Nature Meditations
Nature Meditations
Hazrat Inayat Khan’s Ensouled Cosmology
Our Fall Series runs Sunday, September 19th, through Sunday, December 19th.
To the eye of the seer every leaf of the tree is a page of the holy book that contains divine revelation. – Hazrat Inayat Khan
In 1921 the first ever Sufi Summer School was convened in Wissous, France, under the guidance of Hazrat Inayat Khan. During that revelatory idyll, Hazrat dictated a series of contemplative sayings under the heading of Nature Meditations.
Each saying is given as a fikr, a thought to be carried within the swing of the breath. By means of these sayings, the contemplative enters into a mystical communion with the seasons, the elements, plants and animals, colors, the geometry of creation, and various aspects of the human condition in its primordial wholeness.
A hundred years have since passed, and still Hazrat’s Nature Meditations carry an undeniable inspirational power: they still bring to life a vivid and transformative link between person and planet. But the planet has changed around us dramatically, and we are the reason.
What does it mean to reconnect with nature in a world on fire? How can a rediscovery of the soul of the world heal us and reforest the wasteland we have wrought?
Nature still harbors profound reservoirs of renewal, as do we ourselves. Our intention in this series of gatherings is to preserve and cultivate the holy wells by which life is made green.
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Please see our list of Nature Meditations Faculty and Musical Guests.
All are welcome to our Nature Meditations series. While this class is open, if you feel so called, we invite you to give a donation via our website. Thank you!
Recommended Reading
Nature Meditations by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Poetical sayings in which the whole range of human emotion is experienced through trees, flowers, fire, water, animals, sky, and other elements of the natural world. This pocket-sized book also includes Inayat Khan’s instructions for using the phrases in meditation and prayer, as well as the esoteric use of colors and flowers in healing.
“Anyone who has some knowledge of mysticism and of the lives of the mystics knows that what always attracts the mystic most is nature. Nature is his bread and wine; nature is his soul’s nourishment; nature inspires him, uplifts him, and gives him the solitude for which his soul continually longs.” – Hazrat Inayat Khan
Speaker
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Pir Zia Inayat KhanPir 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 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
