The most obvious sign of the failure of the Naqshbandi Way in Britain and the West is right on the Web where we see advertisements for “Sufi Meditation Centers”, “Sufi Secrets”, offerings of immediate spiritual experiences and, of course, lists of names of famous, seemingly important Sufi teachers, guides and masters.  Since the passing of Idries Shah in 1996, there is this growing desperation of his adherents and pseudo-successors to undertake recruitment efforts, thus throwing them into the same superficial state as any and all other New Age groupings in the West.  This can and does generate and maintain cult groupings with cult teachers, but it cannot and does not renew the Naqshbandi Way.

The tremendous effort through Idries Shah to transplant the Naqshbandi Order from Central Asia to England is a failure.  As a result of this, the Naqshbandi Order is dying in both the East and the West.  In the East, oppressive governments, fundamentalist movements and the increase of overpopulation and poverty are providing an increasing lack of the right kind of support for the Way.  This was of course foreseen, hence the effort to transplant the Way to England and the West.  The conditioning and societal forces in England and the West have not allowed for viability of the Way.  This lack of understanding of Westerners in approaching the Way is further exacerbated by the efforts of the British and other Western governments to demonize Muslims and anything connected with Islam as all being potential “terrorists”.  Acts of false flag terrorism, such as London 7-7, mean that any Western seeker will be very nervous about becoming personally involved with the Naqshbandi Way or anything connected to Islam.  The outer societal forces are hostile to anything in or around Islam, period.  As the Sufi Way becomes both crass New Agerism and identification with a political enemy of the West, it is unlikely to succeed.  So it is dying instead of being renewed.

I am extremely saddened to have to say all this, but it is urgently important for any almost true teachers of the Way at this time to remove themselves from anything to do with advertising the Way or pursuing personal name and fame as Guides.  This has always been true from before the beginning among the Khwajagan and it is no less true today.  Degenerative forms of the Way are worse than useless.  Only the truly secret, anonymous Teachers and Students are going to survive what is happening.  This is The Age Of The Ending Of The Ways.

Any seeker of the Way must understand as never before that “you must not expect to find the Way where the unworthy seek it”.  This means that any publicly known “Sufi” personage, group or social outlet with a name and address that anyone can contact and interact with is by definition false.  There can be no compromise whatsoever with this point.

Now, if you have come this far, if you are one who knows that there is something irreplaceable as to certain understandings and developments for human beings on this planet that have thus far only been found in the Naqshbandi Way, then you must at all cost learn how, where, when and with whom to connect your spiritual learning and teaching potential.  You will thus realize that any necessary connection can only be made by extraordinary means and by no other means whatsoever.  You must be guided by an unfailing inward intuition that requires no externalist information.  Hence the old dictum, “Seek and you will be Found”.  The Way is a truly underground organization at this time and that is how it will remain for quite awhile.  Its Teachers and Students are not publicly known and do not give out their names and addresses on the Web or anywhere else, such as supermarket or esoteric bookstore bulletin boards.  Remember: If it is advertised, it is false.

Hint: Try meditating on Turkey, the country of Mevlana Jalalu’ddin Rumi and Haji Bektash Veli.  In the early part of the Twentieth Century, the government of Turkey outlawed the Sufi Way as a superstitious and backward non-secular and therefore non-European social culture. Turkey still aspires to entry into Europe as a modern European sort of nation-state that is supposed to be regarded as only mildly Islamic.  The government there even carries out pseudo-Al-Qaeda bombings occasionally on the people of Turkey, but mostly limited to things around Western tourism and the like, to try to show that Turkey also is considered an “enemy” of Al Qaeda terrorists, which are obviously the C.I.A. Database assets.  So Turkey is in a big dilemma.  They have all the problems of government oppression, overpopulation and poverty as any contemporary Middle Eastern Islamic country, while they also have the modern secular spiritual disabilities of any European country.  They have the main drawbacks of both the East and the West of this wretched planet of ours.  However, and you should look closely as this, the Naqshabandi Way has had more practice in being a truly secret, underground activity in Turkey than anywhere else on Earth.  This makes Turkey a very interesting situation indeed, if you can handle it.  If you were to spend a little time in Turkey in the right place at the right time, but not at some obvious place like the tombs of Mevlana Jalalu’ddin Rumi or Haji Bektashi Veli where there are false Sufi recruitment groups who want to suck-in and exploit Western seekers, then you might find yourself getting some strange indication or contact that might help your development.  If you are worthy, something can happen for you perhaps in a location in Turkey that magnetizes you without being one of those places where the unworthy seek spiritual contact.  So, this is an interesting exercise for you if you have the means and the ability to perform it.  In fact, I am myself personally in Turkey now-and-then, if you are able to inwardly resonate with what I do there.  But whoever or whatever the case in reference to yourself, even pondering this search-in-Turkey exercise is itself a valuable exercise.  How pragmatic and valid all this may or may not become is itself a function of the Baraka, which has a discriminating faculty of Its own.

Whatever you may do about the Way, avoid the old known followers of Idries Shah in England, for they are lost.  They are increasingly (out of vanity and desperation) undertaking all sorts of wrong, misguided and stupid projects.