American Queen Ora Ray Baker

True to its promise once again All Things That Matter Press has brought Ora Ray Baker on the stage of life in print form, ready to soar on screen of life in line of great American movies to be watched and cherished./The American Queen is the true life story of a young girl, Ora Ray Baker, born in Albuquerque, New Mexico. /She fell in love with an Indian mystic by the name of Hazrat Inayat Khan. /He was not only a mystic from India, but a Sufi Master and a great Musician. /He came to US with the intention of uniting the East with the West in God Realization./ Against the wishes of her stepbrother who was Ora Ray Baker’s ward, she decided to elope to Europe to marry Hazrat Inayat Khan who was traveling there to give lectures and concerts./ She met him in Belgium and they were married in London. /They lived in London and France for a while, and then went to Russia where their first daughter was born in Kremlin. /Soon the First World War started, so they had to leave Russia and came to London. /During the war two more children were born, both boys, and one girl after a year later. /After the WW1 they moved to France and settled there in a suburb called Suresnes. /When the children were little, Hazrat Inayat Khan traveled alone all over Europe and even returned to America for a few months to spread his Sufi Message of love, unity and harmony./ Ora Ray Baker lost her Love of Life in India when Hazrat Inayat Khan went there on a tour to give lectures on Sufism, their eldest daughter was barely thirteen year old at the death of her father./ Then began the lone journey for Ora Ray Baker with all the agony of loss and grief./ She lived through the ravages of WW11, her eldest daughter, Spy Princess, was arrested and killed in German Concentration Camps./ Finally four years after WW11 of much grief and sorrow, Ora Ray Baker died in France. /Her love, courage and perseverance still live on in Fazal Manzil in France, her home and shrine of Love, now a Sufi Retreat. / Ora Ray Baker/ Prologue:/ O Beloved, is my love so weak/ That it bringeth me not to Thee/ Then let me weep more and more each day/ Till by weeping, it strengthened be/ But when its strength be still too less/ And the fountain of tears run dry/ Tears of blood, let me weep, yea until/ By weeping for Thee, I may die/ Pirani/ Ora Ray Baker fated to fall in love with an Indian Mystic, not only became the Queen of Hazrat Inayat Khan’s heart, but the Queen of fortitude, devotion and endurance./ If not a saint, suffering tragedies countless, and persevering. /Finally, succumbing to death a few years after WW11 when she discovered that her daughter was killed by the Nazis in the concentration camps. Disregarding the discrepancies in Ora Ray Baker’s birth year and birth place, she was presumably born May 8, 1892 in Kansas or in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the latter place most favored by the researchers./ She herself wrote that her mother’s maiden name was Wyatt./Later she named her mother Margaret Hiatt, nicknamed Aletta whose father was born in Indiana. /Her mother Aletta came from Maryland—home of many Kemp family members. /Aletta had a twin sister named Alice. /Ora Ray Baker started writing poetry as a young girl and continued that practice on and off whenever inspired to express her joy or grief./ Conflicting reports of researchers show that Kemp family came from Bavaria. /One report reveals that throughout several generations between Johann Conrad Kaempff (Kemp) and Mary May Kemp (Ora Ray’s maternal grandmother) came from Germany or Switzerland. So Ora Ray’s heritage may consist of Swiss or German./ Erastus Warren Baker, Ora Ray’s father’s records show him to have been born in 1850 in Kentucky and his wife in Iowa./On Ora Ray’s marriage certificate in Year 1913 she wrote her father was a lawyer. /Ora Ray had a step brother from her father’s first marriage and when her own mother left her father, she was raised by her stepbrother, Pierre Bernard, a yoga teacher and a great musician./ Against the wishes of her stepbrother she married Hazrat Inayat Khan. /Endowed with poetic spirit and always hungering for crumbs of spirituality she rejected the conventional style of marriage in America which her brother wanted—to be a part of elite and wealthy circle of friends. /Instead she chose the life of mystery and mysticism with her Mystic husband, traveling in Europe and experiencing profound joy of love in marriage along with the profundity of music and Sufi teaching of her mystic husband./ It was the power of this love which made her withstand hosts of tragedies after the untimely death of Hazrat Inayat Khan./ Ora Ray Baker was titled Amina Begum after her marriage./ She was Hazrat Inayat Khan’s Sharda meaning goddess./ He also bestowed upon her the title of Pirani-PiRani meaning queen of Pir—spiritual guide and teacher./ The way of illumination/ Is the path that leads to God/ May ye seek that revelation/ Forever this pathway trod/ And behold the light eternal/ When the end is drawing nigh/ Its rays spread forth upon ye all/ As a crown to glorify/ Pirani