40 Days / Night Sema Seminar
14.07.2006 – 23.08.2006
Mehmet Rasim Mutlu Center of culture
Gökcedere-Thermal
Yalova / Turkey
Since 700 Years the first time, a ritual took place, which continued 40 days and nights. This ritual is due to the genius holy Mevlana.
Hazreti Celaleddin Mevlana Rumi the great mystic and philosoph came 700 years before from Balch, today Afganisthan, to in Anatolia, today Turkey, and settled down in Konya.
He tought human being:
- Love
- Tolerance
- Hope
- Education
Until today these valuables didn?t loose their actuality. Specially in times, true valuables seem to be lost.
The poetry, the poems and the literature of Mevlana are wellknown in all over the world. They are touching and enjoying the hearts of human being.
In his words we find suggestions to our thoughts, recommendations for our behaviour, warnings and help for right decisions and favour in life.
Mevlana was poet, mystic, spiritual teacher, worldly wise. He was an authority for the coran and a wise man for mastering the problems of life.
All this richness of his wisdom, his way of living found expression in the form of Sema.
People from Germany, Switzerland, Norwey, Austria, Canada, USA, Syria, Libanon and from Turkey met together and put a forgotten ritual in reality. They did it with the protection and the blessing of the old tradition and with the help and support of two present masters, as lifefull personifications.
- 40 days and nights we heard without interruption healing and holy music! Played by groups of musicians who shared ilahis and improvisations!
- 40 days and nights minimum 2, but in the highest phase 100 people turned in pleasing to God!
- 40 days and nights without interruption Zikir!
- For 40 days and nights organisation, purchase and preparing the meals!
- 40 days and nights we shared together all the daily obligations and duties.
- 40 days and nights open hearts!
- 40 days and nights we plunged with our individuality in unity.
I think I can say after all the feed backs now, and for all that problems, difficulties or stress we had, we all came to know what Mevlana meant when he sad:
”Come, come again, come??.
whoever you are, an unbeliever or a fire worshiper?..
our convent is not one of despair;
even if you have broken your vows a hundred times,
come, come again, come??..”
We came with all our differences, but we came all with the same intension, to search something we cannot find in the material world.
We all were connected in the search of finding ourselves and the divine and spirituality in us.
We had the great chance to feel the love, tolerance, hope and faith all together. And we spend in this experience a long and intensiv time together. We were supported and carried by the humanistic values.
We had also the emotion that even the animals of the surroundings were participating in the ritual. In the time of sunrise very often a big group of big birds danced in perfect spirals sema over the semahouse.
Turtles and insects visited us. And one night a big butterfly danced in the semahane and then a bat turned some hours at our semaplace.
Here some quotations of participatients:
”Dancing in the light and shadow and find myself on the axle of balance.”
”We whish that our lifejourney will be filled with love?”
”Together we grow, together we grow, like a tree. The roots deep in the earth and the leaves toward the sky.”
And at the end some words of Mevlana:
”The divined light of Allah is coming from the six directions. But human being ask: Where is He? An unknown looks in all directions - learn, observing without direction.”
”The light of the sema is coming through the voice of the drum. Her symmetrical rhythm is a massage for the heart.”
”Every movement carries a secret. Lokk at the difference between the brackish, standing water and the fresh water of a river.”
