About Our Past Guides and Teachers
Our Guides from the past and Present
We invite deep and experienced leaders to share and guide our spiritual retreats. Here are some who have joined us in the past and also some currently.
Murshida Leilah Be
In 1985, a very strong vision of and inner direction from Murshid Samuel Lewis guided Leilah to receive Bayat with one of his direct disciples, Pir Moineddin Jablonski. She then experienced the blessing stream of the lineage more fully opening to her.
Leilah began leading the Dances of Universal Peace and the practice of Zikr (Remembrance of God) in the early 80’s. She has composed many beautiful circle dances and Zikrs, danced the world over, and is appreciated for her depth of devotion.
She lives on the Island of Maui with her husband, Bodhi. They are the parents of five grown children and one grandchild. Leilah and Bodhi live a rural home life with gardens and an orchard and serve the local community as counselors, cherags/ministers, and also help educate and serve in the field of death and dying. They also travel widely, sharing the fruits of their practice in retreats worldwide.
Sheikh Gayan Gregory Long
Gayan is an acclaimed drummer, composer, leader of the Dances of Universal Peace, spiritual mentor, retreat leader, and storyteller. He has dedicated his life to awakening human potential through music, devotional practices, pithy teachings, and community celebration.
Gayan is a direct disciple of Pir Shabda Kahn, the lead teacher of the Sufi Ruhaniat International’s school of western Sufism.
He has shared the Dances world wide and and led retreats with some of the foremost spiritual leaders of our time.
Sheikha Amara Karuna
Amara has been leading the Dances of Universal Peace since 1985 and is a Senior Dance Leader, and has been involved in mentoring new Dance leaders.
She has been on teaching staff for five NW Sufi Camps has led many weekend retreats, zikrs and rituals which included the Dances.
She served as Secretary, and then President, on the Core of the International Council for the Dances of Universal Peace, working as a volunteer to oversee the organization for several years.
She specializes in Dances from the Goddess and Earth traditions, and leads with lively humor and devotion. She is a Sheikha in the SRI lineage of Sufism.
Murshid Allaudin Ottinger
A lifelong dedication to music, gathering people together and pursuit of the miraculous, led him to a study of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. This in turn led him to find "Sufi Dancing" in the college town of Lawrence, Kansas circa 1976. More experiences in Sufism followed, which led to a deep darshan with Murshid Moineddin Jablonski in the spring of 1978. Allaudin led hundreds of Dance and Sufi meetings in Kansas City, worked closely with the Sufi Order Center in Lawrence in sponsoring Pir Vilayat and many other traveling teachers, and took teachings with Korean Zen Master Soen Sa Nim. These days Allaudin spends a lot of time with an award winning children’s music group, working for an event production group and traveling worldwide for the Sufi work. Three Sufi inspired CDs produced by Allaudin in the last few years include the Two Niles for Imam Bilal Hyde, his own well loved collection of Dances, Zikrs and Tavern Songs called, In The Everywhere and Always and Saladin, the epic poem by Murshid Samuel Lewis, as read by Wali Ali. Current projects include working to make his Kansas City home and land a green oasis in the city.