Pir Elias Amidon
Elias Amidon, an initiate of the Sufi Way for 36 years, has been a student of Murshida Shahzadi Khan-de Koningh, Pir-o-Murshid Fazal Inayat-Khan, and Pir-o-Murshida Sitara Brutnell. He has also received initiation in the Qadiri Order, and jukai (a form of initiation) in the Soto Zen lineage of the White Plum Sangha.
Over the years Elias has worked as an architect, teacher, and urban planning consultant. He has helped to found, and teach in, four schools for spiritually-based activists (The Institute for Deep Ecology; the Spirit in Education Movement (Thailand); the Boulder Institute for Nature and the Human Spirit; and Naropa University's graduate program in Environmental Leadership.) He has led or participated in citizen peace delegations to Nicaragua, Thailand, Burma, Iraq, Syria, and Palestine, and for a number of years worked with indigenous tribes in northern Thailand and northern Burma on land rights issues. He is currently active in interfaith peacebuilding work in the Middle East. With his wife Rabia, he is co-editor of the books Earth Prayers, Life Prayers, and Prayers for a Thouand Years.
