The Hidden Angles of Life

By Sara Kwasnick - The Daily Californian - Berkeley, CA, U.S.A.
Monday, November 19, 2007

Guests of numerous religious and ethnic backgrounds converged on Wheeler Auditorium Saturday to listen to music, meditate and learn lessons about Sufism, a movement that preaches a path to self-knowledge.

UC Berkeley’s MTO Sufi Association held the campus’s third annual Sufi Celebration­—called “The Hidden Angles of Life,” to educate students and community members about the philosophy, first taught 1,400 years ago.

Sufism preaches that a harmonious society can only be achieved when all of its members attain self-cognition.

As a result, the teachings appeal to people from a wide array of religious and ethnic backgrounds, said senior Negar Dadgari, an architecture major and president of the association.

“Our goal is to raise spiritual awareness on campus and to just really expand love and unity,” Dadgari said.

After opening remarks about the movement, musicians played modern instruments and sang in harmony with the traditional santur, setar and daf.

“Teachers of Sufism have always taught to a broad and diverse group of students,” Dadgari said in opening remarks.

The celebration concluded with a speech on tamarkoz, the ability to achieve bodily self-awareness, followed by a demonstration of movazeneh, or meditation. The audience was then led in guided meditation.

“Sufism is essentially a path to self-knowledge,” said Sahar Yousef, freshman cognitive science and philosophy major. “Once you’re on this path it’s like you’re wooing the god within you.”

The current master of the School of Islamic Sufism is Nader Angha, who lives in Germany and broadcasts weekly, live webcasts for Sufis to study, Dadgari said.

The Berkeley and UCLA MTO Sufi Associations trade off hosting celebrations every six months, she said.