Reflections on a personal journey
Many lifetimes within one life
Amyn’s journey moves from a childhood close to nature in Kenya to engineering, environmental work across the world, family life, profound loss and an ever-deepening exploration of human consciousness.
01
Kenya · The beginning
A childhood shaped by nature
Amyn grew up on his family’s small farm outside Mombasa, surrounded by fields, animals and the rhythms of the natural world. The whole family shared the work. Weekends began early—ploughing fields, tending poultry and caring for sick birds in a makeshift clinic.
At eleven, he was already delivering eggs and vegetables to hotels along the coast before school. Those early mornings taught him responsibility, negotiation and the dignity of practical work.
02
Education · Family · The world
Science in service of life
In the early 1970s, Amyn left Kenya for the United Kingdom, graduating with distinctions in Chemical Engineering. His career later took him to Canada and then to industrial centres and remote communities around the world as an engineer and environmental specialist.
He and his wife, Karima, raised their family amid this rich diversity of people and places. Science became more than a profession: it became a way to serve communities and protect the living environment.
03
1987 · The Himalayas
The moment time stood still
During a visit to Kashmir, a motorcycle accident became one of the defining moments of Amyn’s life. Thrown into the air at high speed as the motorcycle burst into flames below, he experienced an unexpected stillness and peace amid the violence of the event—and survived without a scratch.
“The stillness and peace of this experience was in sharp contrast to the violent nature of the accident.”
In the years that followed, the experience opened an intense mental and spiritual transformation. Amyn began recording the insights that came to him, believing knowledge should be shared freely in order to maintain its flow.
04
A thought realised
Helping bring clean water
As a teenager, after witnessing the devastation of cholera in Kenya, Amyn formed a simple intention: one day he would help end waterborne disease. Decades later, he watched a community in Vietnam celebrate the opening of a water purification system his company had built.
In that moment, he recognised how a thought formed many years earlier had quietly helped shape his life as a specialist in water treatment and environmental preservation.
05
Loss · Renewal
Beginning again from zero
Towards the end of the 1990s, Amyn lost his business and everything he had worked to build. The abandonment, humiliation and conflict that followed became, in time, one of his greatest periods of learning.
With the strength of faith and family, he rebuilt from the ground up. The experience transformed his understanding of success, adversity, gratitude and the importance of hope.
06
The work continues
Hope, humility and gratitude
Amyn has continued to contribute to environmental technologies while sharing his ideas through books, lectures, workshops, meditation sessions and masterclasses for people across cultures, religions and schools of thought.
“The best teacher of life is the school of hard knocks.”
Asked what his most significant outcomes of learning have been, his answer is simple: hope, humility and gratitude.
