Suluk Academy in the West

Our purpose is to respond to the desire of mureeds in the Sufi Order International, and other Inayati orders, particularly those in the Western states, who wish to attend Suluk Academy and who, because of work and other commitments, are unable to attend a full residential east coast program. Our mission is to preserve the high quality of spiritual training and experience provided by the fully residential two-year Suluk program in a creative program combining residential with distance learning sessions.

We are committed to embodied spirituality: prayer and action. To that end, this model is a beginning green template for reduced environmental impact – reducing travel time and residence session costs.
Our aim is to offer the individual and collective transformation which Suluk Academy fosters in its fully residential form and to preserve the same quality of teaching content and delivery, supportive mentoring throughout the process, time for individual growth and reflection, and support for developing spiritual community.

Format and Faculty

Suluk Academy is excited to offer this new "blended hybrid" format for Suluk – a two-year training comprised of five residential sessions and 15 distance learning days. The hybrid format will include five five-day in-person sessions at the retreat center, Santa Sabina in San Rafael, California www.santasabinacenter.org. The remaining fifteen Suluk West days will be in a distance learning format which will include teleconferencing, live video streaming, audio recordings and possibly video. These will be held on Saturdays, once a month. The teaching faculty will include Amida Cary, Taj Inayat, Pir Zia Inayat-Khan, Pir Shabda Kahn, Gayan Macher, Wali Ali Meyer, and Aziza Scott. The mentors will include Aqdas (Ishi Nili) Newmark, Gulrukh (Deepa) Patel and Amira Kardish. The format will be the same as the traditional two-year training; each day comprised of two teaching segments, a mentor group, and a pod. During the residential sessions there will be a variety of evening programs including music, dances, zikr and sema.

Gayan Macher and Taj Inayat, the lead faculty for this training, will teach at each residential session.  All participants will have the opportunity for one-on-one interviews with Taj and Gayan at least once as well as meeting with other faculty.

Pir Zia will teach live via Skype for three teaching segments during each residential session, except for the first session when he will be present by Skype at least once from India. Pir Zia will be present for the November residential session and will teach both teaching segments each of the five days.  An individual practice blessing with Pir Zia will be part of this residential gathering.

Dates

Sessions begin the evening of the first date (i.e. January 24) and ends at lunch on the last date of the session (i.e. January 29).

Distance learning days will take place on Saturdays once a month between residential sessions. Preliminary dates (pending final faculty approval) are:

2012
February 18, 2012
March 17, 2012
April 14, 2012
May 5, 2012
July 7, 2012
September 8, 2012
October 6, 2012
December 15, 2012

2013
January 12, 2013
February 2, 2013
March 16, 2013
May 25, 2013
June 29, 2013
July 27, 2013
August 17, 2013

Transportation

Santa Sabina is located 11 miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge, a little more than an hour from the San Francisco airport. There is a bus called the Marin Airporter (currently $20 each way) to downtown San Rafael. From there you can either walk the ten blocks to Santa Sabina or take a taxi. The bus driver can call ahead and arrange a taxi (currently about $7 one way).