120 - Curriculum of the Sufi Order

Preamble

The teaching of Hazrat Inayat Khan
Presented and paraphrased by Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan
Including parallels with the ancient Sufis.

There is a time in life when a passion is awakened in the soul, which gives the soul a longing for the unattainable.

The further one advances, the further the horizon recedes.

We have the honor of communicating in this Curriculum the quintessence of the teaching of an outstanding master, patriarch and pioneer in announcing new perspectives for spirituality in the future, Pir o Murshid Inayat Khan. This teaching marks a significant step released from the springboard of the spiritual conditioning of the past - incorporating it while updating it to meet the way the prow of the thinking of humanity advances today.

This Curriculum was intended initially for Representatives of the Sufi Order in their classes for mureeds (also for guides and conductors in the various activities of the Sufi Order and, if so desired, for use by kindred Sufi Orders or organizations). We do not want this material restricted to the classes because we realize there are people who cannot attend classes. We recommend that representatives also use this material for the classes. It is regrettable that so relatively little is known of this teaching.

We need to distinguish Pir o Murshid Inayat Khan's personal teachings from those where he corroborates views held by his Sufi predecessors. Therefore we are including the more salient sayings of earlier Sufi mystics. You will find that Pir o Murshid Inayat Khan was concerned with helping pupils by casting the light and insight of Sufi dervishes upon the problems and challenges encountered by people in our day and age in their daily lives in an experiential way. He had the art of making these sometimes abstruse and metaphysical views relevant and meaningful to even the non-initiated in spiritual lore.

Islam prepares one to become a Sufi.

Sufism itself is the essence of all the religions as well as the spirit of Islam.

The Sufis of ancient times brought wisdom to the Muslim world and presented that wisdom in Muslim terminology.

Hazrat Pir o Murshid Inayat Khan

In his special contribution, Pir o Murshid Inayat Khan flashed perspectives in the inexorable advance of the trend of spiritual evolution in our time. He opened up far-reaching insights into the future of spirituality which, albeit in line with the traditional views of his predecessors - which he sometimes highlighted in a new context - were ostensibly novel, and sometimes even challenged views long taken for granted. In this, he bore a message for our time.

Our school today has a wider field of work, and we present it to the followers of all religions, as well as to those who perhaps have no religion, to both spiritual and material persons. Therefore the realm in which the esoteric school of the Sufi Order presents its method is necessarily different and distinct.

Hazrat Pir o Murshid Inayat Khan

Moreover, this message - while encompassing the views, doctrines and attunements of the prophets, masters, and saints of the world's great religions, rather than being a synchretistic collation of these, while distilling their essence - frees our minds from hackneyed conditioned assumptions and dogmas. Hence the Curriculum for the "Universel" that we sent represents a further chapter in the curriculum and flows out of the study of the unity of religious ideals for the Universal Worship.

The solution to the problem of the day is the awakening of the consciousness of humanity to the divinity of man.

Divinity resides in humanity; it is also the outcome of humanity.

Man is divine limitation and God is human perfection.

The Creator is hidden in His creation.

The key to spiritual attainment is to be conscious of the perfect One who is formed in the heart.

So far there has only been the belief in God. It is in the God conscious that God can be seen. And if the world has been able to believe in God and to recognize God in a being, it is in the godly, it is in the soul which reflects God. It is in man that divinity is awakened, that God is awakened, that God can be seen.

Hazrat Pir o Murshid Inayat Khan

Pir o Murshid's insights into future vistas are challenging:

The whole universe has contributed to the way humanity thinks today. If the Planet did not have an intelligence, it could not have intelligent beings on it. The collective working of several minds and the activity of the whole world in one direction are governed by the intelligence of the Planet.

The divine mind is completed after manifestation.

The creator's mind is made of His own creation.

The experience of every soul becomes the experience of the Divine Mind.

There is a mind behind all minds; there is a heart which is the source of all hearts; there is a spirit that collects and accumulates all the knowledge that every living being has had. No knowledge or discovery that has ever been made is lost. It all accumulates and collects in that mind as an eternal reservoir - the divine mind.

Hazrat Pir o Murshid Inayat Khan

He drew our attention to being a "condition of God," rather than representing God as "other." He defined steps leading from the "conceptualization of God," through awakening the God concealed behind our existential self-identity, to arousing that secret (and therefore sacred) treasure (the seed behind the plant) by "making God a reality" instead of a belief.

The soul of man may be considered as a condition of God - a condition that makes the only Being limited for a time.

It is the situation we are in that makes us believe we are this or that.

When man lives this limitation, he does not know that another part of him exists which is much higher, more wonderful, more living, and more exalted.

As the seed comes last, after the life of trunk, branch, fruit and flower, and, as the seed is sufficient in itself and capable of producing another plant, so man is the product of all planes, spiritual and material. In him alone of all the forces of life shines forth that which caused the whole...

It is man who may rightly be called the seed of God, for in him alone intelligence develops so perfectly that he is even enabled to attain self-sufficiency and all-pervading consciousness of the everlasting life of God.

The same God, so little of whose perfection manifested in the plant arises again and again, trying to emerge as perfectly as possible in the midst of human imperfection.

