Online Zoom Forum: Hazrat Inayat Khan: The Spiritual, Artistic, and Social Vision in his Life and Work.
Date: Wednesday 12 March 2025.
Time: 7pm-9pm (UK time).
Description:
Format: There will be up to five talks, each of 12 minutes, followed by 20 minutes of discussion among the speakers and the chair, followed by Q & A.
Chair:
Sarida Brown:
Bio: Sarida Brown has been a teacher and guide in the Sufi Order/Inayatiyya since 1979. Having a special interest in healing, Pir Vilayat asked her to re-establish the Healing Order in Europe, which was her work from 1979 to 2021. Her Sufi journey includes being a guide and teacher in the Inner School; a teacher for three Suluk courses; offering courses throughout Europe; teaching in the Alps Camp since the 1980s. She founded, and for 20 years edited, Caduceus Journal, an international magazine uniting many traditions of healing, spirituality, psychotherapy, ecology and existential issues of our time. She is an acupuncturist and has extensive training in psychotherapy, in particular the BodySoul training of Jungian analyst, Marion Woodman. She is deeply interested in all aspects of spiritual eldering.
Speakers:
Dr Karin Jironet:
Title: Beyond the Rational Mind: Hazrat Inayat Khan and Carl Gustav Jung’s Artistic, Spiritual, and Psychological Visions of Consciousness.
Description: Hazrat Inayat Khan was born in 1882 in Baroda, India, into a family of renowned musicians. Rooted in the Sufi tradition, he viewed music not merely as an art but as a sacred bridge to the divine. In 1910, he left India to bring Sufism to the West, responding to a world on the brink of profound transformation.
The early 20th century was marked by a shifting zeitgeist—industrialization, scientific materialism, and the fragmentation of religious traditions had distanced humanity from the immediacy of spiritual experience. Yet, beneath the surface, there was a countercurrent: a deep yearning to reclaim mystery, reconnect with the unseen, and reintegrate the sacred into modern life.
Inayat Khan’s response was both timeless and radical. He taught that intuition, music, and devotion could elevate perception beyond the limits of ordinary awareness and into unity with the Supreme Being—the essence of the Self. His teachings, grounded in direct experience rather than doctrine, invited seekers to attune their inner lives to a greater reality and, in doing so, expand their capacity to know and be.
Carl Jung, born just seven years earlier, was shaped by the same cultural moment. While Inayat Khan transmitted a spiritual path through music and mystical practice, Jung sought to restore the symbolic dimension of life through depth psychology. He recognized that modern consciousness was cut off from its roots, and like Inayat Khan, he sought a way to bridge the personal and collective unconscious with the waking mind.
Their approaches converged in their deep reverence for the unseen, yet diverged in their methods and metaphysical assumptions. What can their visions offer us today, as we navigate a world still searching for meaning beyond the rational mind?
Bio: Dr Karin Jironet holds a Master's degree in Linguistics and Ethnology and a Bachelor's in Medical Science in Speech Pathology from Lund University, Sweden. She earned her PhD in Theology, specializing in the Psychology of Religion, at the University of Amsterdam and later published on Sufi mysticism as a postdoctoral researcher at Leiden University.
As a mentor to senior executives in leading global companies, she is deeply engaged in the art of dynamic organizational transformation and the possibilities of bold, modern leadership.
Trained as a Jungian psychoanalyst in Zurich, Karin explores the convergences and divergences between Jung’s notion of individuation and Hazrat Inayat Khan’s account of self-realization. How do these pathways illuminate the development of consciousness in today’s world? This question continues to shape her research, writing, and dialogue with fellow seekers across disciplines.
Wali van der Zwan:
Title: Towards the One, Towards Brother and Sisterhood.
