School of Sufi Teaching

United Kingdom

Naqshbandi, Mujaddidi, Chishti, Qadiri & Shadhili practices

Support the Sufi School
Sufi School is a non-profit charity involved in creating awareness about Sufism and providing authentic Sufi teachings to sincere seekers.

All the teachings are given free of cost and students are not charged for attending our weekly gatherings for teaching, mentoring, discussions and group practices.

Our activities are carried out through voluntary donations. We request you to donate generously to support our work. Any amount of donation to help us to continue this good work will be appreciated and thankfully accepted.

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Name: School of Sufi Teaching
Account Number: 11397222
Sort Code: 40-03-16
Bank: HSBC UK

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Personal statement from a student who lives in India

I first started meditating in 2010 with a therapist in India who introduced me to mindfulness. I read many books about Buddhist meditation and deepened my practice considerably over the next three years. In 2013, I moved to Lancaster in the UK to embark on a PhD programme. I found a Zen Buddhist group there and started attending meetings, as well as going on a retreat. The practice gave me much stability and insight.

My flatmate in Lancaster was a Pakistani Muslim with whom I became close friends. During Ramzan in 2014, he used to recite the Quran in the room adjacent to mine. Around this time, I started to experience an intense pain in my heart that persisted over the following months. I eventually went to see a doctor, but she dismissed it as nothing serious. My mum had cancer then and I was seeing the same doctor about a genetic test for myself, about which I was very anxious. I remember feeling very alone at the time, and seeing a man in the waiting room at the doctor’s clinic who wore a Sufi cap. I saw the same man there on my next visit.

In 2015, I returned to India to look after my mother, whose cancer had progressed. At this time my Zen practice left me. I desperately tried to meditate, but simply couldn’t. In October 2015, I came across the website of the Sufi School. They were having a retreat in Ahmedabad in India and I wrote asking if I could attend. I was surprised by the answer I received – rather than trying to sell the retreat to me, I was told it was only for experienced students. The person from the school asked if I wanted her to send me the practice, but wanted to know more about me before she could do so.

I was relieved to discover that I was able to do the Sufi practice, in spite of all the stress I was under and the fact that I did not have a group with which to practise. Although I vacillated between the Sufi practice and various Buddhist techniques I had learnt over the years through my reading as well as the Zen group, I stayed in touch with the person from the Sufi School over email. The pain in my heart got more intense as I started doing the Sufi meditation, but then after some months, it started to subside.

My mother passed away in June 2016. When my family and I took her ashes to immerse them in the Ganga, I saw another man in a Sufi cap at the parking lot of a restaurant on the Delhi-Haridwar highway where we had stopped for a snack. At the parking lot of our hotel in Rishikesh, I saw the same man again.

I visited the shrine of Hazrat Ahmad Faruqi Sirhindi in March 2016 and experienced something profound there. In July-August 2016, I found myself at the tombs of Hazrat Rumi and Hazrat Shams. I was given recitations to do in February 2017, and in September I attended my first Sufi retreat (in London) where I met the shaykh for the first time. I was touched by his sweetness and humility.

I would encourage anyone feeling drawn to this path to follow the feeling through. I feel blessed to have come upon an authentic Sufi order and feel like I have found my spiritual home. I hope this path does the same for you.

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Personal statement from a student in London

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