Healing Ritual

The basis of our work is attunement to the blessings of Inayat Khan. We do this through the Healing Ritual, a practice which is a selfless act of service. And that makes it the greatest opening, the greatest powerful thing you can do, because you’re not doing it for yourself. It becomes a wonderful opportunity to train yourself to channel his energy, to tune into the beings of the invisible world and let them work through you.

To do successful healing, one must first have an open and focused heart. If you do the healing ritual long enough and really do it and let it work on you, it opens up your intuition. That’s what it’s about. Let us be a channel. Well, a channel for what? A channel for the divine healing grace to come through.

When we do the prayers, practices and services bequeathed to us by Hazrat Inayat Khan, we are linking our inner beings with him, and with the line of blessings that he carried. We Sufis call this process the Silsila (or chain of blessings). One of the greatest and most powerful tools for by-passing the ego or nafs is doing selfless spiritual service. Thus, the Healing Ritual, given us by Hazrat Inayat Khan, becomes a direct link to his inner heart. When we are in the empty mind space of loving service, we are receiving his love and blessings and his transmission. The very fact that we do this without the desire of personal benefit, allows the ego-mind to rest, and permits the flow of blessings to enter our beings. –

For me the ritual works when the conductor surrenders to Hazrat Inayat Khan and lets the ritual be done through them. That’s when it works. It becomes a wonderful opportunity  to train yourself to channel his energy. The invisible world is alive and well. For me the healing ritual is my vehicle for tuning into these beings and letting them work through me.    

The healing ritual is the only practice that we’ve been given that we do not do for ourselves. It’s not a matter of worship and it’s not a matter of learning or awakening or understanding. The healing ritual is only a matter of selfless service. That makes it very special. And there is a place inside of us that we tend to go to when we do the Healing Ritual that is a deep and wonderful place inside each of us. It’s not a place of self power. It’s a place of giving. And it’s place of channeling the energy that comes through us. So I’m going to recommend that when we do our practices, that’s the place we come from inside. 

The Healing Ritual is an absent healing ritual, in which we pray for those who have asked for healing.The ritual was created by Hazrat Inayat Khan for spiritual communities, his students and their families, who did not have a healer, to allow the group to function as a high-level healer. In the Healing Ritual, the participants become a conduit or channel for the healing energy of God.

On the healing ritual table, there are 4 symbolic things:

• Amber representing the magnetism of the earth
• Incense symbolic of prayer rising up to God
• Water, that has been magnetized with energy and prayer, symbolic of purity
• Fresh cut flowers representing life

The healing cloth has its own healing power as the result of a guided meditation.

We move our refined breath through our heart and add a spiritual phrase to give it more power. The spiritual phrase we use on our inhalation is Ya Shafi, meaning Oh God, who is the healer. On our exhalation, we use Ya Kafi meaning Oh God, who is the medicine, the remedy, the healing. This creates a spiritual energetic, through the self-less breath, which by its strength of rhythm, can impart the divine healing power to those who are open it (Shafia). When somebody has died, we honor them by including their name in the healing ritual and instead of saying Ya Shafi Ya Kafi, we say Ya Salaamo, meaning May they rest in peace within the Heart of God.

The ritual has three parts. Each of the three parts has an invocation, a meditation and a prayer.
We then read 10 names, one at a time. We do not focus on the person’s ailment, but on seeing them in perfect health. This allows their highest healing to come through to them. After this, there is a meditation for all the people we did not name. During this meditation, we can think of our family, of all the places in the world that are in pain and suffering, and we can send the Shafia, God’s healing, through our heart to those people and places.

Hakim Saul-uddin

• Connecting Hearts in Healing Ritual Q&A (6/22/20)
• Healing Ritual cloth uses, making an Allah cloth (6/22/20)
• Healing Ritual discussion, Q&A (6/24/20)
• History of doing Healing Ritual for places of great suffering (9/12/20)
• We are the cup, not the water (6/21/21)
• Selfless service and channeling energy in Healing Ritual (2/12/22)
• Explanation of healing ritual history for newcomers, story of Saul receiving healing ritual transmission, DHO as service organization, selfless service (7/2/23)

Saadi Neil Douglas-Klotz

• Video: Murshid SAM’s writings on the Healing Ritual, Ya Murshid, Ya Rasul, Ya Allah (6/22/20)
• Documents:
  • Introduction to Murshid SAM’s Papers on the Healing Service
  • Murshid SAM’s Papers on the Healing Service Series I
  • Murshid SAM’s Papers on the Healing Service Series III
  • Older Version of the Healing Service from Murshid SAM’s Documents

Murad Finkelstein

• Visualization During Healing Ritual (11/28/21)
• Sohbet/Discussion on concentrations of participants and Conductor during Healing Ritual (12/13/20)
• Explanation of Healing Ritual for newcomers (compiled from 5/2/21, and 2/13, 4/13, 7/10, 2022)

Natalia Nur Jahan

• Healing Ritual Why-s and How-s Description

Hakim Saul-uddin

• Differences in other orders’ rituals, development of DHO ritual (6/24/14)
• Explanation of Healing Ritual for newcomers with Q&A (6/24/16)
• Healers as garbage collectors of the spiritual path (6/18/13)
• Healing Ritual as an act of service, attunement to Hazrat Inayat Khan, Moineddin in hospital (2013)
• History of Healing Ritual: Murshid Sam’s Instruction to Saul about the Healing Ritual, early ritual, Shamcher Beorse, Vilayat Khan, Saul obtaining Bhakti Engle’s transmission, Murshid SAM and Bhakti Engle kicking under the table story, Q&A on transmission and early Healing Ritual (2012 – Day 2)
• History of Healing Ritual: Early ritual, Vilayat’s visit, Bhakti Engle, addition of words “of the divine energies” (5/7/13)
• History and description of Healing Ritual (2012 – Day 2)
• How Healing Ritual works, surrendering to and channeling Hazrat Inayat Khan (2/1/14)
• Magnetizing water for Healing Ritual (6/23/15)
• Meditation/Zikr, an example of attuning a group for Healing Ritual (6/23/14)
• Mispronounced names on healing list (6/23/14)
• Q&A: Breathing during Healing Ritual, using Ya before wazifa, breathing through crown (2/2/13)
• Q&A: Energy of the archangelic hosts, 3 stages of the Healing Ritual and purpose, Hazrat Inayat Khan and study of patanjalis, symbolism of amber (5/7/13)
• Q&A: Magnetism of the earth and relationship to the Healing Ritual and our health, the elements and energy, feeling versus knowing (2/2/13)
• Q&A: Number of names, pets, people in room (6/24/14)
• Q&A: Objects on table for Healing Ritual, feeling the energy of water and earth, placing energy into the amber, when someone leaves the circle during the ritual, use of last name (5/5/16)
• Q&A: People who are dying and not wanting prayers (2/10/18)
• Q&A: Not necessary to be a mureed, conductor sending energy to person not concentrating in circle, children attending, conductor connecting the circle, historically conductor meditating separately before ritual (5/30/14)
• Setting up the room for Healing Ritual – an exercise in energy (5/7/13)
• Setting up the room for the Healing Ritual: Holding the point in the Healing Ritual and organizing the energy in the room Q&A (5/8/18)
• Stepping aside and becoming something that we are not normally during the ritual, a practice to carry afterwards (5/23/17)

  Transmission of Hazrat Inayat Khan for Healing Service through words of prayers, Bhakti Engle (2013)

• Use of Khatum after Healing Ritual (6/23/14)