In an Eastern Rose Garden—Part II
Teachings on Freedom, Democracy, and the Soul
w/ Pir Zia Inayat Khan
Sundays, February 22nd to March 15th, 2026
11:00 am – 12:30 pm ET / 5:00 – 6:30 pm CET via Zoom

“The birth of true democracy is in the spiritual ideal. As long as there is no spiritual light to guide one’s life, one does not know real democracy.” – Hazrat Inayat Khan, Volume VII, In an Eastern Rose Garden

All beings pursue freedom. Freedom is an essential quality of the soul, but too often, freedom is achieved at the expense of someone else. A truer freedom arises from the realization of interconnectedness.

This season we continue our exploration of the ideal of freedom. Over four weeks, Pir Zia Inayat Khan—scholar of religion, head of the Inayatiyya, and grandson of Hazrat Inayat Khan—will guide us through topics such as the power of breath, spiritual democracy, freedom of the soul, and the ideal life. His teachings draw from the simple yet profound writings of Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882–1927), a Sufi mystic who brought the universalist Sufi tradition to the West. Each session will close with spiritual practices to carry into the week ahead. 

This program is open to everyone. In an Eastern Rose Garden—Part II can be taken on its own, but if you would like access to the lectures and practices from Part I to deepen your experience, you can purchase the recording of Part I here.

Our companion text is In an Eastern Rose Garden, the seventh volume in the collected teachings of Hazrat Inayat Khan, available from Suluk Press.

Please join us in real time, via Zoom, the day of each class, or watch the video after. Pre-registration is required to receive the video. 

REGISTRATION DETAILS

General tuition is $48 ($12/class) with a limited income rate of $32 ($8/class) for the four-part series.

As part of your registration, you will receive the course video which will be posted within 24 hours of each class via Dropbox. The course is designed to be attended in its entirety. If you begin with us after the course starts, video from past classes will be made available to you.

If you have questions about the In an Eastern Rose Garden series, please  reach out to us at astana@inayatiyya.org.

BIOGRAPHY

Pir Zia Inayat Khan, PhD, is a scholar of religion and teacher of Sufism in the universalist Sufi lineage of his grandfather, Hazrat Inayat Khan. Pir Zia is president of the Inayatiyya and founder of Sulūk Academy, a school of Sufi contemplative study and practice. He is the author of Tears from the Mother of the Sun with the visual artist Amruta Patel; Immortality: A Traveler’s Guide; Mingled Waters: Sufism and the Mystical Unity of Religions; Saracen Chivalry: Counsels on Valor, Generosity and the Mystical Quest; and the editor and compiler of Dream Flowers: The Collected Works of Noor Inayat Khan, for which he also wrote the critical introduction. Pir Zia divides his time between Richmond, Virginia and Suresnes, France. inayatiyya.org

In An Eastern Rose Garden
by Pir-o-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan
Teachings on freedom and human wholeness.

“This seventh volume of the Centennial Edition of the Sufi Message series takes as its leading idea that of freedom. All beings pursue freedom since freedom is an essential quality of the soul. Too often, however, one person’s ostensible freedom is achieved at the expense of that of someone else. A truer freedom arises from the realization of interconnectedness.

In the end, In an Eastern Rose Garden is a book about human wholeness. Peace and creativity, freedom and friendship, aristocracy and democracy, the inner and the outer—in the reconciliation of each of these pairs of seeming contraries lies the realization of the purpose for which we were created.” —From the introduction by Pir Zia Inayat Khan

Available now from Suluk Press.