Sufi Shirdil Amin Richard Macko

Upon completing his B.S.M.E at Cleveland State University, Amin's span of professional involvement included positions of Chief Engineer, Manager of Plant Engineering, President of his own corporation, inventor, and lecturer.

Amin devoted many years to the study and practices of Self or God Realization. His schools of study included Gnostic Christianity, Buddhism, the Upanishads, Raja Yoga, Vedanta, and various schools that taught of samadhi-meditation and healing. He entered the Sufi path in the order of the Sufi Master Hazrat Inayat Khan and after he completed formal initiatic training in that school in 1974 was initiated as a Spiritual Teacher by the Pir of the order.

In 1975 Amin's vision of "Spirituality in Everyday Life" took him away from active participation in his Sufi Order and his Spiritual Sufi Master bid him "Gods speed on your mission." Amin discontinued active participation in the Sufi school and began to give lectures, seminars, and retreats to the general public through public schools, colleges, YMCAs, Adult Education, and Life Long Learning programs throughout the United States. The theme of his seminars and retreats was always focused on:

"Spirituality as an every day experience: it's all God."

Amin's classes, seminars, and meditation retreats taught the practices and philosophy of Raja-yoga, positive thinking, Spiritual Liberity, and introduced the great monotheistic sutras such as the Pratyabhijnahrdyam, Atma-Boddha, Yoga Darshana,

Thirty Minor Upanishads (the mystical instruction of God to Yoga Masters), the Science of the Tattvas, The Purpose of Life, The Message of Sufi Inayat Khan, the Mathnawi, the works of Ibn al Arabi, The 1000 Names of Vishnu, the 99 Sacred Names of Allah. To Amin these great spiritual teachings all had one underlying thread or foundation: "There is no reality but God, all that exists is God, We all live, move, and have our being in God." Not a God made of concepts and/or belief systems, but a Living Reality: God is Life.