Sufi Teacher
Murshid Abraham Sussman was born in October, 1945, just after WW II ended. A child of the 60’s, he was a seeker and wanderer when he first met Samuel Lewis in San Francisco in 1969. Abraham had read many books about spirituality, and had had some visionary experiences of the inner life, but it was only in his becoming receptive to the transmission, in person, of a God-realized teacher that the journey of awakened consciousness began to be real for him. He took Bayat with Murshid Sam in early 1970, and was in awe (and still is) of the beauty and power of the community that had grown around Murshid Sam.
A musician, Abraham was a member of the original Sufi Choir with Allaudin Mathieu, and has ever since been inspired by Murshid Sam’s request of him to “write New Age psalms.” This led Abraham deeply into the Dances of Universal Peace. Through the 1970s and early 1980s he co-led a Dance and Meditation gathering in Cambridge that met twice weekly, and also cofounded the Guru Blanket Band, which played mantric rock and dervish roll. Several of his CDs carry this musical transmission, including Voice of the Heart, In Peace: A Call to Unity, and (in collaboration with Murshid Saadi) Beginnings, and Bridge: The Journey of the Mystic Traveller.
Abraham met the love of his life, Halima, at the first Mendocino Camp, in 1972, and they have lived together since then. Settling in Cambridge Massachusetts, they have raised a family of 4 sons. Currently they guide a Sufi Center, SAMA, in Cambridge, and travel worldwide as “peace activists,” sharing the Dances, and the Sufi Message.
Other teachers who have mentored Abraham include the seer Frida Waterhouse, Karmu, who Murshid Sam dubbed his “Black Christ”, and the Mexican psychiatrist, Dr. Salvador Roquet. Within the Ruhaniat his living guides have been Pir Moineddin and Pir Shabda.
After receiving academic degrees from Yale College (1967), and Harvard Graduate School of Education (1972), Abraham earned his Doctorate in Clinical Psychology in 1988 from Antioch/New England. He has been Clinical Director of Agua Viva Associates, and the SOMA Counselling Center. He still works as a psychotherapist, with a deep respect for the healing power of love, relationships and community. In this light, he has served as a Co-Chair of the Ethics Council for the Ruhaniat, and the International Dance Leaders Guild. He is also a gardener, a former soccer coach, and a candlemaker.
