Dear Worldwide Family,
The Southwest Sufi Community, the Voice of the Turtle, began in June 1995 unfolding from a vision by my predecessor, Pir Moineddin Jablonski. Since his death in February 2001, it has been my responsibility as the Pir of the Ruhaniat to nurture and shepherd this vision.
With symphonic silence and natural beauty, the Southwest Sufi Community is a retreat center, a nature preserve, and a residential village on 1,500 acres of wilderness along year-round Bear Creek.
Providing the opportunity to live and practice in community on the disappearing resource of wilderness, our aspirations are to be living contributors to a sustainable future for all beings.
All of our worldwide problems, environmental, political, racial, gender, and prosperity inequality have been the result of human ignorance, greed, pride, jealousy and lack of self-worth. It is natural therefore that the solutions at their core rely on human beings practicing Loving Kindness and Compassion, which is at the root of all our lineage teachings.
Our ideals are to learn to live and work together harmoniously, to provide a place for people to experience the beauty of nature, to develop a living permaculture of coexisting with and nurturing all living things and provide a facility for retreats, both group and individual.
With love and gratitude,
Pir Shabda