Rani serves as a Murshida in the Sufi lineage of Hazrat Inayat Khan. She has been teaching Sufi classes, and offering meditation, and individual spiritual guidance since 1992. She has given lectures at the Universelle of the International Sufi Movement in Katwijk, Holland, and published articles in the International Sufi journal Toward the One, including “The Veil of Beauty” and “The Shadow of the Beloved.” You can find some of her sermons and lectures on this website.
Murshida Rani Kathleen McLaughlin was a Professor of World Religions at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon from 1970 – 1987. During these years, she had the opportunity to study the major religions of the world, and was continually struck by the similarities of the mystical teachings and the universal themes in symbols and myths, despite theological and historical differences in the world’s religions. When she found the writings of Pir-o-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan, she was amazed to see his teachings on the Unity of Religious Ideals and the Divinity of the Human Soul. But unlike the academic context of her studies, Inayat Khan also taught spiritual meditations, reflections, and practices to help people realize the Truth in their own experience.
Having traveled to India, and intensively studied Hindu and Buddhist meditation, she decided to leave academic life, and to study Western psychology as thoroughly as she had studied Eastern psychology. She was interested in how people actually lived their beliefs, and the ways in which Western people developed psychological problems when they took up Eastern spiritual practices. Since 1990 she has worked as a psychotherapist and psychoanalyst in private practice in Portland, Oregon.
Having met Murshid Hidayat in the 1970s, Murshida Rani was inspired by his vision for the Federation of the Sufi Message. She worked with him for over twenty years to open communication between the organizations that had broken from the organization of the Sufi Movement. She served on the Federation Council, working to further cooperation between the organizations which take the Sufi Message of Pir-o-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan as their inspiration. She has participated in the Reconciliation meetings between the International Sufi Movement and the Sufi Order International, contributing to the actualization of the Unity of Religious Ideals.
Murshida Rani has held many positions within the International Sufi Movement. She has retired from these positions, and now focuses on the Sufi Activity of spreading the Message to bring harmony and healing to our world, as well as teaching the esoteric practices of the Inner School.
Explore Murshida Rani’s sermons here and latest blog posts here.