Obituary
Beloved Teacher +Yusa relocated to the immaterial plane during September 2002 at age 75. Now working from Sukhavati, Teacher +Yusa continues to inspire us.
Teacher +Yusa was born Yerem Nazaryan in 1927 or 1925 in the city of Konya, in Turkey.
His father was a Turkish national, a Sufi of the Mevlevi Order. His mother was from an Armenian Christian house, she had lost all her family in the genocide and had suffered much abuse at the hands of the conquerors because of her class, gender and religious background. She was rescued by her husband, who subsequently paid a great price of social outcast for that, and him being a mystic, a Sufi.
The Mevlevi Order was outlawed in Turkey in September 1925 by the new Turkish Republic. While still a baby, Teacher +Yusa’s parents moved to Kurdistan, who was friendlier to followers of the Way, and tolerated even Christians.
Teacher used to say, “I was raised on soul food: humility, simplicity, and compassion; with music, poetry, mysticism and a burning desire to find the unity in religions as dessert”.
As a young man and ardent student, he was ordained as Mar Yusa, in the Ancient Church of the East. He served in what is today Afghanistan, Pakistan and Kashmir. Ancient Church of the East, not a Christian movement but originating from the work of Lord Jesus and St. Thomas in Kashmir, was on its last leg because over many years already members and congregations capitulated to various Thomas Christian Churches under continuous pressure of Islamization and British imperialism fielding Christian doctrines.
+Yusa always had, it was said, “one foot in Sufism, one foot in the Church, his head in Wayism”. He grew up as a Wayist and even before ordination in the Church of the East was influential in Wayism of that area.
In the 1970s he became the head of the Wayist movement for the area from Baghdad all the way East to Calcutta. The Council then had Sufi, Christian, Shaivist, and Church of the East clergy in his Wayist Council.
Teacher +Yusa was notoriously media-shy. In 1972 (approximately) he was kidnapped by Muslim extremists in Kashmir to force the congregations to convert to Islam, an event that made the newspaper upon his release.
In old age, Teacher suffered from arthritis due to multiple wounds on bones sustained during years of religious persecution.
Beloved Teacher is remembered for many wonderful works, also for his restoration of Pneumatherapy, his lectures on Wayist Yogi Philosophy and as foremost Wayist teacher of the time. +Yusa was always firts a mystic, and taught from that base.
Teacher +Yusa served enclaves from Mumbai, north to Kafiristan and East to Shimla. He had a burning passion to recollect ancient Wayist teaching, keeping it pure. He gathered scholars from China, Aghanistan, Iran, Turkey and India to preserve the teaching.
In 1999, Teacher +Yusa ordained Teacher +Yajn to serve the Anglophone world and made it possible for him to gain training and teaching materials. Late in life, he championed the Anglophone version of the Eastern Bible.
We express our gratitude for the photos and historic snippets sent to us from teachers and devotees all over the eastern world.
The spirit of survival and renewal instilled in Wayism by Teacher +Yusa is very much alive today. It is safe to say that everything that today makes Wayism a known entity in the western awareness has its roots in the tremendous spirit instilled by our beloved Teacher +Yusa.