Dear Members of the Jamiat Am,
I hope this finds each of you well.
Pir Zia has been in discussion with the Vice Presidents of the Inner school and the Esoteric Training Committees of NA and EU/UK regarding a change in the title of what we call the Esoteric school.
Pir Zia will be announcing this in the upcoming Zephyr and also wanted the members of the Jamiat Am to be informed.
Please see his email below.
The Murid initiations’ words have been modified to reflect the new name for use by Representatives and Guides who are authorized to give initiation in our Inner School. Also included is the Ashiq ceremony of Blessing which is given by authorized initiators of all the activities.
The Ceremony of Initiation into the INNER SCHOOL OF THE INAYATIYYA.pdf (73.1 KB)
In service,
Naima
Dear friends,
Some time ago I was asked which of the names of our first Activity – the Esoteric School, the Inner School, the Sufi Order, the Order, and the Tariqat – should be considered the primary name and used on our websites and in major communications. On reflection, my response was “the Inner School.” Naima and Nigel Huzur, the Vice Presidents in North America and Europe, expressed their support for this orientation. Naima asked me to communicate it to our community – and there is an opportunity to do so soon, in the Zephyr newsletter due to go on Monday – but Naima also encouraged me to write to all of you, to explain my reasoning, hence this message.
Already in Murshid’s time, the first Activity was variously called the Sufi Order, the Esoteric School, and the Inner School. “Sufi Order” is a translation of tariqat emphasizing parallelism with Catholic monastic fraternities. “Esoteric School” is a term that was imported wholesale from the Theosophical Society, of which several of Murshid’s leading murids were former prominent members, including the Madar al-Maham, Murshida Sharifa Goodenough. Murshid used the phrase as it was given to him, and it is important to remember that he didn’t coin it.
Merriam-Webster defines “esoteric” as “designed for or understood by the specially initiated alone; requiring or exhibiting knowledge that is restricted to a small group; limited to a small circle; of special, rare, or unusual interest.”
These meanings have a certain relevance to our initiatic school, no doubt, but the question is, is exclusivity the primary characteristic that we would like our school to be defined by?
If we reserve Sufi Order as a secondary designation, the single alternative that comes down from Murshid’s time, and Murshid’s own lips, is the “Inner School.” This is the title of an address by Murshid in the Message Papers which describes the first Activity. In it, he tells the remarkable story of a lion showing an amnesiatic cub its reflection in a lake (symbolizing the heart). Initiation, he says, is “the call of the lion.”
One might wonder if “inner” isn’t too suggestive of a contrast with “the outer,” and therefore polarizing, whereas what we seek is wholeness. Murshid anticipated this reservation and wrote:
“By inner life is meant a life directed towards perfection, which may be called the perfection of love, harmony, and beauty; in the words of the orthodox, towards God. The inner life is not necessarily in an opposite direction to the worldly life, but the inner life is a fuller life. The worldly life means the limitation of life; the inner life means a complete life. The ascetics who have taken a direction quite opposite to the worldly life, have done so in order to have the facility to search into the depths of life; but going in one direction alone does not make a complete life. Therefore the inner life means the fullness of life.”
I have already been using “Inner School” when giving initiations for months, if not years. I feel it has just the right ring to it: both timeless and contemporary, mystical and straightforward. I would be grateful to have your support in using it more, and in sharing this shift with our community.
I send with this my heartiest appreciation for all of your dedicated work in the service of our initiatic school and of all of the murids who walk with us on the path.
Yours ever,
Pir Zia