Hazrat Pir o Murshid Inayat Khan

More so, we need to account for a special theme, which he developed profoundly: methods of fostering personal growth by fashioning our personality creatively. He called this the "art of personality," in which the "spiritual dimensions" of psychotherapy (I would add psycho-creativity) are highlighted. It explores various vantage points of our consciousness, including an authentic confrontation with our conscience, even including its effect upon our body in a process one might call "rendering states of consciousness corporeal." The steps leading to this restructuring of our personality are defined in a sequence of developmental stages written into this Curriculum.

In man is awakened that spirit by which the whole universe was created.

The best of all arts is the art of personality.

When a person gets an insight into beauty, then he learns the art of arts, which is the art of personality.

There is one thing: to be man; and there is another thing: to be a person, a man, by completing the individuality in which is hidden the purpose of man's coming on earth.

In the making of personality it is God who completes His divine art.

As the whole of nature is made by God, so the nature of each individual is made by himself.

In the person who participates actively in his/her own creativity, God can attain a greater degree of perfection.

If man dived deep enough within himself, he would reach a point of his ego where it lives an unlimited life...and as long as he has not realized his unlimited self, he lives a life of limitation, a life of illusion....

What is meant by concentration is the change of identification of the soul so that it may lose the false sense of identification and identify itself with the true self instead of the false self.

Hazrat Pir o Murshid Inayat Khan

The curriculum is structured so Pir o Murshid's statements are given and are then paraphrased by me, to demonstrate how the insight they open up may foster a breakthrough in people's lives in how they meet problems and spark the unfurling of latent potentials in their personalities. We are living at a time when people wish experience rather than theory.

At this stage I would like to thank many dedicated persons who have worked on transcripts and editing. Amongst these are Amida Cary, Avalon Gallien, Mariel Walters, Mikhail Davenport, Dr. Sharif Graham, Jyoti Roshan McLachlan, and the staff of the Sufi Order Secretariat.

The Journey

Perfect realization can only be gained by passing through all the stages between man, the manifestation of God, and God the only Being; knowing and realizing ourselves from the lowest to the highest point of existence and so accomplishing the heavenly journey.

Hazrat Pir o Murshid Inayat Khan

Glory to Him Who made His servant journey one night from the sacred place of worship to the farth est place of worship...so that We might cause him to see Our signs.

Qur'an 57/4

Our objective in the Sufi Order is to respond to the need felt by many for other dimensions - of their being, and of life generally - than the commonplace. This is called "spirituality." One could illustrate this by envisioning oneself as a cell in that body called the cosmos or as ongoing thought in that being: the Universe. Most cells have no idea of the body or the mind of that body. They may resent their neighbors, enter in conflict with them, or cooperate with them without having a clue as to the overall intention of the body or the mind. However, some smart cells are beginning to inquire, to explore the total being. Then they discover they are not just separate (discrete) entities, but each fragment of the whole carries potentially the whole. Thus the possibility of grasping some sense of what we mean by God.

There is no way of getting proof of God's existence, except by becoming acquainted with oneself; by experiencing the phenomena which are within one.

One finds a kind of universe in oneself and by the study of the self, one comes to that spiritual knowledge for which one's soul hungers.

Hazrat Pir o Murshid Inayat Khan

People's concerns are: (i) in what way can the exploration of these "other dimensions" help them in their problems and in unfolding their personalities; and (ii) enlightenment, realization, awakening, freedom from conditioning, upliftment, and a sense of the sacred.

The soul manifests in the world in order that it may experience the different phases of manifestation, and yet not lose its way by regaining its original freedom, in addition to the experience and knowledge it has gained in the world.

Hazrat Pir o Murshid Inayat Khan

Actually these "dimensions" are different levels or perspectives, rather than worlds, and are therefore embedded in the existential world. They are called in Sufi terminology nasut, khayal, arwah, mithal, malakut, jabarut, lahut, hahut, and tawhid.

You may discern several levels of energy and several levels of reality. To hoist our consciousness from one perspective to a loftier one, we need to remove our mental barriers and connect ourselves with the totality of which we are an expression, thus inviting the action of the Universe (God) upon us.

We are endeavoring to grasp the techniques and know-how that the contemplatives have culled, and apply them to dealing with our problems in action, in worldly life. It is worth the challenge. Suffice it to imagine how it would be if we could maintain a stalwart peace and serenity in the midst of a stressful situation, grasp the hidden springs behind the programming of our lives, and develop intuition, mastery, radiance.

This will require us to instill something of the hermit into the way of the knight. Our need for freedom is as imperious as our need for involvement. Are they necessarily mutually exclusive? There is a way of reconciling the irreconciliables. An example: loving without being dependent upon being loved. In meditation, detachment frees one from the conditioning of one's thinking and the constraint of one's self-image. Freedom from the usual setting of consciousness will enable us to shift consciousness into an inner space or, alternatively into a mode described as self-transcendence, the antipodal point of view.

For life means not only to live, but to ennoble oneself and reach that perfection which is the innate yearning of the soul. The solution to the problem of the day is the awakening of the consciousness of humanity to the divinity of man.

Hazrat Pir o Murshid Inayat Khan
