“The Sufis concern themselves little with what happened yesterday. . . It will occupy a whole life to make the best of just now. And after all it is just now which repeats, and it is now that makes the future.” —Hazrat Inayat Khan, Healing and the Mind World, volume IV of The Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan
Dear Sulūk Press Community,
Springtime is the season of just now. The festival of Holi, recently celebrated in India, symbolizes rebirth, new life, the washing away of the faded—but stubborn—hues of the past and a joyful recognition of community.
Norooz, the millennia-old Persian “new day” of the vernal equinox, is a transition in which “the old” is relinquished in jumping over fire, cleansing of the home, in the donning of new clothes. Nature itself adorns much of the planet with the bravest blooms, some thrusting their sun-seeking greenery through lingering snow. Some dye and decorate eggs, rejoicing in victory of darkness and death, turning from mourning and toward hope.
Words of wisdom are flowers we find on our way, adding shape and brilliance to our thoughts and perfuming our days. Perhaps this is the time to visit an unfamiliar part of the garden on display in the books of Sulūk Press; perhaps this particular just now calls you back to a well-loved bed of roses that can inspire and instruct in ways you are only just now ready to appreciate.
In either case, this springtime may be the right time to begin or to begin again, to allow the beauty of just now to make, as Murshid reminds us, the future. We are honored to travel with you.
Beatrice Upenieks
Sulūk Press
Gayan Vadan Nirtan is now shipping!
We are happy to announce that the new revised and expanded edition of “Gayan, Vadan, Nirtan” is now shipping. This handsome hardcover volume includes previously omitted sayings that new archival research has authenticated. The sayings have been minimally edited for inclusive language.
“No object or life can exist that has not one central point in which everything meets and joins together, and that meeting ground is called the Divine Mind.”
—Hazrat Inayat Khan, from the Gayan
Toward the One in Progress
We are at work finishing the Fiftieth Anniversary Edition of Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan’s Toward the One. Originally produced in the 1970s, this version makes Pir Vilyat’s teachings on a wide range of subjects available to long-time students and to new generations on the Sufi path. Rich in inspiration and image, Toward the One will find its own renewal this summer.
From the Prologos:
“Where does one go from here? What are our sailing orders? By what azimuth do we set course? What are the landmarks? The perils? The methods? The clues? Fortunate the wayfarer who is briefed by those rare pioneers who chart the uncharted, who brave the depths and spaces of being and offer future generations the topology of internal states and further spheres. One must pass through the portal of detachment into new horizons, leaving something of the old self behind. Seen from this perspective life looks like a never-ending pilgrimage toward the ever-receding horizons of awakening.”
We are always delighted to hear from you! Questions? Comments about our books and website? Feedback about the ordering experience? Please do share them with us at [email protected].
