One Guest at Dinner God Part 2

Readings on Ramdas Speaks continue, with talks on a number of subjects.

0:00—“Ramdas wouldn’t let me sit in any posture at all. He came along with a stick and would sweep the floor until my feet were one foot up from the ground, and to all good and bad Zen Buddhists, that was the fastest method I ever had for having Samadhi, under him, the fastest! But this is against the rules, so mustn’t be taught like this, even if you get Samadhi. Oh I went up to Ramdas, and I found myself I was Ramdas, I was no longer Samuel Lewis. So I said, time to go, he said time to go, so I just disappeared. Didn’t say good-bye to anybody. Rang up a taxi and left. Nobody saw me go.”

1:50—“I don’t cast intellectual questions. I don’t ask you what scriptures you’ve read. Who was your false teacher? ‘Cause I’d be a false teacher. Oh it is unfair because if you want to know who I think are true teachers, this of course is very unfair, that is: Rev. Wycamp, Rev. Warwick, Rev. Miller, and Rev. Iru Price, and Master To Lun—I consider them true teachers. I think that’s enough.”

3:13—“You don’t graduate by taking a course. I never got any course from Ramdas. I never got any course even with Inayat Khan in the ordinary sense. Of course there were courses. Of course, they were good, but when your heart starts to jump ahead of your mind, what are you going to do then? You hold it back? You see, what we need in the West is “heart culture.” There are two types of heart culture, I say, I don’t say I’m right, which I call sober culture and ecstatic culture. And in ecstatic culture, you get high. In sober culture, you get intuitive.”

4:30—Lord Buddha’s yoga practice.

6:15—Ramdas in Europe.

6:40—Reads Ramdas.

7:50—Murshid Sam’s youthful curvature of the spine.

9:06—“Well, neither Nyogen Senzaki nor Inayat Khan and certainly not Ramdas recommended the Lotus Posture, and all of them reached their spiritual attainment.”

11:00—Reps and Murshid Sam—Slowed aging.

11:40—Eating flowers.

12:45—Resumes reading.

24:07—Murshid’s rules (too busy to enforce):

  1) a: people who sit in chairs pay $1

     b: people who sit on stools or benches $.50

     c: money collected is divided for those who sit on the floor

  2) those who come in late have to pay a fine for coming late. This is very unfair, because those who are my disciples I can’t scold, those who aren’t I can.

25:15—Resumes reading.

25:50—Gina Cerminara, (introduction and talk with).

27:09—Murshid on money (ethics).

27:44—“The only collections I have are voluntary offers and they go to the secretary. They don’t go to me, and if the secretary gets rich, the money will go to the Vietnamese. So, I don’t touch it.”