The School of Love

The essence of Sufism is the creed of the heart, or the "School of Love"  ( mazhab-i 'ishq).  The cornerstone of this school is the insight that the Universe is a phenomenon of love, the ripest fruit of which is the human heart.  In this talk, Pir Zia Inayat-Khan will explore the individual and collective implications of the spiritual cultivation of the heart.

Spiritual Maturity and Service

At the beginning of the path the Beloved looks into our heart and ignites the fire of longing, the pain of separation that draws the lover back to God. Through this longing we are taken into the mystery of mystical love, the way God reveals divine presence within the heart. We are taken by love to love.

The Endless Flow of Life

It is told that Tupala was a great king who was devoted to his subjects, generous towards the brahmins, gentle with children, respectful of wise men and wisdom, and who followed the rules of good governance. On one hunting night, leaving his retinue far behind, he ventured far and deep into the forest and lost his way.

Compass of Truth

The execution of the Mughal crown prince Dara Shikuh by order of his brother Aurangzib was a crime that sent ripples down through the ages. A religious pluralist with a deep commitment to mystical hermeneutics, Dara Shikuh had the makings of a brilliant ‘philosopher king.’ His religious, cultural, and political outlook was profoundly imbued with the legacy of his great-grandfather Akbar, who elevated the Mughal Empire to the status of a premodern superpower by uniting Hindus and Muslims under the principle of sulh-i kull, ‘universal peace.’ As heir apparent, Dara Shikuh awaited the day when he would mount the Peacock Throne and revive Akbar’s syncretic vision.

Recent Readings

From Shamanism to Religion

When I was living in Toronto in the late sixties and early seventies, I had the good fortune to go to the University of Toronto’s Coach House where Marshall McLuhan performed for one evening a week. I say “performed” because McLuhan was a brilliant aphorist and artistic master of what he called “probes”—a kind of blast-off into outer space that most academics could not manage, and one that gave us a new look back at life on Earth.

The Wall

In deep meditation I come to a wall. I know this wall. I have seen it many times before in meditation and waking visions. It is a high brick wall. I know what is on the other side of the wall: a world of light. But there is no way through; there is no doorway, no ladder, no break in the wall. When I come to the wall I walk along it, and then I have to turn away, back to the narrow streets of this world.

The Odor of the Gods

Smell is the oldest, most magical sense. In 'In Search of Past Time,' Proust tells how, returning home for a visit one cold winter’s day, his mother offered him a cup of lime blossom tea with some plump little cakes, called “madeleines,” molded in the fluted valve of a scallop shell. At first, he declined, but then, for no particular reason, he accepted. As the lime-tea-soaked crumbs touched his palate, a strange emotion overcame him. The world stopped, and an exquisite, transcendent pleasure, like the effect of love, filling him with joy, suffused his senses.

Reflections on the Life of a Mystic

When I first met my teacher, Irina Tweedie, I sat in her small room, looked into her blue eyes and I knew that she knew. From that moment, without knowing why, more than anything, I wanted what she had. Much later I understood this as the knowledge that can only come from direct inner experience, which for the Sufi is imaged as Khidr. Khidr is the most important Sufi figure, the archetype of direct revelation.

Dispelling Ignorance and Developing Harmony

What ignorance are we addressing here? I am considering ignorance here from the point of view of a westerner. We live in the global village, we share the same roof, we are interdependent and co-responsible for care of the Earth. And yet, we still think of ourselves, and our religion, as separate, distinct, and unique.

The Practice of Presence, Part One

The practice of presence is no easy task and, spiritually, it is perhaps the most elusive of all practices. Imagine for a moment being fully present to yourself and to your situation. That is, imagine being fully aware of all that passes through and within you and also simultaneously aware of all that impacts you from the surrounding environment—people, places, atmosphere, sensory sensations, integrated with inner thoughts, feelings, memories, and bodily reactions.

Thoreau, Mystic of Walden and Beyond

Review of Letters to a Spiritual Seeker by Henry David Thoreau, edited by Bradley P. Dean, New York: W.W. Norton, 2004, 192 pp. In this essay, Coleman Barks, today’s leading ‘Voice of Rumi’ in the ‘West’, writes eloquently about Thoreau, as a great American mystic of the 19th century who is, sadly, often a mere historical footnote in a high school or college undergraduate course. More than a meditative man watching the intricacies of life of Walden’s frogs and ducks, more than a fierce proponent of civil disobedience, more than the occasional harborer of runaway slaves, as his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson put it:“ He [Thoreau] had a great contempt for those who made no effort to gauge accurately their own powers and weaknesses, and by no means spared himself, of whom he said that a man gathers materials to erect a palace, and finally concludes to build a shantee [shanty] with them.”* 

Honoring the Founding of the Chartres School

Early in the second millennium, the Chartres school was a center for healing, arts, the honoring of the earth and the Divine Feminine Principle, as well as for the use of alchemy as a tool for personal transformation, and for the revolutionary perspectives of world citizenship and interconnectedness. As author Jim Garrison writes, our work in the present age is “to reclaim our wholeness and to reconnect with those great educators of the past who understood that art is as important as logic, that personal transformation is as important as belief, and that feeling one with the cosmos is as important as having dominion over nature.” The school at Chartres thus is both a precursor and an inspiration for Seven Pillars House of Wisdom.

Meditation

A.E.'s The Candle of Vision is an eloquent poetic prose description of the author's personal experiences, his reveries and inner openings. A.E. uses a form of writing that directly reflects the quality of his inner mystical experience. His emphasis is on the imagination as reality and on the critical importance of the development of concentration. This piece was first published in 1928. We have chosen to maintain A.E.’s spelling and word usage although they may cause the reader to occasionally pause.

Sufi Dreamwork

There are many paths in which the dream is regarded as important. Some paths emphasize the practice of studying one’s dreams more intensely. The Naqshbandi Sufi path is among these, and Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee speaks eloquently of some of the benefits that may derive from this type of study.

The Garden Of Mysticism, Part I

The garden of mystical teachings has many flowers, each unique in beauty and each offering a nuance and variation on the possibilities of the mystical life. The flower that attracts, the specific form, delicacy, and brilliance of a particular blossom, indicates a path whose attributes are shared by other members of that species.

Accessing Prophetic Sources & Wisdom Traditions

Pir Zia discusses the need to access prophetic sources and wisdom traditions for the articulation of a forward-looking world culture. This talk was originally given at the Sufi Conference, held October 2008. For the full audio or set of DVDs related to this event, please visit http://www.suficonference.org/2008preorder.html and for the text of this discussion, please see http://www.sevenpillarshouse.org/article/a_forward_looking_world_culture

Taj Inayat on the Mystical Path

Taj Inayat, one of Seven Pillars' co-founders, shares a meaningful teaching from her early days on the spiritual path.

Invitation to Attend Seven Pillars’ Labor Day Gathering 2009

Seven Pillars will host Wisdom House Architectonics: Building a House with No Walls over Labor Day weekend, September 4-7, 2009, in New Lebanon, New York.

Gone to Earth and Sufism