Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan (1916–2004)

Awakening: A Sufi Experience by Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan gives a good overview of the beliefs and ideals of Sufism. Admittedly there was some material that was over my head, but a surprising amount of what I read was familiar to me. This is because Sufism draws from many different religions and cultures and there were concepts discussed in this book that closely resembled things I had learned when studying new age spirituality. There is a lot of emphasis on meditation in this book and it describes many different meditation and breathing exercises. Some of these I was already familiar with, but many of them were new to me. One thing that I thought was really cool about this book is that scientific principles are often used to help explain metaphysical and spiritual concepts which certainly made them easier for me to understand. I thought this was an excellent book and I'd highly recommend it to anyone new to the subject. I really enjoyed reading it and just the act of reading this book helped me to feel more peaceful.… (meer)