The Zephyr January 2018

New Year’s greetings! As we ring in the year 2018 and bid farewell to 2017, it’s a time to count our blessings and look toward the future with optimism.

For my family and the Inayati Order headquarters, the last year brought us a big transition. We moved from the quiet woodlands of the Northeast to the bustling Mid-Atlantic city of Richmond. It’s just as the Gayan says: In the country, we saw God’s glory, and now, in the city, we glorify God’s Name.

Looking back over the past year, I recall sparkling gatherings with many of you in various places in North America and Europe. The year’s highlights, for me, included the graduation of the Suluk Jabalqa class, Wisdom of the Prophets dialogues on Judaism and Christianity, Season of the Rose and Zenith Camp, and the retreats we had in Gersfeld, Istanbul, Suresnes, Rochester, and Tucson.

I look forward to the continuation of the caravan’s journey in the coming year, God willing. The second volume of the Centennial Edition of The Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan is with the printers as I write, and I plan to offer live-streamed commentaries on these teachings in the spring and fall. Leadership gatherings will take place in Suresnes and Richmond, and a new leaders’ training course will commence in June. A new Suluk course will begin in September. I am scheduled to offer retreats in Germany and Holland, and at the Abode over Labor Day weekend. In June we will celebrate Pir Vilayat’s ‘Urs at his Dargah in Delhi, followed by a Himalayan retreat. In July, there will be a retreat in Konya specifically for the Middle Eastern and South Asian Inayati community.

Meanwhile, the Astana continues to unfold, and I encourage you to visit when you can. You will find the calendar here: www.inayatiorder.org/astana. We hope, before long, to be able to livestream the Universal Worship and Gatha class on Sundays.

With deep thankfulness to the One for the grace of our companionship, I close with a New Year prayer from blessed Noor-un-Nisa:

A deeper wish, a wish more true
Than that I have in store for you
Indeed upon this earth is none
And ne’er can be a sweeter one
Little rays of dreams come true
Sunny skies forever blue
Happy hours of endless cheer
Maybe yours this coming year

Yours ever,

Sarafil Bawa

India Pilgrimage & Summer 2018

Sarafil Bawa and his family will travel to India this June for the 13th Urs of his father, Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan. You are invited to join in this special pilgrimage. The dates are June 15 to 25, including a retreat and trek in Gangotri. Please contactgulrukh@inayatiorder.org for details, which should be finalized this month.

Following India, Bawa will travel to Konya, the Swiss Alps, and the Netherlands. We will post additional details about related seminars and retreats in February. Please note that with Bawa traveling all summer, there will be no Season of the Rose in North America in 2018. We do plan to return to the United State’s West Coast in 2019, for this annual summer gathering.

Music of the Spheres: Gamaka Commentaries, Gayan

“Every soul stands before me as a world, and the light of my spirit falling upon it brings clearly to my view all it contains.”

Would there be a world if there were no witnesses? It is the perceiving of the world that makes it a world. And as there are many perceivers, there are, accordingly, many worlds.

Imagine a hermit’s dark cell. Light flashes in through two chinks in the roof. One beam has illumined a curl of smoke. The other transfixes a moth in flight.

Spirit is light. The soul is a portion of divided light. The mind is what is revealed in the beam of that portion.

Two minds may know one another, in some measure, by comparing their perceptions through conversation. But a soul knows another soul silently—by rising up to spirit and then, descending, alighting on it.

When the light of one soul irradiates another, it witnesses what the other’s mind contains. When love unites two souls in spirit, their lights converge in a double flame and two worlds become one.

See the full commentary on the Inayati Order website, and please check back for updates.

This coming September, we will launch a new Suluk class. While Bawa will be the sole teacher, he will be joined by three outstanding and experienced mentors, Nizam un Nisa, Raqib and Nirtana. You can learn more about each of them below, and we encourage you to consider applying for this upcoming class. Applications are due by February 1, 2018. See www.inayatiorder.org/suluk for details.

Ayeda Nizam un Nisa Husain is a Shaykha, Guide and Representative in the Inayati Order where she uses the teachings of Hazrat Inayat Khan to explain the poetry of Rumi, focusing on Sufism as a means of healing and evolving. A student of classical Chishti Sufism since 1988 and a devoted follower of the Inayati Order since 2004, she has led Inayati Order centers in Lahore, in Dubai and now in Oakville, Ontario where she lives. A graduate of the first European Suluk class and a Knight of Purity, Nizam-un-Nisa has led Sufi retreats, taught Sufi meditation to Buddhist monks in Tokyo and been invited to the UN as part of an international delegation of spiritual leaders. A journalist by profession, she is currently working on setting the Urdu poetry of Hazrat Inayat Khan to music.

Raqib Jonah Yakel was initiated into the Inayati Order by Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan in 2000. Raqib was an active member of the Baraka Center in Washington, DC, for several years and is a graduate of both the Suluk Academy (Gulzar ‘15) and the Raphaelite Program with Himayat Inayati. Currently residing in the Kansas City metro area with his wife and two children, Raqib leads a Sufi Center and holds an active role in the growth and unfoldment of the Inayati Order’s Kinship Activity. Professionally, Raqib is a chiropractor and functional medicine practitioner. He owns and operates Lifegate Health Center where he specializes in brain health and addiction empowering people to reclaim their health and wholeness allowing for the realization of greatness, the fulfillment of purpose, and the embodiment of peace, love, and joy in their lives.

Nirtana Gloria Deckro has been a traveler on the Sufi path for 35 years. She graduated Suluk in 2007 and then served as a mentor for the Alif and Andalib classes. Nirtana trained as a physician in England. After moving to Boston in 1982, marrying and starting a family, she spent eight years as Director of Training and Research for the Education Initiative of the Mind/Body Medical Institute. There she focused on training educators and health professionals in bringing meditation into work settings. Nirtana then built her own healing practice, offering meditation training and spiritual counseling for individuals and groups. Nirtana served on the Board of the Inayati Order from 2007 to 2011 and as Executive Director of the Order from 2011 to 2014. She currently lives with her husband in Sharon MA. They have two adult children.

Astana Upcoming Events

Please join us at the Astana in Richmond, Virginia, for an upcoming event! Bawa resumes his weekly Gatha Class + Suhbat today, January 7th, and Healing Service + Zikr on Wednesdays, beginning again the evening of January 10th.

Also, we are making plans for an Astana Open House on Saturday, February 24th. The scholars Bruce Lawrence and miriam cooke will be our special guests. We hope to offer a luncheon at 1 pm, followed by a talk at 2pm, suhbat, tea and sweets.

If you would like to come for the Open House, a class or a visit, please contact Khawar atastana@inayatiorder.org. We look forward to hosting you!

Additional information about the Astana, including a Calendar and Elist Sign-up, can be found at www.inayatiorder.org/astana.

Over $130,000 was raised during our most recent appeal. This is an incredibly generous outpouring, which greatly helps us enhance our support to Inayati Order murids, leaders and new friends drawn to the teachings of Sufism. Now that things are settled in Richmond, we are making plans through 2020. What would you like to see us do? Please feel free to email Jennifer Alia Wittman, our Executive Director in North America, with ideas, and let’s see what we can unfold for Murshid’s legacy, together.

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