Sufi whirling  

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Sufi whirling takes us directly into �the still point�, the opening to the spiritual dimensions. Even a brief experience creates far-reaching transformation and healing, on physical, emotional and spiritual levels.

With very simple steps and in a short space of time the movement becomes not only effortless and meditative but also blissful. It lifts us into the universal experience of ecstasy and through the natural effect of centrifugal force the physical body is realigned on its axis. This is a profound spiritual and healing path that gives nourishment both for the casual explorer as well as the dedicated seeker of union with the Beloved.

A new style of whirling for a new kind of whirlers.  

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The practice of whirling is aiming at nothing less than the experience of ecstasy. It achieves this through an endless turning on the spot that also symbolises the planets' orbit around the sun.

There are two kinds of consciousnesses according to ancient oriental beliefs: One is the everyday consciousness we all know, and then there is the consciousness of joy, of delirious ecstasy, that most children know before it gets compromised in the course of the socialization process, the process of gradual participation in society.

The Sufi dervish whirling tradition maintains the need to keep the route to the joyful source open in secrecy, mystically. They do this by among other ways, conjoining the delirious practice with the secret theology, by taking what all children do, that is turning frolicly on the spot until ecstatic and giving it a secret meaning commonly understood as the mystic way.

As a western psychotherapist I have found that this can be a unique healing process, relieving people from long standing issues. Combining Eastern and Western traditions originally, it is reconnecting people to the primal inner knowledge that great artists intuitively have, that is the continuity of the spectrum of feelings without the interruption of trauma and collective inhibition. From the polarity of dammed feelings to the exuberance of liberating ecstasy one finds there is an even course. In a few properly guided simple steps, one can start experiencing heaven by whirling around oneself. One can freely identify with the energy that carries us instead of identifying with personal limitations. With a little practice of a few sessions one can truly change their energy system. It is also a steady process towards better emotional, expressive or psychological health, depending on group orientation.

Lay people and artists especially find this enormously beneficial. They can get access to their emotional eloquence becoming articulate after a few lessons/ workshops. I have been pursuing this, giving classes the last 12 years in Athens London and Zurich with growing interest and participation. The accumulated experience has opened new and more accurate ways of tapping into fresh whirling energy. We have also given full performances with the Athens group 3 times already with full theatre and great audience ecstatic anticipation.

Whirling is a deep self-healing technique simple to master, affecting the physical, psychological and spiritual level. The ecstatic experience is attainable by everybody even beginners with proper guidance. Like the spinning top that finds its vertical axis through centrifugal force, so does the human body, attaining stillness within movement giving the practitioner the feeling of equanimity, absolute stillness and bliss.

The practice of the dervish whirling dance  

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The practice of the dervish whirling dance is one of the quickest and most self sustaining ways to a transcendence into the altered state of practical spirituality.
Whirling is a good opportunity for a mild work out, like going for a hike for an hour or two as it leaves the body feeling refreshed and energized as well as shifting the mental state.
Exercised with the necessary meditative approach needed to pass through the levels of consciousness and with proper guidance it enables the practitioner to enter in a short time the realms that an adept meditator will sometimes take years to accomplish. The reason for this may lie in the power of centrifugal force that will equalize away the grounding force of weight.
Even Conscientiously meditating persons will take a long time to bring their system to the hormonal maturity needed to experience the ecstatic feeling, let alone further integrate it in everyday life�
The wonderful Sufi and especially the Mavlevi tradition has brought to us as an organized practice what was probably once an unstructured Asian farmers� dance in ritualistic festivities. Back in the turbulent 13th centuryThese Asian people were pushed by the advancing Mongols towards the Mediterranean coast.. Among Them was the Persian family of Jelal u din Rumi, the unique poet and founder of the Mavlevi Sufi order Today from Tangiers to Lahore people whirl happily whether within the Sufi context or without, as an expression of the need towards the experience of personal fulfillment through dance. The beauty and attraction of some of the whirling stars brings crowds to stadiums to enjoy.
Inevitably the whirling practice has outgrown the Moslem context and is progressing as a content-free practice to fulfill the need for an experience of the ecstatic feeling. In the west, we understand it (in modern day parlance) as a legal way to produce endorphins which are the hormonal prerequisite to the ecstatic experience. From sculptures, scriptures and figurines it appears that Ancient greek culture as well as other cultures, had some equivalent or similar practices. So we could say that whirling seems to be a universal archetypal practice connecting us to the sublime ecstatic state we all feel such longing for.

A deep self-healing technique  

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Whirling is a deep self-healing technique simple to master, affecting the physical, psychological and spiritual level. The ecstatic experience is attainable by everybody even beginners with proper guidance.

Like the spinning top that finds its vertical axis through centrifugal force, so does the human body, attaining stillness within movement giving the practitioner the feeling of equanimity, absolute stillness and bliss.