Reshad Feild

Reshad Feild (born Richard Timothy Feild, 13 April 1934) is an English mystic, author, spiritual teacher, and musician. He is the author of more than a dozen books about Sufism and spirituality and has exercised a huge influence amongst western seekers over the last forty yearsFact|date=June 2007.

As a young, upper-class Englishman, he was educated at Eton and served in the Royal Navy, where he had an undistinguished career. In the early 1960s Feild was a founding member of the popular British folk trio The Springfields.

Feild was influenced spiritually by the teachings of, among others, G. I. Gurdjieff and P. D. Ouspensky. He was very much involved with spiritual healing, and was involved with the Alice Bailey community. In the late '60's, he was initiated as a sheikh in the Sufi Order International by Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan. He also met and studied with Bulent Rauf, a Turkish author and translator who himself stemmed from a long line of Sufism going back to the Andalusian mystic Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi (1165–1240). He established the Beshara Centre in Aldsworth, England, in 1970. A description of events at this center is given in the book "I, Wabenzi", by Rafi Zabor. In 1972 he resigned his role in the Sufi Order.

In December, 1971, he and a group of students went to Konya (Turkey), to meet Bulent and see the sema of the Mevlevi order of Dervishes. While there, he met a former sheikh, Suleiman Dede. In 1973, he resigned his role leading the Beshara Centre and went to Los Angeles, Tepoztlan, Mexico, and Vancouver Island, BC, where he taught on his own. In 1976, he was made a sheikh in the Mevlevi order by Suleiman Dede, and moved to Boulder, CO where he started a small center. In Boulder Reshad assisted in introducing the sema ceremony – which was declared a cultural world heritage by UNESCO in 2004 – to America and Europe, thereby opening it up for the first time in history to women as well as non-Muslim participants (i.e. students).

Since then, Reshad Feild has been teaching the essence of the universality of Sufi teachings, making them available to people of all religious and spiritual backgrounds. He has published more than a dozen books, some of which have been translated into many languages. In his best selling autobiographical novel "The Last Barrier," he gives a fictionalized account of how he met Bulent Rauf.

Published works

*"The Last Barrier : A Sufi Journey" (Autobiographical trilogy part I) ISBN 0-906540-52-6
*"To Know We're Loved : A Time to Love and a Time to Die" (formerly "The Invisible Way: A Time to Love - A Time to Die" ISBN 0-906540-04-6, Autobiographical trilogy part II) ISBN 0-89556-154-9
*"Steps to Freedom: Discourses on the Essential Knowledge of the Heart" (Autobiographical trilogy part III) ISBN 0-9625412-1-4
*"Going Home - The Journey of a Travelling Man" ISBN 1-85230-878-8
*"The Alchemy of the Heart" ISBN 1-4208-3110-0
*"Here to Heal" ISBN 0-906540-80-1
*"Reason Is Powerless in the Expression of Love" ISBN 0-9625412-0-6
*"Footprints in the Sand" ISBN 1-85230-027-2
*"A Travelling People's Feild Guide" ISBN 1-85230-003-5
*"The Inner Work" ISBN 3-905272-21-0
*"Breathing Alive: A Guide to Conscious Living" ISBN 1-85230-050-7

External links

* [http://www.chalice.ch/c_rtf_e.htm Biography]