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On-line Cherag and Candidate Course
July, 2001

Greetings
We will be doing a 30 week course  intended for cherag candidates by email. This will be based on the requirements in the Sufi Order International for becoming a cherag. This course is intended as a study aide to those during their period of candidacy. As a course for Cherag Candidates it is assumed that you have already been aproved as a candidate and a reader has been appointed. If this is not the case, you will need to contact the following office to see if this training may be commenced prior to approval as a candidate.

The School of Universal Worship
89 Lindsey Hill Road • Worthington, MA 01098
(413) 238-5887 • Fax: (413) 238-7790
email: cheragtraining@hughes.net

This course will also be helpful for those who are already a cherag and wish to go through it for your own benefit .

And even if your not interested in becoming a cherag, any may join in this course to deepen your religious attunement to the Message.

We are planning to do this as a two semester course based roughly on a college semester schedule. We will begin in September, take a break for the winter holidays and then resume in January through May.

Along the way we will try to figure out how to get all candidates the required training in the performance of the service from a Siraj or qualified cherag or we'll try to have a weekend training somewhere next summer (2002). There is always a week training in the Universal Worship at the National Camp held every year in August and there are occasional trainings held locally or regionally contact the International Secretariet listed above to be notified of such trainings. Also, announcements of these trainings will be posted to our mail group as we become aware of them.

A separate email group has been established for this course which perhaps we can do annually. see:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cherag101/

The cost is negligible. There is the course manual and some tapes which can be ordered. I think the cost is altogether 80.00

The intent is that we will work in a structured manor using the power of group effort to accomplish this task which, on an individual level might SEEM daunting but really isn't.

Anyway start saving up you 80.00 bucks. If interested in joining in see website above or if  you are a cherag and interested in helping with the course contact me at Hamid@touchon.com
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QUESTION: Do you have a course syllabus, yet? Or a course outline indicating what you are planning to cover in the course? (SEE TWO WEEK SAMPLE)

My intention is to take the thirty questions required for ordination and tackle them one per week focusing on the related material suggested or provided in the Religious Dimensions of the Message workbook. So we will not be covering the WHOLE book in this first course but the portion of it related to ordination requirements. Of course, candidates will be encourage to read all of the material but I will be more focused on preparing candidates in the most basic needs of the cherag in terms of outlook, orientation to the Message, etc.

On mondays we will introduce the question of the week and a list of related reading material as well as actually post most of it to the group. Then the rest of the week will be open discussion around the issues raised by the question and then toward the weekend everyone works out their answer. If anyone gets stuck on a certain part then we can come back to it toward the end of the 'semester'

Each semester will be 15 weeks long starting the first week in September with a break around Christmas.
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WHAT ARE THE TEXTS NEEDED

check out http://cheraglibrary.org/course/index.html the following is from the bottom of the "30 questions" page...

"The course includes a 240 page spiral bound workbook THE RELIGIOUS DIMENSIONS OF THE MESSAGE and a set of l0 cassette tapes. The cost is $80.00 including postage. You will also need a copy of The Unity of Religious Ideals Volume IX of the Sufi Message by Hazrat Inayat Khan which is the textbook for the course."

              ORDER FROM:

              Wisdom's Child
              256 Darrow Road
              New Lebanon, NY 12125 US
              (800) 443-7107, and fax number is (518) 794-8187.
              website@wisdomschild.com.

I have the workbook I don't have the tapes. The book: The Unity of Religious Ideals is online and I plan to post all of the relevant chapters to the group when needed in the course which we'll call CHERAG 101 AND CHERAG 102. If this works out well for everyone then we can go on to an ongoing program of courses so that cherags can continue in the training as a cherag called - 201, 202, 301, 302, 401, 402. Of course one never finishes the training as it is unlimited how far one can go in becoming adept in the Message.
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Hamid