Our Teachers

Saadi Neil Douglas-Klotz (Scotland)

Neil Douglas-Klotz (Saadi Shakur Chishti), Ph.D. is a writer, researcher, teacher, and musician in the fields of Middle Eastern spirituality and the translation and interpretation of the ancient Semitic languages of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic. He was for many years the co-chair of the Mysticism Group of the American Academy of Religion and co-founded the International Network for the Dances of Universal Peace in 1982. He has been a student of various teachers on the Sufi path for almost 50 years, including Hazrat Inayat Khan, Sufi Ahmed Murad Chishti, Moineddin Jablonski, and Shaykh Fadhlalla Haeri. His current focus is on helping people liberate the transformational side of the Native Middle Eastern traditions, including Sufism, from their pseudo-religious chains in order to connect their self to their soul through the heart.

Learn more about Neil’s work: Abwoon website

Silke Alima (Germany)

Nature, psychological insights and the spiritual teachings of this earth are essential sources of wisdom, strength and practical life support for Alima Silke. Many years of working with people on the threshold of life and death have made her appreciate the preciousness of every moment and focus on what feels essential. Her work is characterised by empathy, clarity, respect and a deep appreciation for the uniqueness of each person and the interconnectedness of all life. Alima aims to support people in connecting with their inner nature and shaping their life paths with more mindfulness and awareness.

Baraka Brita von Kügelgen and Jelaluddin Hauke Sturm

(Germany)

Brita Baraka and Hauke Jelaluddin have been guides on the spiritual path for many years. As psychotherapists, they support people in getting to know themselves better and mastering the challenges of life. On the Sufi path, they want to creatively combine knowledge from the wealth of spiritual traditions with the possibilities of psychotherapy – with the aim of helping people to become more and more themselves.

One focus of their work is the topic of healing: healing work, the Healing Ritual, Sufi Soulwork which is a holistic, spiritual form of therapy, and also meditation, singing and the Dances of Universal Peace.

Jean Pierre David (France)

Jean Pierre David  (Salik) has been a student in the Sufi tradition since 1975. Early experience with peyote opened  him up to extraordinary states of consciousness, which prompted study of Zen Buddhism, and also of yoga with Swami Vishnu Devananda; Be Here Now by Ram Dass inspired him to seek a natural spiritual path while living in the world without following an ascetic life. Jean Pierre later became a successful leader and COO in his chosen profession of a hotelier, and successfully raised a large family. 

Following in the footsteps of Sufi Ahmed Murad, Hazrat Inayat Khan, and those awakened teachers he had privilege to meet in person, he inspires others to seek the presence of the Beloved and listen to the spirit of guidance in one’s heart. Jean Pierre shares his passion for the Sufi path of love, harmony and beauty through remembrance of God’s presence using practices such as walks, dances of the universal peace, prayers, meditation and the zikar of Inayat Khan, and teaches through stories that show how to integrate a regular life with the spiritual one.

Natalia Nur Jahan (Scotland)

Natalia Nur Jahan is a Sufi guide, a meditation teacher, and an emotional freedom and spiritual coach. Her main focus is on bringing about spiritual healing, be that through conducting the Sufi Healing Ritual, leading spiritual study groups, or assisting those in need one-on-one. She is devoted to helping people free themselves from the limitations imposed by the conditioned mind and by habitual emotional reactions, and welcome back the abundance of light and life that have been the natural right of a human being from its true beginning.

Learn more about Natalia’s work: In The Rose Garden website, Rose Garden Coaching website

Rafia Sieglin (Germany)

Rafia has been accompanying people on the Sufi path, as well as on the path of the Dances of the Universal peace, for over 25 years. Her aim is to touch people’s hearts through sound, dance, song and various Sufi practices so that inner peace can arise within the heart.

She lives with her family in Ruhau, a dance and seminar centre, a place for the dances of peace and Sufi work.