Description: When Inayat Khan established the Sufi Movement in Geneva, 1923, he described three different pathways: the Inner School, the World Brotherhood, or – as we would say nowadays, the World Sister- and Brotherhood, and the Universal Worship. The last two are actually two different sides of the same medal, for these two branches of the ‘outer school’ aim to create understanding and tolerance between peoples (Brother- and Sisterhood) and between different religions (the Universal Worship). To support these two ‘rays’, he offered papers in the form of the Social and the Religious Gathekas and said that working on your character and personality was more important than being initiated. In his lecture, Wali van der Zwan will touch on different aspects of this side of Inayat Khan’s teaching.
Bio: Wali van der Zwan (1952) is a Dutch-born writer and musician. For over three decades, Wali and his partner Ariënne have been offering Sufi based workshops, training programs, and retreats under the umbrella of Peace in Motion (PIM).
Wali studied geology, philosophy of science, and sociology, and dropped out of university when asked to become manager of a theatre in his hometown Utrecht, the Netherlands. In the early 1990s, Wali started a new career as a freelance writer, first as a classical music critic and later also as a translator, writer, journalist, and editor for a number of religious and spiritual magazines.
To date, Wali has published a dozen books for Dutch publishing houses including books on Rumi, Hafiz and Kabir, an anthology of Sufi poetry, a primer on Sufism, and a number of bestselling books of spiritual stories. For Peace in Motion Publications, he wrote a series of books on classical Sufism and Inayat Khan.
More recently, he was commissioned to write In Family’s Footsteps, a book on the life and teachings of Mahmood khan Youskine, published in 2023 by the Maheboob khan Foundation, and Inayat Khan through the Eyes of his Students, on the recollections of Hazrat Inayat Khan’s students from the Smit-Kerbert Collection, published in 2024 by the Nekbakht Foundation. His biography of Murshid Hidayat Inayat-Khan inshallah will be published may, 2025.
Wali is a senior teacher in the Sufi Ruhaniat International. At present, he serves the legacy of the Sufism of Hazrat Inayat Khan and Samuel L. Lewis as member of the esoteric council of the Ruhaniat, and as member of the editorial committees of the Ruhaniat and the Nekbakht Foundation.
With his life-long partner Ariënne, Wali lives in Khankah Samark in a small village in a rural and hilly area east of Cologne. There they live and deepen their Sufi path with a community of visiting students and other participants. Wali and Ariënne have two children and four grandchildren, living in India and the Netherlands. They can be contacted through their website or email.
www.peaceinmotion.eu
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David Marshak:
Title: Hazrat Inayat Khan’s Evolutionary Vision of Human Unfoldment in the First 21 Years of Life and Its Insights for Education.
Description: Along with Sri Aurobindo Ghose and Rudolf Steiner, Hazrat Inayat Khan gave humanity the gift of a detailed description of the human being, including physical body, mind including heart, astral body, and soul; a paradigm of unfoldment in three distinct eras of growth; and insights into the qualities of parenting and education that best nurture the unfoldment of human potential. In my work, I call this common teaching “the common vision.”
A key element in Hazrat Inayat Khan’s vision is his belief that an ongoing evolution is the primary process in the universe. The attainment of God-realization by human beings is the fulfillment of the stage of evolution in which human beings are actors. Evolution is a dual process of unfolding, as a species evolves as a whole through the actualization of involved higher potentials within individual members of that species.
The educational insights of Hazrat Inayat Khan’s teaching are best manifested in Holistic Child Guidance by Murshida Vera Corda.
David’s talk will explore several key elements of this considerable body of knowledge and wisdom, with a focus on education as an evolutionary opportunity.
Bio: David Marshak is the author of The Common Vision: Parenting and Educating for Wholeness and Evolutionary Parenting, both of which explore the “common vision” of Hazrat Inayat Khan, Sri Aurobindo, and Rudolf Steiner describing human nature and the needs and potentials of human unfoldment in the first 21 years of life. He is also the author of A Journey in Soul, Notes on the Evolution of Human Consciousness 2023-2024, and Inviting Youths to Claim the Power of Their Imaginations. All publications are available online. David lives in Seattle.
