One might ask if plants and animals, mountains and streams, also have a beginning or an apparent individual existence on the higher planes, as human souls have. All that exists on the earth plane has its existence on the higher planes too; but what is individual? Every being and object which is distinctly separate may be called an entity, but what one calls an individual is a conception of our imagination; and the true meaning of that conception will be realized on the day when the ultimate truth throws its light upon life. On that day no one will speak about individuality; one will say 'God' and no more.

There are many beings, but at the same time there is one, the only Being. Therefore objects such as streams and mountains are also living, but they only exist separately to our outer vision. When our inner vision opens then the separation is shown as a veil; then there is one vision alone, and that is the immanence of God.

Pir-o-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan

The beginnings of Ziraat can be traced back to 1919, as Murshida Green proposed a first draft in a gathering of the Inayatiyya Order. 

In those days 40% of the West-European population was involved in agriculture. Artfcial fertilizers and mechanisation started their way to success and some visionary farmers gathered to discuss the dangers of this development. Biodynamic agriculture for example as founded in 1926. Today 2% of the population of Germany is professionally involved in agriculture. In hundred years we developed an industrial urban culture with diminishing links to “soil” or “earth”. As Murshid describes above, we „emancipated“ ourselves from the other nature kingdoms. We live in the artificial illusion, that the human individual can have a future without considering the oneness of creation.

The main purpose of a conventional modern farmer is to save time. He/she is trying by always bigger machines and more effective use of chemistry to reach a state, where his presence on the farm becomes “nirtual”. At the same time mankind discovers the so called climate crisis and the need for sustainability. That more than 30% of the CO2-problem is caused by modern agriculture is not part of common knowledge. In the moment mainly technical industrial solutions are searched for to secure a pleasant life on earth for eneryone.

But the call for a change of paradigm is growing. Without a new agriculture no sustainable culture is possible. In Ziraat the principles of a new relationship between farmer and farm, between mankind and planet, are envisioned.

Most branches of the Inayatiyya Order experienced during the last 100 years a continuous elaboration of the respective bodies of knowledge.

But what about Ziraat? Some think that the language of farming is used as symbol for the descripton of dimensions of psyche. Some think that Ziraat is about the idealization of country life. Some think that Ziraat is about experiencing nature. 

Till the end of the seventies it was kept secret. Very few people knew of its existence. As Pir Vilayat opened Ziraat to a broader public, he called for people involved in agriculture. But as a profession farming is dying out.

What is needed is a larger group of people interested in the age-old holy profession of growing food in harmony with the environment. What is needed is the contribution from the other branches of the Inayatiyya Order to a revival of the archetype of the farmer. Because only if we manage to give to this profession a new dignity and spiritual meaning, we will be able on a world scale to build a new (agri)culture.