The Inayati Order Emergent Leaders Program follows the same rubric as Suluk Academy, with each session focused on a key theme, as well as on Concentration, Contemplation, Meditation, and Realization, but this time from the perspective of a teacher and guide. Here is a snapshot:
Session I: Concentration (Pir Zia Inayat Khan & Naima Brown)
What does it mean to represent the esoteric teachings of Hazrat Inayat Khan?
Overarching Themes
- Relationship between Guide and Murid
- Types of Murids
- Stations on the Path
- Divine Names for Life Situations and the Art of Personality
- Concentration Practices
- Initiation and Guidance Meetings
Session II: Contemplation (Taj Inayat & Gayan Macher)
What does it mean to “guide” another person? What are the techniques specific to our path?
Navigating the Territory–the Unique Lived Experience–of the Path
Overarching Themes
- The Flame of Motivation
- How do we know if we should serve as a spiritual guide?
- What can a Guide offer?
- The Art of Contemplative Listening
- How do we hone intuition/guidance? How do we help another to do this?
- What are Mujahida (effort) and Mushahida (presence)?
- What does it mean to be present? To behold another person?
- What You Experience as Guide and Teacher
- What questions and challenges tend to arise?
- How do the spiritual and psychological interrelate?
- The work of psychological purification for guides
- How do we work with projections and boundaries?
- What are typical pitfalls? How do we prepare for such challenges and approach them when they arise?
- Unfolding the Inner Dimension of Spiritual Practice
- Learning a mode of knowing outside the mental
- Going deeper into the heart practice—beneath concepts, and what “should” feel
- How the heart comes to contemplate it’s own nature
- Fana—Baqa: Navigating the process of letting go and change in its various forms
- What is the terrain of Fana-Baqa? How do we help others work with Fana and Baqa within themselves?
- What are the passages of a soul? How do we support each stage?
Session III: Meditation (Himayat Inayati & Kainat Norton)
What does it mean to be a spiritual teacher for another person or a community? What are the proven techniques, innovations, challenges and questions that arise?
“The dervish brings a living God into the market place.” — Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan
Overarching Themes
- The Teaching of Meditation (An Overview)
- The Process of Self-Disclosure
- Self-knowing, Allowing, Aware Presence, Detachment, Independence, Knowing the Divine – Witnessing, Tasting, Intimacy, Unity,
- Awakening in Life
- Listening to the Spirit of Guidance
- Inner and Outer as One Being
- Mediation on the Path of Love and the Path of Light
- Exploring Different Paths of Meditation
- Feminine, Masculine, Sensory, Visual, Auditory
- The Teaching of Meditation (Summary)
Session IV: Realization (Pir Zia Inayat Khan & Naima Brown)
What does it mean to serve as a representative of the Message in the World?
Overarching Themes
- God
- The Need of the Time
- The Six Activities
- Divine Names for Spiritual Development
- Practices from Murshid’s Instructions for the Murshid
- The Adab and Ethics of representing the Inayati Order
Please contact Jennifer Alia Wittman, [email protected], with any questions about the Inayati Order Emergent Leaders Program and it’s curriculum.