Rahmana Dziubany (Germany)

Rahmana is a Sufi guide, a mentor for the Dances of Universal Peace, a retreat guide. She has her spiritual home in Sufism, but also with her spiritual family, the hermits of Shantivanam Ashram  in Tamil Nadu, India since 1983. As an initiate (oblate) of this place and the neighbour Ananda Ashram, Rahmana represents its legacy and the teachings of Father Bede Griffiths in the west. She lives part of the year with the hermits there and invites pilgrims to join her in her Pink Lotus tours. Her NGO Bless Ananda is a way of supporting the charity of these places and its manifold activities for local people in need.

She loves nature-related, embodied, sensory-connecting spirituality and how creativity, humor and play enrich spiritual experience. In collaboration with nationwide education providers, she has developed various training programs that make this content accessible to special target groups. Her own retreat and seminar house Ananda near Berlin is a heart center and meeting place for people from all over the world.

Learn more about Rahmana’s work: Rahmana’s website, Haus Ananda website, Bless Ananda project website (During the Summer School 2023 many participants donated towards Rahmana’s Bless Ananda project in India. HERE you can watch a short video showing you what those donations were spent on.)

Tara Andrea and Maboud Charles (USA)

Maboud Charles has been dedicated to a creation-centered practice of introspection, contemplation, prayer, meditation, authentic movement, parenting and nature photography. These practices have inspired Maboud to feel into and be present to the wonders of Creation and the wounds of our human condition, and have enriched his 40 year psychotherapy & pastoral counseling practice as well as his personal journey of being fully human.

Tara Andrea (born in Germany) has focused her life on living an authentic and fully embodied life, having felt called to be a bridge builder and co-creatress of spaces where people can feel the essence of their true beingness and the eternal connection with the Divine and all of life. For decades she was called to assist people at home when needing care and support during their dying journeys.

Maboud and Tara Andrea have received new melodies and movements in dreams, through experiences in nature, and through visions arising in their everyday life.  They shape, and are shaped, by the creative process in their efforts to embody and express living divine qualities in song and dance movement and practices.

Learn more about Tara and Maboud’s work: Santa Fe DUP website, Hummingbird Dance and Wazifa Retreats (Facebook)

Raaja Hakim (Germany)

Raaja worked for many years as the musical director of the New York based Living Theatre. He is leading the Dances of Universal Peace since over 20 years, his main focus being the Aramaic dances. Raaja likes to organize big events like the Unicorn Voice Camp which he is running with his team since 1999 in Northern Germany or the Night of Spiritual Songs in Hamburg. The main part of his work and passion is directing choirs and composing music for them, which often stems from his spiritual practices and his strong belief in the peaceful way of life and loving communities. He was initiated into the Sufi path in 2003.

Learn more about Raaja’s work: Raaja’s website,   German Unicorn Camps website,  Living Theatre website

Glen Unmana (England)

Glen Unmana is initiated into the Advaitic and Sufi lineages. He has dedicated much of his life to deepening into his meditative practices, the purpose of all such practices being to ultimately end the practitioner or the “doer”. A student of the dances since the late 1990s, he has given hundreds of workshops and longer retreats across various countries in Europe and beyond and serves in a core leadership role on the Unicorn Camp in England, an international dance camp now in its fourth decade.

To learn more about Glen’s work, visit Glen’s website for hours of streaming meditative music, professional videos and events, and Unicorn Camps website

Khabir Wali´  (Germany)

Khabir Wali´ is a storyteller, a leader and a mentor of the Dances of the Universal Peace. He is initiated into the Sufi path, is a minister,  and a spiritual guide. Khabir Wali’ finds great pleasure and honour to be with groups of people and to accompany them into the world of images, spaces of experience and sounds of the fairy tales and/or mantras of this world. For many years he is part of the team that shares and holds the space for the young people in the German Family Dance Camp. In addition to organising retreats and seminars, he also offers a Dances of the Universal Peace leader’s training together with Rafia.

Learn more about Khabir Wali’s work: Khabir’s website

European Sufi Summer School