“Freedom gives infinite power, it can move mountains.”
– Camp founder Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan

Zenith Camp is a community that comes together every summer to celebrate love, harmony and beauty. Tracing back to the youth camps Pir Vilayat started in the 1950s, we’ve been organizing multi-week summer events for over 50 years.

Meditation and retreat remain the central focus at these gatherings, while dance, movement, and music are integral as well. There are spaces for silent retreat, for workshops, for conversation. Essential to our community is collective effort: Volunteers build the Camp’s structures and meeting places before the participants arrive, make running the camp possible through their work in a variety of staff positions, and later dismantle the buildings at summer’s end.

While being an independent organization, the Zenith camp stands in the tradition of the Inayatiyya, a Chishti Sufi tradition brought to the Western world by Hazrat Inayat Khan. The Sufism of the Inayatiyya is universal in its acceptance of all people and paths leading to the unfoldment of the light and power latent in the human being.

Summercamp 2025:

For 2025, we’re pleased to announce that camp will take place at the Caduceus Center once again. With the experience of a surprisingly beautiful and successful summer, this decision was relatively easy for us as a team and board. But it is also clear that the Caduceus Center is a stopover where we can recharge our batteries and gather our resources before the camp heads towards the mountains again. This emerged from the visioning processes this year as the wish of the majority of the community. Therefore, this is to be our last year at the Caduceus Center.

For the first week, from July 27th to August 2nd, we are pleased to announce a seminar with Pir Zia Inayat Khan. In addition, Deepa Gulrukh will offer a program especially for young adults during this week. The program for the second week from 03 – 09 August, as well as for a possible third week from 10 – 16 August, is still being planned. There will be more information about this in the course of the fall, just as a teaser:

• There will be a large music program in one of the weeks.
• We will offer the opportunity for an individual retreat in all weeks.
• There will again be a program just for teenagers (13-19).

Registration will go online on February 15, along with new content on the website and a revised registration system.

Our Year 2024:

Zenith Seminars in Germany, July 28 – August 10:

The Caduceus Center agreed to host a two-week program with the camp during their usual summer break, and we had a wonderful improvised yet familiar camp amidst the north-german pine forest. We navigated through the Tricosm with Pir Zia, cultivated our inner sanctuary with Saki Lee and explored core elements of a meaningful life with Atum O’Kane. The two weeks have been rich, harmonious and light-hearted, while creating space for intense dialogue about the camp’s future. We’ll share the fruits and seeds of this conversation in the upcoming Newsletters and on dedicated pages here: Overview of the transition process  +  Questions & Answers

Gathering of Love:

On Pentecost weekend, over 80 people came together in Pü, the place that has been home to the camp for 33 years. With song, dance and prayer, we said goodbye to this unique land and shared the most meaningful memories from our time at camp. Isha wrote more about this in her June newsletter, which also includes a beautiful video.

“The Big Move”:

In May, Nirtan and Julian gathered around 20 volunteers to move all the camp’s structure and equipment from Campra down to a storage facility in Bodio, near Biasca. When they began dismantling the wood pile, it was still covered in snow. Over the course of two weeks, around 200 tons of material passed through their hands, before it went into the self-constructed, mice-safe storage space. While the voluntary work helped the camp greatly, the “big move” still caused expenses: Renting the brown house for two weeks, organizing trucks, and feeding the helpers, among other costs, has set us back more than 25.000 CHF. Please help us make ends meet by contributing with a donation – any amount that feels good for you!

Winter Online program:

Last Winter, our teachers Saki, Fatimabi and Ophiel offered three weeks of wonderful early morning meditations. Nirtan, the Ungan family and Sinan Arat played ecstatic and blissful concerts. We’re grateful for these offerings to our community, for those who came and participated, and for each little donation made. The Recordings of our morning meditations & concerts in January, February and March can be downloaded here.

Some images from past years, showing the old location of the camp in Campra / Pü: