August 2019

Dear Friends,

Late summer greetings to you!

My family and I—minus Rasulan, who is doing an internship in San Francisco—have just reached Suresnes from Switzerland, where we took part in the Zenith Camp over the last two weeks.

The first week at Zenith was dedicated to the numinosity and resilience of the human body, and its constant give-and-take with the living world around us. My teaching partner was Zuleikha, whom many of you know. She is an amazing dancer, singer, zakira, and enlivener of weary bodies. If you don’t know her work, I encourage you to look her up here.

The second week at Camp consisted of a silent retreat. Other than the guided meditations, the silence of our gathering was punctuated only by songs on ney, oud, and voice, extracts from the sacred music of the world, the chirpings of birds, the flutterings of tent flaps, and the continuous murmur of the mountain stream below.

On the way from the Camp to Fazal Manzil my family and I stopped near Lausanne to meet Henriette Blanc. We also made a brief pilgrimage to Mont Blanc, which holds for me the memory of my father’s mountain cave, and the retreat we took together there long ago.

As a child, Henriette Blanc lived in Suresnes and attended Sufi classes taught by Pirzadi-Shahida Noor at Fazal Manzil. As we sat together in Mme. Blanc’s charming apartment overlooking Lake Geneva, she lucidly recalled the old days, and how Noor had instilled in her an abiding respect for all religions. Mme. Blanc graciously consented to be recorded, and two small clips of our conversation can be found here and here.

Here at Fazal Manzil, workers are energetically renovating the first floor of the house. For the moment, the Oriental Room and adjacent salon are bare of furniture and draped in plastic sheets. When the work is done, the original screens and chairs will go back in the Oriental Room, and the room will resume its character as a place of pilgrimage and meditation. The salon opposite will become a museum to the memory of Murshid and his family and successors. All will be welcome to visit.

Yours ever,

Bawa

Season of the Rose: Essentials of the Sufi Path
Portland, Oregon 26 June – 01 July 2019

See our Photo Album of this Year’s Summer School

One of Pir-o-Murshid’s closest murids, Nekbakht Sakina Furnée, began the Nekbakht Foundation to care for Murshid’s archives and to encourage the creation of publications from his teachings. Every quarter the Nekbakht Foundation publishes a newsletter and we are sharing the summer edition with you here. You may find additional information on the Nekbakht Foundation at www.nekbakhtfoundation.org.

Vadan Commentary

Music of the Spheres: Gamaka Commentaries, Vadan

“None need I remove to place another in my heart; My heart is large enough to accommodate each and all.”

The heart is the container in the mind in which others find a place within the self. The more malleable the heart, the more numerous the presences it can contain. A rigid heart can hold only so much, and is prone to crack when stretched, whereas a flexible heart can expand to encompass multitudes. Continued

See the full commentary on the Inayati Order website.

Pir Zia’s Summer & Fall Calendar 2019

Pir Zia Seminar in The Netherlands
Katwijk aan Zee, The Netherlands
23-25 August 2019

Alone with the Alone: A Silent Retreat w/ Pir Zia Inayat-Khan
The Abode of the Message, New Lebanon, New York
Labor Day Weekend, 30 August – 2 September 2019

Rumi’s 812th Birthday Celebration with Special Guest Shaykha Nur Artiran
The Astana & Online, Richmond, Virginia
26-29 September 2019

Pir Zia Seminar in Paris
Paris, France
22-24 November 2019

For a worldwide calendar featuring many Inayati Order teachers and programs, please visit our Inayati Worldwide Programs Calendar.