Nizam un Nisa Ayeda Husain:
Title: The Spiritual Vision Behind the Life and Work of Hazrat Inayat Khan.
As Seen Through the Ummahat, or Seven Leading Names.
Description: A discussion of the life of Hazrat Inayat Khan from the perspective of a progression through a grouping of Divine names that have been referred to as the Seven Leading Names, Seven Mother Names, Seven Supreme Names and Seven Foremost Names and has shown up in the teachings of multiple Sufi tariqas.
Focussing on their essence as opposed to nomenclature and exploring the nuances behind the meaning of each name, this study presents the chronology of events in the life of Hazrat Inayat Khan, from his birth to his passing, as a journey through the qualities and stations embodied by each of these Seven Names using his teachings as well as others’.
AL HAYY: The first birth is the birth of man; the second birth is the birth of God (HIK)
AL ALIM: Look up first and when your eyes are once charged with Divine life, then you cast your glance on the world of facts and you will have much clearer vision, the vision of reality (HIK)
AL QADIR: In one aspect of our being we are king, in the other aspect we are minister, and in a third aspect we are servant. We are minister when our mind works, and we are servant when the body works. We are king when the will power works (HIK)
AL MURID: The hidden desire of the Creator is the secret of the whole creation (HIK)
AS SAMI: As sound is the highest source of manifestation it is mysterious in itself. And whoever has the knowledge of sound, he indeed know the secret of the universe (HIK)
AL BASIR: Why have I two eyes if not to behold Thy glorious vision? (HIK)
AL KALIM: The moment when the infant begins to speak is the time that its spirit has formed (HIK)
Bio: Nizam un Nisa Ayeda Husain is a senior teacher and guide in the Inayatiyya, a global organization dedicated to Universal Sufism as taught by Hazrat Inayat Khan, the mystic and musician from Baroda who brought Sufism to the West in the early 1900’s.
A long-time journalist specializing in Sufism with a double masters in Journalism and Near Eastern Studies from NYU, she now teaches Sufi meditation, chanting and philosophy with a special emphasis on Rumi’s poetry as a means of healing and evolving. She has run Sufi centers in her hometown of Lahore, Pakistan, in Dubai, where she once lived, and in Oakville, Ontario where she now lives and works. She has led spiritual retreats worldwide, taught Sufi meditation to Buddhist monks in Tokyo, and been invited to the UN as part of an international delegation of spiritual leaders.
Gulrukh Deepa Patel:
Bio: Deepa Gulrukh Patel is a facilitator with a specialism in interdisciplinary collaboration and has a passion for the arts, social justice, conversation, and the contemplative life. She was born in Kenya to Indian parents and lives in England. This experience has influenced both her professional and personal life. Deepa has worked with young people, in the field of cultural diversity, as a Live Music producer and in music education with the BBC. Her current work is with The London College of Fashion, UNHCR, and the University of Sheffield in refugee camps in Jordan and Africa and with the Fetzer Institute on two projects, one on creating sacred space in the virtual world and the other on their shared spiritual heritage project. Deepa is a guide and teacher in the Inayatiyya, she is a graduate of Suluk Academy, a healing conductor, a knight, a musical representative, and the co-chair of the Inayatiyya International Board. She is also the chair of the Tamasha Theatre Company, an advisor to the Loss Foundation, a cancer and COVID bereavement support service, and to the Charis Foundation for New Monasticism and Interspirituality on their interfaith dialogue projects.
An archive recording will be made for the EICSP archive.
NB: There will be no refund if you cancel your booking.
Cost: By Donation:
Contact: Neill Walker, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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Account Name: Edinburgh International Centre for Spirituality and Peace
Bank: Bank of Scotland
Bank Address: Edinburgh Royal Mile Branch
Account Number: 06131159
Sort Code: 802000
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GB70 BOFS 8020 0006 1311 59
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