The Order of Universal Sannyasa
Posted by Pir Zia Inayat-Khan on January 15, 2010
The late Brother Wayne Teasdale envisioned the creation of a loose-strung order of visionary activists committed to the ideals of interspirituality. Now Brother Wayne's friends are making his dream a reality. This past Sunday the Universal Order of Sannyasa was founded in Washington, D.C. As a member of the Advisory Board, I was invited to send a brief statement describing how the tradition I follow affirms universality. You will find my statement below. For more information about the Universal Order of Sannyasa, I encourage you to visit www.ouni.org.
Statement to Honor the Founding of The Universal Order of Sannyasa
The Qur’an affirms that prophets have been sent to all peoples and admonishes against making distinctions between them. Hence the Sufis have always been drawn to form spiritual connections with practitioners of other sacred traditions. Each encounter of this kind contributes a new patch, as it were, to the patchwork robe of the Sufi, symbolizing unity-in-multiplicity.
Sufism teaches that every religion configures the heart to receive a certain dispensation of God’s grace. But if the heart is to become truly God’s own, it must be made so expansive and malleable as to be sensitive to each and every divine revelation. Thus Ibn ‘Arabi wrote, “My heart has become capable of every form: it is a pasture for gazelles and a convent for Christian monks, / and a temple for idols and the pilgrims’ Ka’ba and the tables of the Torah and the book of the Qur’an. / I follow the religion of Love: whatever way love’s camels take, that is my religion and my faith.”
I bear reverent witness that the heart that Ibn ‘Arabi describes is the heart that beat radiantly in the breast of Brother Wayne Teasdale, and that still beats in his spirit, calling us to unity.
