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.
