An Exploration of Eastern Literary Heritage in Carving Human Character from Traditional Ethical Ideals.

Pir Vilayat indicated through his aspiration ‘to build a beautiful world of beautiful people’, the value of spiritual seeking in the discovery of the ideals of Love, Harmony and Beauty within the self. Murshid Inayat Khan said, ‘“Personality is the development of individuality, and in personality, which is formed by character-building, is born that spirit which is the rebirth of the soul.” Jesus Christ said, “No one can see the Kingdom of God unless he is born again.”

Character building may be understood as the very substance of Sufism.

What lies beyond the quest of the limited ego-self is the heroic journey of the Soul to retrieve the lost treasure of Spiritual Perfection. From Classic Greek literature to Pre and Post-Modern writings we find a wide range of literary genres spawning over the horizon of human interest. 

With the dawning of the Age of Enlightenment came a demythologization of human civilizational heritage, but due to the intuitive and emotional imperative of humanity, the element of ineffability returned through Romanticism which was again taken over by Realism which later gave way to Surrealism and so on. 

We see this oscillation between Reason and Imagination creating and re-creating literary, artistic and philosophical ideas over centuries. In present times, the entire gamut of human civilization history in art and thought presents us with the challenge of resurrecting the Soul of Humanity from the ashes of its creative struggles. 

Our six-part Adab on the Sufi Path course introduces Indo-Persian Texts that will be the ground for our study of the Ethico-Spiritual Ideals that have shaped the Eastern Mind. Since Murshid’s mission as designated by his Spiritual Preceptor, Hazrat Abu Hashim Madani, was bringing the East and the West together, this is an effort to create the possibility of a psycho-spiritual symbiosis between the two. 

East shall meet West through the course offering insights into the Ideals of the Eastern Personality, and the feedback through inquiry and reflections from the students shall further the possibility of opening doors of perception hitherto closed for a beneficial marriage between two poles. 

Over the course of six weeks, we will experience:

• an introduction to Indo-Persian literature
• an appreciation of the place of Ethical Ideals in the Eastern Mind
• the development of a possible interface between Western and Eastern Ethical Models
• the view anew of the Oriental-Occidental debate within the collective search for a holistic hermeneutical approach
• the developing postmodernist paradigm of blurred definitions and lines of separation, to have the ability to hold opposite world-views together in the greater consciousness of coincidentia oppositorum, which is the ultimate stage of becoming in alchemy represented by conjunctio, the Complete Man in union with the All-Universe 

Our course is in six parts, running Mondays from March 14th, 2022 through April 18th, 2022 from 1-2:30 pm EST, 7-8:30 pm CET. Each session will include a presentation of the teachings and also discussion. Video will be made available each week throughout the course via Dropbox.

REGISTRATION DETAILS

The Adab on the Sufi Path course is cumulative, requiring advanced registration and participation in all six classes. Please note that registration will close after the start date. 

Suggested tuition is $48 ($8/class) and on a sliding scale. Audio & video will be provided as part of the series. 

Translation in Deutsch, French, and Turkish is available if noted in the registration process, by one week before the program start date. Please see the sidebar to register.

QUESTIONS?

If you have questions about our six-part course, please email astana@inayatiyya.org.