Birthdate: March 30, 1945 URS: October 16, 2024
| Thomas Atum O’Kane Thomas Atum O’Kane, Beloved Father, Teacher, and Soul Friend peacefully passed away surrounded by the love of his children on October 16th, 2024. The cause of death was complications from Crohn’s, an autoimmune disease. Atum was known for being joyfully alive and a lover of beauty, laughter, and life. He was a passionate advocate and a generous supporter of dreams. Atum was filled with deep gratitude, appreciation, and authenticity. A follower of calls and a teller of stories, he walked the world, and landscapes of the soul with heartfelt enthusiasm, compassion, and humility. “A larger life leads to a larger consciousness and a larger consciousness leads to a larger life.” This quote by Carl Jung was the mantra that reverberated through Atum. It framed and oversaw the larger unfolding design of his life. Atum overcame the confined trappings of a difficult childhood and lived an extraordinary life. After studying philosophy and drama at St Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, his journey into a larger life and spirituality started when he worked for VISTA to defer the draft during the Vietnam War. His work with VISTA led to him teaching 8th graders in the inner-city schools of Camden, New Jersey, and introducing drama into prisons in Kansas City. In his late twenties, a Yoga teacher and friend told him he needed to find a real spiritual teacher. This advice led to him attending a camp in the French Alps that profoundly changed his life. In the mountains of Chamonix, Atum met his first spiritual teacher, the Sufi master, Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan. This powerful meeting led to a decades-long mentoring relationship spanning many roles including Atum serving as the Secretary General of the Sufi / Inayati Order. Atum met his next root teacher and lifelong mentor Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi the founder of Jewish Renewal and Spiritual Eldering, in Philadelphia. Reb Zalman called Atum his chosen son and served on Atum’s Ph.D committee at Union Institute. Atum’s studies with the Quaker John Yungblut and the transpersonal psychologist Francis Vaughn, were also profoundly influential. A fortuitous private meeting with the highly realized Buddhist teacher H.H Dilgo Khyense Rinpoche at Shechen Monastery in Nepal opened a gateway to Buddhism that shaped many of Atum’s more recent teachings. After receiving an MA in Psychological Counseling from Goddard College while working in HR at a department store, and a Ph.D in Transpersonal Psychology while working for the Sufi Order, Atum devoted his life to teaching and being a spiritual guide. For over 40 years, he cultivated planetary consciousness as he taught programs, retreats, and pilgrimages in Bhutan, Brazil, Canada, Cambodia, Cuba, England, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, Nepal, New Zealand, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, USA, and Uzbekistan. His home base for these excursions was, in chronological order: Philadelphia; The Abode of the Message in upstate New York; Seattle; Sussex, England, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico; and Spokane. In 1999 Atum founded the Spiritual Guidance Wisdom School, an interfaith program drawing from the teachings of Carl G. Jung, Hazrat Inayat Khan, and Teilhard de Chardin, and influenced by the teachings of Francis Vaughn, Pir Vilayat Khan, Reb Zalman Schacter-Shalomi, and H.H. Dilgo Khyense Rinpoche and lessons from his personal relationships with them. In line with Atum’s synchronistic nature and his teachings on wholeness, he was born on March 30th, 1945, a full moon Good Friday (moon in Libra and sun in Aries). He passed away on October 16th, 2024, with a full moon (moon in Aries and sun in Libra). An abundance of love. Atum is survived by his four children, Chris, Emmanuel, Kyrian, and Rose, his former wife Mary, and the Spiritual Guidance Wisdom School Community. Submitted to the Spiritual Guidance Wisdom School by Emmanuel O’Kane |
Precious Atum… a true teacher. He gave light and availability through spiritual guidance and the essence of the Mystical Heart to all those whom he touched with his teachings for decades.
“Take time to be aimless. Be present to life. See what’s here! We have to leave space for life without agenda. Be alive in life with life!”
“ Do not hide your Light… Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.”
I will miss hearing his laugh. My heart will hold , with deepest Love and Gratitude, his open hearted gifts that he gave so very generously.
Ya Salaam
Stephani-lila
As a student of Atum, I remember him as a unique teacher with an astonishing mastery of language and oration. The rhythm of his speech and his unfaltering delivery was spell-binding. I remember Atum as a faithful student of his own teachers, from those who mentored him to those that sat next to him on a bus. He was an superbly skilful transmitter of the teachings that he received through his gift of story-telling.
One of the practices that I learned from Atum which I have used over and over is Ya Azim. He said it meant, “Oh how beautifully the Divine does flow in and through you.” I invite you to please stand, touch your heart, and then give a deep bow to this wonderful teacher.
Ya Azim! Atum O’Kane – how beautifully the Divine flowed in and through you.
