The Zephyr, March 2022

15 March 2022

Dear Companions on the Path,

As missiles explode, buildings collapse, and people flee in the millions, what can one say? What fitting words can be found in the face of the tragedies that have unfolded over the last decade in Syria, Darfur, Iraq, Yemen, Congo, Palestine, Lebanon, Somalia, Nigeria, South Sudan, Myanmar, Afghanistan, East Turkestan, and now Ukraine?

We may be confident that the souls of the slain will find peace in the hereafter, and callous warmongers will meet with a reckoning – and, ultimately, an awakening. But here and now, lives are being torn apart.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees delivers essential relief to refugees from Ukraine, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, and other nations in crisis. Supporting their work goes a long way in times like these.

Prayer is also vital. As we know, prayer is a door that opens out to the love and power of the One to Whom we belong. I encourage you to join in one or more of the prayer meetings convened by members of our worldwide community.

Ya Mu’min, Ya Muhaimin
O Faithful, O Protector
By Your Hand of Protection
May bodies and minds be saved from harm
May every danger be averted
May hardened hearts be softened
May hostilities cease
May the spirit of kinship flower
May enmity be abandoned
And may peace and freedom prevail in every land
Amin

Yours ever,
Pir Zia

The Sophic Whorl
A Seven-Part Series: Sundays, January 27th – April 10th, 2022
Details & Zoom Link

If you have yet to register for The Sophic Whorl, it is not too late! You can register anytime through Wednesday, April 6th and receive video from past classes. We hope to see you!

Kinship Circles – Explorations for Our Time
Living with Relevance w/ Joanna Macy
March 18th, 3pm EDT / 8pm CET
Details & Zoom Link

For this week’s Kinship Circle we have a very special guest, the scholar and conservationist Joanna Macy, to talk about how we can live our lives with relevance. Highly recommended for all of us!

The Inayatiyya’s Call of the Earth Initiative, galvanized by the climate needs of our collective moment, unites us all in spirit and action through the teachings of Hazrat Inayat Khan.

This month we hear from the Knighthood of Purity:

Sublime nature, my ears did not hear your music.
Your heart has heard it, your soul has danced to it.
– Nirtan, Tanas

Indigenous wisdom addresses nature as “all my relations.” What is our moral responsibility toward “all my relations?”

Murshid offers us a pathway for examining our morality in relation to another.

For those searching after truth, journeying through the spiritual path, this is the first thing to learn, to find out for themselves under all conditions in life what is good and what is bad, what is right and what is wrong, not from what they are taught or told, but from their own feeling, which can be perceived by a delicate sense of realizing through life what really gives comfort and what causes discomfort. – Gathas II, Everyday Life

What feels right and what feels wrong is determined by our conscience. The artificiality of our lives hides from us what truly gives comfort and ease of conscience. When we walk in nature, we can rise above artificiality by giving appreciative attention to what is around us. When we give “all my relations” our appreciative attention, we see its beauty and we feel a kinship. Our soul begins to dance. Then we can apply what Murshid next recommends for our journey on the moral path.

That which we seek in life we must give to another; if it is kindness, give it; if goodness, give it; if service, give it. The whole secret of happiness in life lies in this… as long as we look to another to make us happy, we keep expecting that which we ought ourselves to have given. Not till then do we know what justice is. – The Sufi Message, Vol VII, Mind, Human and Divine

Submitted by Suhrawardi Gebel, Chancellor, The Knighthood of Purity

The Zephyr is a monthly newsletter of Inayatiyya, an interfaith mystical fellowship with branches worldwide. We will soon share our Inayatiyya Digital Programs Calendar for Spring 2022. Please stay tuned for details.