What is Sufism?

If anybody asks you, “What is Sufism?” … you may answer: “Sufism is the religion of the heart, the religion in which the most important thing is to seek God in the heart of humanity.”
– Hazrat Inayat Khan

The heart is the wellspring of our deepest motivations, a container for love. The goal of Sufism is to develop the capacity of the heart—the capacity to hold all the complexities of life in a matrix of love—and to discover the divinity inherent in all of creation.

Sufism is not a religion in the sense of being a system of beliefs, separable from other religions, but a school of experience focused on the cultivation of the heart and the deepening of awareness through the practice of prayer, meditation and spiritual inquiry.

Though there are many Sufi schools and lineages, the Sufism of the Inayati Order is universalist in its acceptance of all people and paths leading to the unfoldment of the light and power latent in the human being.

Sufism is an endless path, pursued over a lifetime. The Sufi path is a way of life in which a deeper identity is discovered and lived. This deep identity, that is beyond personality, is in harmony with all that exists…