Illumination & Everyday Life
Pir Vilayat’s 22nd Urs
June 17, 2026, 1:30 pm ET / 7:30 pm CET
Please join us for this special event, the 22nd anniversary of Pir Vilayat’s passing from this world, on Wednesday, June 17, 2026. Our theme is Illumination & Everyday Life.
How does the light glimpsed in meditation find its way into our daily lives? During this gathering, members of the Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan Archive Team will share newly digitized video recordings and images from the archive, illustrating Pir Vilayat’s lifelong emphasis on bringing the fruits of spiritual realization into ordinary, lived experience. Saki Lee and Amida Cary will offer personal reflections and memories. Pir Zia will then guide us in a teaching and meditation on this theme. As a global community, we will gather in the luminous presence that Pir Vilayat continues to radiate.
This event will be simultaneously interpreted in French and German.
This is a free, commemorative, meditative experience open to everyone. Please contact us with any questions about Pir Vilayat’s Urs at astana@inayatiyya.org.
Speakers
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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 author of Tears from the Mother of the Sun with visual artist Amruta Patil, Immortality: A Traveler’s Guide; Mingled Waters: Sufism and the Mystical Unity of Religions; and Saracen Chivalry: Counsels on Valor, Generosity and the Mystical Quest. Pir Zia divides his time between Richmond, Virginia and Suresnes, France. -
Amida CaryAmida Cary is co-Madar-ul-Muham of the Inner School of the Inayatiyya in North America and Oceania. She was first initiated in 1975, and studied deeply with Pir Vilayat until his passing and now supports Pir Zia and his work. She has presented several teaching and training programs in the Inayatiyya Inner School in person and online. Amida directs the Inayatiyya’s Retreat Concentration and Retreat Guide Training Program. In that capacity she works with an international network of experienced retreat guides and mentors. She has served in many capacities within the Inayatiyya over the 50 years, including as a founder of Suluk Academy. Currently she is designing programs for Coordinator and Representative training, and for the Sophic Whorl/Spagyric Gyre as retreat. Her professional background is in education. She has taught in progressive independent schools in Maryland and California. She now lives in the high southwestern desert, in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
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Saki LeeSaki Lee is a senior teacher and guide in the Inayatiyya and is a long time practitioner and wellness coach in East Asian medicine. Sacred music is her joy and delight, and she is a dance leader and mentor for the Dances of Universal Peace. In the Netherlands she co-hosts regular Music of Life programs featuring world music concerts as a way to inspire and awaken awareness of humankind’s oneness beyond boundaries of race, culture and religion.