I met Atum in the late 70s at the Abode. I moved to the Midwest and was happy to attend weekend retreats he had every January in Michigan. In 1998 I went to Turkey on a Sufi Pilgrimage with 25 folks from 9 countries and only 3 Americans. I do professional Sufi Storytelling and often start with my favorite Atum story of our souls at birth as beautiful crystals that fly out of our bodies and we spend our lives gathering them from wherever and who ever might have those pieces…There is another story of school children on a field trip getting excited when the panic stricken adult realizes the group she has missed the train and are lost but some children shout out with joy” We’re LOST!!”. Blessings dear one…
Shortly after arriving at the Abode in 1982, I walked into the
meditation hall for the evening program, kicked off my Birkenstocks,
leaving them at the door and hoping that I would be able to find them
amidst the jungle of sandals piled up there. I immediately felt the
rarified atmosphere. Sacred music was playing. Atum, his calm
countenance and centered peaceful energy, infused the space. He sat
upright with eyes closed in front of the altar cloaked with a golden
cloth, embroidered with the Sufi Heart and Wings and adorned with
candles and flowers. Above it, the stained-glass window with roses
glowed and the words of Hazrat Inayat Khan ¨Enter unhesitatingly
Beloved, for in this abode there is naught but my longing for Thee¨
were blessing us. Those, already gathered, sat on cushions, basking in
the ethereal attunement. I folded myself on my cushion, closed my eyes
and melted into this other worldly world.
Little did I know that this would be the beginning of a decades long
relationship that would be a fountain of nutrients, precious gifts
that I would receive from Atum, as my guide, my friend, and colleague.
As well as diving deeply into silence as possible to go, he also
soared to ecstatic heights. And he had the most delicious hearty
laugh! Atum had many special gifts, perhaps most special of all was
his intuitive knack of being deeply present with whoever he was
engaged with, of transmuting their nafs (their unresolved ‘stuff’),
and reflecting back to them their divine essence.
Atum came to the Abode with his family and worked at the Sufi Order
Office down the road in Lebanon Springs as the Secretary General of
the Sufi Order. Between his family, Pir Vilayat, and his duties at the
Sufi Order office, teaching and traveling, he had little time for
Abode community life. He would often be seen walking up and down
Shaker Road on his way to and from the office. My most special
memories of Atum are of his Easter Passover silent retreats. I
especially remember one in which we were greeted by angels disguised
as people, who washed our feet.
Atum created the curriculum for ordination as a Cherag, interfaith
minister. He offered a class to us Abodians, while others took the
class by mail. For me, the alchemical retreat process Pir Vilayat
created was the heart of the heart of the soul of the teachings. I was
blessed to take numbers of ten-day retreats with Atum as my guide. I
used to do the retreats in the old tree house someone had built. I am
smiling now as I write, as the sight of Atum climbing the rustic
ladder appears on my inner screen.
He was a devoted student of Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan and Rabbi Zalman
Schachter, the founder of Jewish Renewal and Spiritual Eldering.
Frances Vaughan, one of the developers of Transpersonal Psychology,
and Jungian Helen Luke were touchstones for him. And in recent years,
Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche was his guide.
Atum loved stories, stories of people he met on his travels, like the
man who shined shoes at the airport. He loved children´s stories and
collected wonderful children´s books to bring back to his children and
to read to us. One of his favorites was the Lupin Lady, who went
around planting lupins! Perhaps, Atum was like the lupin lady, sowing
seeds of consciousness in the Garden of Earth!
Atum, his family, and the Sufi Order moved to Seattle around 1987.
After some time, he resigned his position and started teaching
independently. Following in Pir Vilayat´s footsteps, he travelled
extensively leading pilgrimages to sacred spots around the globe and
offering extensive in-depth programs. The corner stone of his programs
is the Spiritual Guidance Training program that organically grew and
grew into an international community. He led over fifty pilgrimages to
Holy Sites throughout the world including Israel, Bhutan, Asissi,
India, and many more. Most recently he went to Uganda where his son,
Emanuel, was living doing AGO type work.
Sadly, when in Uganda, he got bitten by some lethal miniscule
creature. It looked like he was going to defeat the odds, but sadly,
after some months appearing to be recovering, it took his life. Having
just turned 79, he was otherwise in good health. Although threatening
to slow down per his doctor´s advice, he planned to continue teaching,
although with a less intensive travel teaching schedule. He passed
peacefully just this past October, 2024. He was surrounded by his four
children and dear friends.
Deeply Rooted, In the Present Moment,
Seeing With a Clear Open Spacious Mind, Beyond Doubt and Fear,
Abiding In the Luminous Heart of Equanimity,
The Way Unfolds Before Me. Atum