Dear friends,
Our Sufi brother Sardar Thanhauser had his wedding with the Beloved yesterday morning. Sardar was one of the founders of the Abode. He built Pir Vilayat’s Pod and helped set up the original campsite on the mountain at the Abode. In 1978 Pir Vilayat sent him and his wife to Unadilla as center leaders to help that struggling community. Fifteen years ago he moved with his wife April to the Vinyard where he enjoyed fishing from a boat he owned.
He passed after several years of illness, making a good transition according to his wife.
This news was given to me by Maharaji Hess who says there are many among you who knew him.
May his soul go forward in peace.
Blessings, Hassan Suhrawardi
My earliest memory of Sardar was when he was the “Works Commissioner” in the early days at the Abode. After breakfast he would make the announcement to circle up, and would let everyone know the days activities….he had a good heart, a loud voice, which may have covered a shy disposition, and he was very straightforward about getting stuff done!
After he left the Abode, I once visited him and April at their place in Vermont, where he had built a water wheel in the river to create electricity which he then sold to the local electricity co. I was very impressed by his skill and capacity to plan and organize
Sardar was an eccentric, unpredictable, unlikely person to be at The Abode, but there is where we met. Pir Vilayat once told me privately that he loved him very much. Always pushing limits, willing to attempt even dangerous experiments, he was a being who would not be ignored. On the one hand gentle and gentlemanly, with sparkling dark eyes, on the other hand imperious and difficult. When he entered a room, heads would turn, There was just something about him. Unforgettable.