I remember my new friends, all in my generation, getting to know one another while living the cultural experiences common to India – shopping in people-packed marketplaces, packing ourselves into three-wheeled rickshaws to get from place to place, packing together for warmth under tarps within Inayat Khan’s dargah during the heavy rains and hail.

Underlying all of this unavoidable physical closeness, there was a feeling of something happening that was beyond us. That we were being made to come together, regardless of our personalities or harder attributes, to do something together, to become ourselves together. This feeling was pervasive, definitive and mysterious. We were deeply connected without even really knowing one another yet, and this connection had a lifelong purpose.

This feeling continued and deepened over the three weeks of the trip, as we visited other dargahs of our lineage, and were occasionally beaten with blessed feathers, begged upon by savvy entrepreneurs, and offered chai in the middle of a variety of nowheres.

During the tour there were a few clues that we were joining in a collective search, that our friendship would manifest outwardly in the world somehow, somewhere. Since India this thing that is becoming itself has clarified even more, as friends from that trip have been aligned into various configurations of working, traveling and/or living with one another.

Now, years later, some of us recognize our trip to India as a point of conception. All that transpired there has brought us here, to this place of creation. The seeds planted in India have now taken hold, after many an aborted effort, and a number of forms are beginning to emerge.

One such form is this experiment we call Saffron. Saffron is a place we can all meet, share in our various forms of expression, and experience ourselves as we really are, in our most authentic nature.

Over the past six years many new friends have shown up, often with some type of recognition taking place – as though we have all been traveling together, all along. Our group is growing, within our lineage of Sufism and across lineages and traditions, as more and more young people are drawn to the path.

We have created Saffron to bring younger mystics of all paths together, to help us get to know one another, and to collectively birth our creative endeavors into the public realm. Something timely is coming through this generation that is meant for the world. This website exists as a place for the esoteric and exoteric to meet, for the worldly and otherworldly to be recognized as interchangeably One.

We hope that all who feel called will contribute to this project, and share ideas for Saffron’s evolution. Over time we will introduce themes and invite everyone to submit writing, art, music, and other forms of expression on the theme at hand. For the first year we will premiere with the theme of Conception, followed by Incubation in autumn 2006, and then Birth in the spring 2007.

Other parts of the site are not on the theme, and exist as places to explore special topics and share information. As you check out the site you will see what this means.

As a qualifier, many of the founding Saffron contributors trace the point of the project’s conception to another place, one personal for them, and one not in India. They were not with us on that trip, and find their own personal point connected to another time and space. Also, while this website is being conceived by young Sufis of various lineages, those involved do not want to limit their spiritual lives or those of the site’s primary audience to one mystical form. They want me to overtly state that the site is for all who share a mystical inclination.

In many ways Saffron is a project of collective conception, ideas coming through the ethers and manifesting into the world. We are all part of the mystery of creation together. May God bless us as we go forward with this mutual creative endeavor.

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Biography

Jennifer Alia spent her formative years adrift among the ice floes of Abarishi before a chance encounter with a passing steam ship. The ensuing adventure resulted in her bestselling inspirational leadership book, Plum Blossom Come Home. Email her at jenniferalia@saffronjournal.org.

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