History Speaks
Explore our growing collection of shared insights and experiences from those Abodians who helped to shape the place we all love.
Shared with Friends of South Family By Cybele October 23, 2022
Coming to be a part of the Abode when I was 16 deeply influenced my life in all beautiful ways, the ripples and wonders of which still continue decades later. I had come to work for the summer then attend the Music Camp. One day singing gospel songs with kitchen staff while peeling beets on the mountain for 3 hours, the next day singing German art songs accompanied by Pir Vilayat's 'cello. It was through the friends I met, and all were friends, that I was connected with my first professional work in music in New York City, and the opportunity to study music in India. Moreso, it was through finding a resonance in the teachings of "love, harmony, and beauty" while in a sacred spot in nature that had been imbued with prayer for possibly centuries, and held by a community of caring and magical friends of all ages, that the purpose of my soul came more into the light for myself. The work that I have done since, artistically, academically, and spiritually, throughout the world all roots back to the Abode homeland which easily lives inside because of the ability to connect within to it. While it does live within, the idea of the Abode dissipating and no longer being physically there to visit, is jarring. It was built on noble intentions to enrich individuals, and, in so, humanity. That it can continue, as well, is not just a grace for individuals but for the light and goodness that uplifts what humans can be and do and inspire in others.
Shared with Friends of South Family By Savitri Gauthier August 30, 2022
Reading letters written by former family members of The Abode, flooded me with a tumult of memories from an era that re-shaped me, from moments when I literally felt my heart open like a flower, and I shall never cease being grateful for that blessing. It was painful, exhilarating and swept through my life like a tidal wave. When I first encountered Pir Vilayat at Wahid's Woodstock camp around 1974 I was 28 years old. When I heard Pir speak, I knew I had finally found a teaching that "rang true" in every part of my being - something I had hungered and searched for all my life, but had not found in the Christian church, where I was brought up.
Shortly after that camp I quit my job and traveled to Chamonix to attend Pir's Sufi Camp des Aigles in Chamonix, where I encountered many European seekers, hiked to the top of Mt. Blanc and heard Pir teaching (sequentially translating himself from English to French to German) and all those impressions deepened into a commitment to help locate the site for what he was calling the Promised Land.r
Shared with Friends of South Family By Melissa Clare August 6, 2022
Abode/ Abodia – spiritual community and a home for the message of Love, Harmony and Beauty…
I arrived at JFK airport on January 22nd, 1976, the night of the worst blizzard of that winter. I had packed up all my belongings, and with a small inheritance from my grandmother, had bought myself a one way ticket to the US from England. Aged 22 I had lived most of my life in a small village in the south of England(not counting the time spent at University in Wales), but at 17had found my way to a meditation camp in the Alps, which was run by Sufi teacher Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, who my mother met at one of his meditation programs in the UK. Five summers and camps later a group of friends that had set out to find land for a residential Sufi community were able to report the purchase of land in upstate New York.
I arrived with three phone numbers acquired from friends at the summer camp who lived in New York. None of them knew to expect me – what was I thinking! The only arrangement I made to help me find my way was to be sure that my flight would arrive in the daytime – but, lo and behold that flight was delayed for 7 hours and I arrived close to midnight. Only one of the three numbers answered my call and I spoke with Salik Shwartz’s wife, a complete stranger, who told me I needed the “Conka” (I later found out the word was Khanaqah”) and gave me a number to call.
An excerpt from the Due Diligence Report to the SOINA Board August 31, 2015
On June 5, 2015 Pir Zia wrote to the Abode of the Message Community
My vision for the Abode is that the Abode be whatever those who are dedicated to it sincerely wish it to be and can practically sustain it as. My vision for my own present and future is to do all that I can do to carry out the task that has been entrusted to me, the task of furthering the continuation and expansion of Hazrat Inayat Khan’s spiritual legacy in accordance with his teachings and the lines of practice he left to us, namely the Esoteric School, Kinship, Universal Worship, Ziraat, and Healing.
If the Abode community wishes to keep this mission as its own core mission, and even to develop new opportunities for seekers to study and practice the Sufi Message in the manner of our tradition as that tradition continues to grow and blossom (with all of the interfaith and ecological openings that blossoming entails); and if there is a realistic plan to attain financial stability, and to do so in a manner that enables the Sufi Order to, additionally, attend to its responsibilities throughout the country and the world, I will feel that good reason exists to continue living and working in this beautiful place that has been my home for so long.
On the other hand, if the Abode community is motivated to go in a different direction—perhaps, as some have suggested, by becoming an eclectic commune, unaligned, or more distantly aligned, with the Sufi path—assuming the community is able to generate the means to realize this, I will wish the Abode the very best in its new incarnation, and will continue to regard myself as a sincere friend of the land and its people, but will shift my base of operations to another location so that my work, and that of those who work and practice with me, can be done in its own element. If that would be the case, I would warmly welcome all who wished to join me wherever our new headquarters would be established.
~Pir Zia Inayat Khan
Shared with FSF in July 2022
The Original Intention for the Abode of the Message in New Lebanon, NY.
by Puran Khan Bair, M.S. and A.B.D in Computer Science Senior representative of Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan
In his seminars in New York City and Philadelphia in 1974, Pir Vilayat spoke often about the need for a rural community to gather his followers together. He said he had received a revelation about a coming time when the planet would become so hot that most crops would fail. He said he had visions of flames and it so moved him that he felt compelled to act. He urged us to find land where we could do our own farming and survive the coming ecological crisis.
The phrase he received was, "The murshid must feed his mureeds" and so he named this project "The Promised Land." His advice was to look for a thousand acres or more where we could have three growing seasons a year.