Halima Sussman

Murshida Halima Sussman is a senior mentor teacher in the Sufi Ruhaniat International and the Dances of Universal Peace lineages, an inspired musician, and, in the words of her community, an "experienced guide in the path of the awakening heart." Together with her husband, Murshid Abraham Sussman, she guides SAMA — a Sufi Ruhaniat community in the Boston area — and the SamaSangha community that has gathered around their teaching in Massachusetts and far beyond.

Halima grew up on the east coast of the United States in a family with strong Norwegian roots, a legacy that, as her Ruhaniat biography recounts, "seeded a respect for socially responsible action and a deep love for art, music, science, and nature." In 1969 she moved to San Francisco to attend art school and, by grace, soon found herself at a Sufi Dance meeting with Murshid Samuel Lewis (Murshid SAM) in Marin County. That encounter changed her life — her biography says "the transmissional spark of that time still illuminates her way."

After Murshid SAM's passing she moved to the northern California hills, and in 1972 the Mendocino Sufi camp was held in Philo, at the foot of the mountain where she was living. There she met Abraham, and the two have been together ever since. They later traveled to Chamonix, France, where Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan confirmed Halima's inner bayat (initiation) experience with Murshid SAM. Settling in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where they raised four sons, Halima joined and continued the Sufi Dance circle that Murshid SAM had seeded on his earlier visits — he first brought the Dances to Cambridge in 1969 — and since 1972 she and Abraham have led gatherings of the Dances of Universal Peace there. That same dance circle flourishes today.

Music has run through her path from the beginning. Halima was an original member of the Guru Blanket Band, which played "Mantric rock and Dervish roll" at many large concerts and festivals, and her love of singing has carried into recordings of chant, Sufi songs, and Dances of Universal Peace made with Abraham. Alongside her spiritual work she is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and a lifelong student of healing, applied psychology, and ecology — an advocate for children, women, and families who for many years served on a home-midwifery health team. Among the mentors she names are her living guide Murshid Wali Ali Meyer, the seer and spiritual counselor Frida Waterhouse (godmother to her four children), the Cambridge healer Karmu, Murshid Hassan, who opened her heart to the practice of Zikr, and the Mexican psychiatrist Dr. Salvador Roquet.

Within the wider lineage, Halima serves on the Guidance Council for the Dances of Universal Peace and Walking Concentrations, has served on the board of Dances of Universal Peace International, and chaired the Unity Council, an inter-order council devoted to harmonious relations among the Sufi orders inspired by Pir-o-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan. In the Ruhaniat she is a member of the Living Wisdom Council and the Wisdom of the Feminine circle. Her essay on the art of dance leadership, "Be Ye Songs of Glory," appeared in the Elements of Mastery series of the Dances of Universal Peace International newsletter. In it she writes: "The Walks and Dances of Universal Peace are an exquisite vehicle for the transformative spiritual awakening to our true nature. In the Dances we overcome isolation and the illusion of our separate individual states, and join together in the experience of our shared humanity."

Today Halima and Abraham continue to teach internationally — recent years have taken them to Russia, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, New Zealand, Australia, Holland, Latvia, and Spain — always returning home to Massachusetts, family, and sangha, where they steward a piece of old, fertile land offering retreat and renewal in harmony with the natural world. Her own words carry the spirit of her teaching: "When we radiate light, love, joy, and peace, it makes the world a better place. This is how we create Heaven on Earth."