The Zephyr, September 2024

18 September 2024

Dear Companions on the Path,

Greetings! I hope this finds you very well.

Here in the northern hemisphere, summer is now reaching its end. The last year has been, in many ways, the best of times and the worst of times.

The immense loss of life, displacement of people, and widespread suffering in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan have shaken the conscience of the world. In our community, the prayer of Amaan, offered up for those under falling bombs, remains a daily focus.

At the same time, it has been a year of tremendous outpourings of healing, blessing, and guidance from the depths of being. The Diwan* is very active, and a great wave of compassion, encouragement, and illumination is coming through.

Of course, the work of the Diwan requires the alignment and participation of incarnate human beings such as ourselves. In the Inayatiyya, our reason for being is to align ourselves, individually and collectively, to the Great Work that encompasses the whole world in love and service as an act of worship of the One-in-All.

To live only for oneself is to skim the Earth’s crust. To extend help to friends and compatriots is to walk in the winding caverns of the Earth’s mantle. To devote oneself to the service of all beings in the name of the Deity is to arrive at Earth’s white-hot core.

For me, it has been a summer of travels. First there was a gathering at Omega Institute, after which Pirani Sartaj and I crossed the Atlantic to take part in the Summer School in Suresnes. Right after that we joined the Turkish Inayatiyya community for a pilgrimage to Şanliurfa, where the cave of Abraham (peace be upon him) lies just a few miles away from the oldest known human settlements in the world, Karahan Tepe and Göbekli Tepe. The statuary of these sites reveals spiritual connections between human and animal souls in the tradition of the antediluvian prophet Enoch.

We then proceeded to Germany for Zenith Camp at the flourishing Caduceus Centre in Bad Bevensen. This was followed by a weekend gathering at the historic Murad Hassil temple beside the North Sea in Katwijk, following which I was able to spend a day in the Sufi museum archive in Den Hague. Last week we had a weekend gathering with the French community at Fazal Manzil, and now I am in Germany on a book tour celebrating the newly-published German edition of Pirzadi-Shahida Noor’s Dream Flowers.

Once back in Suresnes I will join the Lulu wa Marjan Suluk class for their sixth online session. Then it will be time to return to Richmond for a three-month stay. Vol. Six of the Centennial Edition of The Sufi Message is now out, and I look forward to being with many of you in the upcoming online series exploring it: The Alchemy of Happiness.

May the sun of joy illumine your days and may the moon of peace illumine your nights.

Yours ever,
Pir Zia

*The league of beings on multiple planes devoted to protecting and guiding the Earth in the name of the One.

The Alchemy of Happiness—Part I
A Six-Part Course w/ Pir Zia Inayat Khan via Zoom

This fall we turn toward what it means to create happiness in life. Over six weeks, Pir Zia will guide us through our own inner happiness landscape, providing simple yet profound teachings from the work of the Sufi mystic, Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882-1927). We will explore themes such as cultivating purpose, developing a positive attitude, dealing with life’s struggles, tempering our reactions, and how to find meaning—all leading to greater contentment and happiness. More details and registration.

Prophets of Our Being
The Illuminated Souls in World History and Inner Experience
With Pir Zia Inayat Khan, Marcia Hermansen, Omid Safi & Deepa Gulrukh Patel

This program is specifically designed for Inayatiyya Inner School Leaders, Universal Worship Cherags & clergy of all faiths, Suluk graduates, scholars, and all those drawn to exploring the esoteric dimensions of the inner life. 

Please join Pir Zia with special guest teachers Omid Safi and Marcia Hermansen in the second installment of our Inner History series where we will survey the seeds planted by illuminated prophets and sages in many parts of the world from the Copper Age to Late Antiquity. We will discern the hand of the Spirit of Guidance in the world’s history, and see how our own awakening is an outgrowth of the revelations brought through the trailblazers of the human journey to the Infinite. More details and registration.

Inayatiyya International Board
News for September 2024

As the Inayatiyya International Board, we have some news to share with you about organizational leadership changes in the UK. Read more…

News from the Caravan

We are launching a new section of the Zephyr to share news about recent passings into and out of this earthly realm. If you have any news to share, specifically about births and deaths, please send it to astana@inayatiyya.org with the subject heading “For the Zephyr”. Photos are welcome. To initiate a remembrance page for a murid who has passed contact sufiremembrance@sonic.net.

To visit the remembrance site where you will find remembrance pages for more than 150 Inayatiyya murids, please go to sufiremembrance.net.

This month we remember Shafia Val Tuwhare Cooksley from New Zealand and Idris Felix Baritsch from Germany.

The Zephyr is a monthly newsletter of the Inayatiyya, an interfaith mystical fellowship with branches worldwide. For more information, please visit us at inayatiyya.org.