Description
The Complete Works of Pir-o-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan
1926 IV August–December
Original Texts: Lectures on Sufism
This new volume, 1926 IV, in the Complete Works of Pir-o-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan continues with the lectures given during the 1926 Summer School (15th June–12th September) in Suresnes, France (the June–July lectures can be found in 1926 Volume III).
The Summer School lasted three months and contained the lectures which would become the publications Education (1934) and Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1935), both published by A E Kluwer. He also gave the final lectures in the series begun in 1925 of Philosophy, Psychology and Mysticism (1956) published by Heijnis. In addition to these series of lectures he gave a weekly address to cherags; a weekly message lecture; a Sunday public lecture and many Collective Interviews for a selected group of murids. The Collective Interviews were usually given in what
is now known as the Oriental Room in Fazal Manzil, Suresnes, Inayat Khan’s family home. However a note on the shorthand record of some of the lectures in this volume (11th or 17th August for example) states lecture partly in St Cloud where Inayat Khan’s younger brother, Musharaff, lived.
As noted in 1926 Volume III, Inayat Khan uses the Collective Interviews to train the more experienced or active mureeds so that the work of his Sufi Movement is cohesive and of a certain standard. On 27th August he talks about the movements which accompany the prayers, and on 6th September about the need for consistency when giving practices; what initiations can be given by those attending, and how they should resist the pressure of the murid to insist that the initiation be given by Inayat Khan himself. The fragment of Summer 1926 seems to indicate that having spoken and taken questions, he got the class to work in pairs or smaller groups for further training. In the Cherags’ Class of 29th August the work of the Confraternity is first mentioned.
His lectures under the title Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow show the range of his cultural knowledge from Greek sculpture to modern drama. In talking about architecture he references Rudolf Steiner’s Goetheanum (6th August) which he had evidently visited during one of his tours in Switzerland, and of course as a renowned musician himself, he references his conversations with Debussy and Scriabin.
After the Summer School lectures there are some undated passages believed to be from the year 1926, as well as two poems given to Sakina Furnée as keeper of the Biographical Department. One she dates as being from 1922 or 1923 and the other from the summer of 1926; as they were found together in the 1926 file they are both included here.
