The Heart Commands the Brain

By Nimmie Singh - The UCLA Daily Bruin - Los Angeles, CA, U.S.A.

Monday, April 16, 2007

More than 500 people crowded into the Macgowan Little Theater at UCLA on Saturday [April 14] night to attend “Calling for the Beloved,” the first annual Sufi celebration in Los Angeles.

The event was presented by the Maktab Tarighat Oveyssi Shahmaghsoudi, or MTO, Sufi Association at UCLA.

Sufism is a discipline, not a religion, that emphasizes self-knowledge and holds that in order to understand God, one must first understand oneself.

“Sufism is all about the journey of you to you,” said Soheila Zamanianpour, a florist from Marin County and one of the musical performers of the evening.

MTO Sufi Association is open to students from all religious backgrounds, and not just to Muslim students.

“There is diversity,” said Golie Zarabi, a third-year history student and president of MTO Sufi Association at UCLA. “For example, I’m Jewish, and the speaker with me was Christian. We have Muslim singers, and we have some Buddhists. Pretty much everybody. Sufism is for everyone.”

The night was filled with Sufi culture, exhibited through music, song, poetry, movement, meditation and presentations on Sufi crafts and architectural achievements.

Musical performances included both song and movement, and were a mix of traditional Middle-Eastern and modern melodies. The songs were performed in both English and Persian.

“Zikr [remembrance of God] helps (practitioners) to cleanse themselves, and free themselves of the limitations and the attachments that they’ve gathered in life. It’s part chanting, part meditation and part movement,” said Ed Selbe, press liaison for the event and a student of Sufism.

The music and songs were performed by Zikr music groups of both Southern and Northern California. The performers consisted of college students, including students from UCLA, USC and Orange Coast College, as well as high school students, UCLA alumni and others.

The performances incorporated a medley of musical instruments including the sitar, tanbur, santur, daf and the African drum.
Besides these more traditional instruments, there were acoustic and electric guitars.

The evening also included a presentation titled the “Science of Sufism.” A slide screen detailed the Sufi belief that the heart commands the brain, and therefore the body.

“There are 13 electromagnetic centers in the body. The most important of these centers lies in the heart, ... the most important energy source of the body,” said Pegah Faed, one of the presenters of the evening. “The human brain has a bounded aptitude. ... A student has to concentrate on his or her own heart to receive the news beyond the ability of the brain.”

The event also included a presentation on Movazeneh, which is meditation through movement.
“Meditation, to us, is not limited to sitting quietly. It can be achieved in a number of unlimited ways,” Selbe said, “Concentration is what’s important.”

Near the end of the event, the audience was invited to take part in meditation. The speaker, accompanied by soothing music, asked the audience members to close their eyes and breathe deeply, while he spoke of peace and contentment in nature.

[picture: Zikr at UCLA on Saturday April 14, 2007. Sufism is a discipline representing the mystical branch of Islam. Courtesy of Golie Zarabi]