Free Medicine

Elias Amidon is the spiritual director (Pir) of the Sufi Way International. He has been an initiate of the Sufi Way for the past forty-two years. Pir Elias has also studied with Qadiri Sufis in Morocco, Theravaden Buddhist teachers in Thailand, Native American teachers of the Assemblies of the Morning Star, Christian monks in Syria, Zen teachers of the White Plum Sangha, and contemporary teachers in the Dzogchen tradition. From child to elder, Pir Elias has lived a multifaceted, engaged life. The son of an artist and a social activist, he has worked as a schoolteacher, carpenter, architect, professor, writer, anthologist, environmental educator, peace activist, wilderness quest guide, and spiritual teacher. He helped develop several schools, including the Boulder Institute for Nature and the Human Spirit, the graduate program in Environmental Leadership at Naropa University, and the Open Path. He has a Bachelors degree in literature from Antioch College and has written six books. Pir Elias has been leading programs in Sufism for over three decades, and Open Path programs for the past six years. He resides in Boulder, Colorado but continues to travel widely, both teaching Open Path programs and engaging in citizen diplomacy. His website is www.open-path.org.

• A Note to Those Who Open this Book Homage to the One The Desire to Be at the End of Distances The Everyday Practice The First Moment Surrender That Thought The Breath of the Median Void A Garden Among the Flames Face to Face with the Bad Guys Be Still and Know Twenty-Three Suggestions for Entering a Solitary Retreat Three Men in a Cave Praying in Death Valley With Hafez in Iran What Needs to Be Done? The Gesture For the Sake of Others Speaking of More or Less Spiritual Communion The Way It Is Loaves and Fishes No Teacher, No Student, No Path The Practice of Openness of Heart Nondual Sufism The Eros of Nonduality Seeing the One World with Two Eyes Beginnings Summertime Reverie Doing the Beautiful Medicine Beauty The Abyss Blessedness Death Song Free Fall Meditation on a Winter Night Clear Light and the Beauty of the World Before I Die In One Form or Another Oh! Dark Lament Bittersweet

Reading this book is a wonderful experience, full of brilliant insights, stories, images, lots of free medicine. -- Coleman Barks, author of "The Essential Rumi"