Bay Area Sufi Order

The Sufi View

Behind every religion is the same impulse and desire for the sacred. For many religions, this desire has manifested through a messenger who brought a message suitable for that historical period. The message is always the reality of the Divine, and the reality of the sacred nature of life. For the Sufi, the response to this message is to awaken to the divinity within each person.

The Sufi Path

The path of the Sufi is the path of the heart toward 'the perfection of Love, Harmony, and Beauty'. It is the mystical path of love in which God or Truth is experienced as the Beloved and the heart is turned toward the object of its love and immersed. The goal on the path is the fulfillment of one's life purpose - illumination.

Sufism is a spiritual discipline in the esoteric tradition, not a religion. Seekers can explore the offerings of the Sufi Order International (SOI). Those who choose can receive initiation with the consent of a guide trained in the Esoteric School of the SOI. Initiates are encouraged to establish a relationship with the guide in order to further their spiritual development. The aim of this guidance is to deepen spiritual attunement, provide for the evolution of the soul of the seeker, and encourage development of a sensitivity to the spirit of guidance from within - the inner guide.

The Sufi Order community

Members of the Sufi Order International enjoy a spiritual community that participates in classes and events at a local level as well as larger events held across the country and internationally by senior teachers in the Order. For more intense study, there is Suluk Academy - a four year school of esoteric studies founded in 2003. Group and individual retreats led by qualified retreat guides are also available to members of the community . The Order is linked to other spiritual communities in other lineages that flow from Hazrat Inayat Khan including the Sufi Movement and the Sufi Ruhaniat, as well as communities in other traditions.

Common Ground

Our founder, Hazrat Inayat Khan, formulated what is referred to as Universal Sufism - a school of inner work. Rooted in the esoteric tradition, this school comprehends the essential unity of the great religions of the world, conceiving of them as having sprung from the same source in different periods of time but involving one 'spirit of guidance'. Some of the ideals of Universal Sufism are expressed in his Ten Sufi Thoughts concerning the inner life:

• There is One God, the Eternal, the Only Being; none exists save He.
• There is One Master, the Guiding Spirit of all Souls, Who constantly leads His followers towards the light.
• There is One Holy Book, the sacred manuscript of nature, the only scripture which can enlighten the reader.
• There is One Religion, the unswerving progress in the right direction towards the ideal, which fulfills the life's purpose of every soul.
• There is One Law, the law of reciprocity, which can be observed by a selfless conscience, together with a sense of awakened justice.
• There is One Brotherhood, the human brotherhood which unites the children of earth indiscriminately in the Brotherhood of God.
• There is One Moral, the love which springs forth from self-denial and blooms in deeds of beneficence.
• There is One Object of Praise, the beauty which uplifts the heart of its worshippers through all aspects from the seen to the unseen.
• There is One Truth, the true knowledge of our being, within and without, which is the essence of all wisdom.
• There is One Path, the annihilation of the false ego in the real, which raises the mortal to immortality, in which resides all perfection.

Universal Worship Service

Unique to the lineage of Hazrat Inayat Khan is the central concept of a Universal Worship Service. In this service, readings are taken from the great religions of the world including the religions of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Zoroastrianism. Candles are kindled in honor of each religion with one central candle for the 'spirit of guidance' common to all religions. Additional traditions that have been recognized include the Native American tradition and the eternal feminine, as well as "all those traditions, whether known or unknown, which have held aloft the light of truth amidst the darkness of human ignorance." The profound message of the Service is the unity of religions and religious ideals.

Sufi Order International Activities

Sufi Order activities are contained in five concentrations:

• The Esoteric School provides the training for guides as well as the framework for the relationship between the initiate and the guide.
• The Healing Order has as its focus healing through attunement, prayer, breath, and concentration.
• The Ziraat concentration focuses on the relationship between the "inner work of spiritual realization and stewardship and reverence for life" using the metaphor of farming.

• The Universal Worship is the religious activity of the Sufi Order. It is the concentration that ordains ministers.
• The Kinship activity promotes kinship within the Order as well as outside in the larger community.

Our Origin

Hazrat Inayat Khan was born into the famous musical family of Maula Bakhsh of Baroda (now Vadodara in the modern Indian state of Gujarat). He became a consummate Vina player and singer, touring in the courts of the Rajas, and was chosen as "Tansen" by the Nizam of Hyderabad at a young age in honor of the most renown singer in all of India in a past age.

