June 2024

Taj Inayat ~ Teacher in Residence at the Abode

with Special Guest Murshid Himayat Inayati

When June arrives roses will be in bloom and the Abode will be filled with the beauty of early summer in New England. This will be the perfect time to experience harmony in nature and gather with Taj and friends for tea, early morning meditations, classes and retreat.

Please join in us to share this time together.

June 13-16, 2024

Group Retreat led by Taj Inayat

“There is One Truth, the true knowledge of our being, within and without, which is the essence of all wisdom.” Hazrat Inayat Khan

Life is greater, richer, more fulfilling, and magical than we can imagine from 0ur everyday mind point of view. The key to opening the hidden treasure that Life is, is the uncovering of the inner light, in Sufi terminology: our soul.

This weekend offers a chance to step back and in to the Self behind our self. We will engage in the practices of Dhikr, the Sufi practice of remembrance and meditation.  The goal of Dhikr is learning how to keep our hearts open in a life that is “messy and painful, beautiful and unpredictable” (Mark Nepo). The goal of meditation is recognizing and resting in our innate beingness, while not rejecting any experience that arises.

In addition to introducing a new mode of Dhikr participants will learn precise meditation steps including concentration with an object, concentration without an object (open awareness), and non-doing meditation, or resting in Being/Presence.

June 22-23, 2024

Tasting God: A Weekend Seminar/Sohbet with Taj Inayat and Murshid Himayat Inayati

‘The heart becomes the vehicle for the soul to see all within and without. One not only communicates with another person, but also with God.” Hazrat Inayat Khan

Taj Inayat is the spiritual director of the Hurqalya Center and an initiate since 1967 in the Sufi Order International, now the Inayatiyya Order, a mystical and ecumenical fellowship rooted in the visionary legacy of Hazrat Inayat Khan. Three years after initiation she met Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, head of the Order, and became his spiritual partner. They collaborated in the work until his death in 2004. Taj served as Vice President of the Sufi Order International, as teacher/guide for many years before co-creating Sufi Retreats and New Rain, programs that carried on the teachings of Hazrat Inayat Khan. Taj’s work is founded on a lifetime's attention to the human heart. Her capacity for supporting mystical awakening and self-knowing has grown out of her long experience as a spiritual guide in the transformative traditions of Sufism, Diamond Approach and Tibetan Buddhism. She is a minister in the Universal Worship Church and holds an MA in Counseling Psychology.

Himayat Inayati received the transmission of the Sufi Master Samuel Lewis in the early seventies through Sheikh Mansur Johnson. As a student he worked closely with Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan from the seventies until his death. During that period Himayat was both a teacher in the esoteric school of the Sufi Order International for several decades and its International Kefayat of The Sufi Healing Order for twenty years. Himayat is the founder of The Raphaelite Work ™, a method of healing and transformational process rooted in Sufism and updated by modern body centered therapies Since 2015 Himayat has offered “Keys to The Divine Treasury”, an on-line series of classes on the ancient Sufi masters supporting mureeds residing in eleven different countries. He joined the Murshid’s Circle of the Sufi Ruhaniat International in January 2020. Himayat has two daughters and a son, and with his wife of thirty-eight years, Shahida Whitney, he co-directs Light of the Mountains Retreat Center near Asheville, North Carolina. Website: https://universal-awakening.org/