The idea for the Sufi Conferences was conceived by Andrew Harvey one summer evening in 1999 at Sufi Books in New York. Working together we felt a need to share this mysticism of love, and to create a space where people could experience the different forms of Sufism. The joy, intoxicating love and power experienced in the first two conferences resonated with this need. Something was born, a container of love for different Sufi orders to come together.

The recent Sufi Conference in Rhinebeck, New York (October, 2006) continued this work, celebrating the oneness that is at the foundation of Sufism. The presenters brought their lineages of the Jerrahi, Chisti, and Naqshbandi, and the participants widened the circle to include the Mevlevi, Rifai, Nimatullahi, and Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship among other orders.

Like all Sufi gatherings there was an outer and inner dimension to this meeting. Outwardly this was an occasion to share and honor these different paths, these different threads of divine love, and to be together in friendship and devotion. There was music and silence, dhikr, dance, and lectures. About three hundred people participated. Some had their first taste of Sufism, while others had practiced for many years.

But this container of lovers held a deeper secret, an inner core of energy that began to awaken over the weekend. Just as the heart of a lover spins with divine love, awakening us to remembrance, the heart of a Sufi gathering can spin. In this spinning the different threads of the paths that were present were woven into a single cord of remembrance. This cord of remembrance, stamped with the name of God, was given to the world as an offering of love. It has a power that comes from so many paths coming together, from a collective affirmation of mystcial oneness. Because we came together in a physical gathering this cord of remembrance embraces the physical world, and because our hearts were open it reaches into the innermost, His unknowable Essence.

How love works in the world is a secret long known to the Sufis. In our present time of collective forgetfulness there is a deep need to awaken the heart of the world. This Sufi Conference was a real contribution to the work of His love. We hope that each year we can come together and that this work will grow.

The next Sufi Conference will be held at the Asilomar Conference Grounds in Pacific Grove, California.