He became an avid reader of lives of the prophets and seers of different religions, beginning his spiritual search in earnest. He was inspired at the tomb of Mu'in al-din Chishti, a 12th-century Sufi saint, by an extraordinary peace and calm and was called to follow the Sufi path. Looking for a guide, he met a famed Sufi teacher, Abu Hashim Madani, who recognized him as a seeker of the highest order, initiating him into the Chishti order. Over the next several years, he underwent training in the teachings of that order as well as the other three main Sufi lineages in India - the Qadiri, Naqshabandi, and Suhrawardi orders.

Before his death, his teacher exhorted Hazrat Inayat Khan to "Fare forth into the world, my child, and harmonize the East and West. Spread the wisdom of Sufism abroad." He responded by touring first in America in 1910 where he gave performances of Eastern music as well as lectures on a world view which emphasizes the fundamental oneness of all religions, which he later identified as Sufism. During that period he met and interacted with organizations such as the Theosophical Society, which published his work A Sufi Message of Spiritual Liberty in 1914, as well as business luminaries such as Henry Ford.

With his family he took up residence in England during the war where he began to give classes and take on pupils. After the war, in 1922, he settled in Suresnes, France, just outside of Paris. There he lectured during the summer and toured at other times. His lectures and other written works were later collected initially into 13 volumes including such titles as: The Unity of Religious Ideals, The Mysticism of Sound and Music, and The Soul Whence and Whither. It was at this time that he also elaborated the concept of the Universal Worship.

He departed this world on February 5, 1927 at a lodge on the banks of the Yamuna River in India. He was survived by his wife and four children including Vilayat, who became the successor and eventual head of the Sufi Order International.

Our Lineage

Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan

Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan was born on June 19, 1916 in London, spending most of his early years in England and, after the war, in France. He studied psychology at the Sorbonne, philosophy at Oxford University, and musical composition and the cello at the Ecole Normal de Musique de Paris.

Pir Vilayat subsequently underwent rigorous training in meditation in India, also pursuing spiritual training from Hindu rishi masters, as well as other contemplatives in the Buddhist, Christian, and Muslim traditions. At that time, he also received extensive training in the teachings of the Sufi lineage in India, and was confirmed as a Pir (master, head of an order), becoming head of the International Order of the Sufis in 1956.

He brought an understanding of current psychology and science to bear on Sufi practices and meditation techniques, providing a modern context for the established teachings. Harmonizing East and West in the spirit of his father, he published his fourth book, Introducing Spirituality into Counseling and Psychotherapy, in 1982.

In 1975, he founded the Abode of the Message, a spiritual community and current center of the Sufi Order, in upstate New York. In 1977 he co-founded the Omega Institute, currently the largest holistic learning center in the U.S.

Starting in 1965, he assembled a yearly Congress of Religions outside of Paris to foster a greater understanding of the viewpoints of the different traditions. His efforts were recognized in 2004 as the recipient of the international Juliet Hollister Award for creating interfaith dialogue whose previous recipients include Nelson Mandela, and the Dalai Lama.

Fluent in five languages and an accomplished cellist, he was also the author of six books on spirituality, including Toward the One, an introduction to spiritual traditions and practices. He was also a lover of eagles, maintaining for some time an aerie at the family home in Suresnes, France, where he departed this world on June 17, 2004

Pir Zia Inayat Khan

Pir Zia Inayat Khan is the son of and successor to Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, and is the current head of the Sufi Order International. He received training from his father in universal mysticism as well as the classical Sufi teachings of the Order. In addition, he studied Buddhism under the auspices of His Holiness the Dalai Lama while living in Dharamsala, India.

Pir Zia continues the tradition of Universal Sufism (the unity of all peoples and religions), with an additional emphasis on incorporating both the esoteric heritage of classical Indian Sufism as well as contemporary ecological concerns.

In 2003, he established the Suluk Academy in upstate New York, a four year school of esoteric studies guided by the spiritual legacy of Hazrat Inayat Khan. He also founded Elixir, a quarterly magazine focused on "Consciousness, Conscience, and Culture", and is the author of A Pearl in Wine - a retrospective of the life and work of Hazrat Inayat Khan.

Having completed his Ph.D. in religion at Duke University, Pir Zia now lives with his wife and children at the The Abode of the Message in upstate New York.