15 Feb Talk organized by the Edinburgh International Centre for Spirituality and Peace
It was my pleasure to be asked to talk offer a talk on Hazrat Inayat Khan’s and Carl Gustav Jung’s response to a time of upheaval and confrontation with war and despair. Inayat Khan’s response was both timeless and radical.
He taught that intuition, music, and devotion could elevate perception beyond the limits of ordinary awareness and into unity with the Supreme Being—the essence of the Self.
His teachings, grounded in direct experience rather than doctrine, invited seekers to attune their inner lives to a greater reality and, in doing so, expand their capacity to know and be.
Carl Jung, born just seven years earlier, was shaped by the same cultural moment. While Inayat Khan transmitted a spiritual path through music and mystical practice, Jung sought to restore the symbolic dimension of life through depth psychology.
He recognized that modern consciousness was cut off from its roots, and like Inayat Khan, he sought a way to bridge the personal and collective unconscious with the waking mind.
Their approaches converged in their deep reverence for the unseen, yet diverged in their methods and metaphysical assumptions.
What can their visions offer us today, as we navigate a world still searching for meaning in the face of war and despair?