Customer Reviews

The Message in Our Time: The Life and Teaching of the Sufi Master, Pir-O-Murshid Inayat Khan

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The book works on a lot of levels. It is a biography of Hazrat and son as the seek to bring the Sufi message to the US. It is an account of the Chisti Sufi path and the stages that one must go through. There are a lot of teachings embedded in the narrative, including a lot of hints about how the mysticism of sound works and even what is involved in middle easter sitar music, and how feels to be entranced by the music. There is a devotional flavor running throughout the book. It reminds me of AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A YOGI but for Sufis. There are lots and lots of quotes inside the book from various writings of Hazrat and others. You could use it as a study text in Sufism if you wanted to.

This is one of the best compendiums on Sufism that can be found. Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan wrote it as a teaching manual and a--well, a compendium!--of his father's teachings, given during the early part of the 1900s, and he brought them into our time with his exquisitely poetic writing and his own profound realization of their essence. Another Sufi teacher said "Sufism can't be taught, it has to be caught," and Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan demonstrates beautifully what that means. Well worth reading: if you want to read the words of someone who "got it," read this book.