910 Railroad Ave.
Novato, Calif. 94947
December 19, 1968
Dr. Huston Smith
Philosophy Dept. MIT
Boston, Mass.
My dear Huston:
This is an Advent. This is intended to be a Christ greeting rather than a Christmas greeting. Symbols have their values, ceremonies have their usages, but the direct divine experience is of another order.
Saturday and Sunday this weekend will find me at a little known church. This minister also began working with hippies, utilizing the very hard fact that they had visions of the Holy Grail. I believe that in the last six months there have been more cases of mystical awakenings among his young neophytes than in all other groups (including my own) have had in the last six months. There is in a sense more danger in having a reality made of “Joy to the world; the Lord is come” than in all the dramatic affairs of both establishment and anti-establishment activities.
The theme “Whatsoever ye do to the least of these my creatures” has to be rejected by establishment organizations. At the other pole is an Allen Ginsberg who says we need more Blakes and Whitmans and who equally sees to it that so far as he is concerned no Blake nor Whitman is on the platform.
“The Rejected Avatar” is only one of a number of epics written by me.
The time will come when these are published and so far as prophesying is
concerned, it will make a shambles of a
Nostradamus, a Blake and especially a Jean Dixon. It is also noteworthy that
the first person and for a while the only parson who would accept this was the
late Mrs. Ruth Fuller Sasaki.
When the U.N met here, honorable U Thant finished his address with, “What the world needs is a moral and spiritual revolution.” All the leaders, prelates, potentates and phony yogis applauded vociferously. This person listened in horror and saw the terrible karma of an emotional audience applauding utter ego-centric nonsense.
It is very hard to write in a spirit of loving kindness with open eyes and not see the irretrievable working of ego-centric samsaras from those who can hardly be classed with “the least of these my creatures.”
From one end of Asia to the other, all inclusive, I do not think there were three of the class of saints, sages, gurus, pirs etc. who did not place me by their sides. In this land excepting at the University of Washington at Seattle, there was a single case of a Hindu professor in Berkeley and a Vietnamese Zen master who did, until I was permitted to speak before a small audience of professors from the University of Chicago. This is now water under the bridge.
We are now going to have real cultural exchange with real masters of real Oriental wisdom. My program is utterly upset but from the standpoint of blessings and not hazards. The advent of the Sufi Pir Vilayat Khan and Swami Maharaj Ranganathananda is going to bring out in the open “When the Gods arrive, the half gods go.” I have already sent Swamiji’s local disciple both “The Rejected Avatar” and my essay on Sri Ramakrishna. The latter was rejected by the Vedantists of Southern California. Our Huxleys and other British experts on the Orient will have nothing of an American mystic. But what of the young?
“The Rejected Avatar” was followed almost immediately by dances drawn from its inspirations. For about a month dervish dances were presented. The nonsense of our “experts” refusing alike that I had had Sufic training and discipline, and that I could possibly have been at dervish gatherings will soon be exposed. We are teaching the real Sufism now through chanting, singing and dancing. We have no more of this so-called “advaitan” dualism. In Sufism teacher and pupil are one. The joy from these dances is electric.
When Mr. Paul. Reps was here recently it was surprising how the disciples of Hinduism and Buddhism joined in the dervish dance.
The next step was in the pathways of Hazrat Inayat Khan and Miss Ruth St. Dennis. They toured this country in 1911 with the theme “Yoga dances.” I have been the disciple of each and apart and together inherit the real yoga dances which arise from real states of real yoga awakening, totally different from dualistic homilies and sermons as if “from me to thee.”
Both the Sufi and Yoga dances represent communal rather than individualistic orders. Only God Exists. One differs entirely from nearly all the present day authorities on the interpretations of Indian metaphysics and mysticism. Our work is based on direct experience.
The same Krishna-consciousness which made “The Rejected Avatar” and other poems possible has brought forth the “Hare Krishna,” “The Ramnam,” “The Krishna Gopi,” and other dances. In this work I am being assisted by Jemila Johnson (Carolyn). We have just begun, because our next work is in the field close to pageantry. All the forms are connected directly and indirectly with the real great religions of the world. We use all the traditional symbols and are not creating any new form masquerading as a symbol.
No doubt religion itself goes through the three Comteian stages of theology, metaphysics, and science. The presentation to the American public of what purports to be Asian wisdom has up to now been mostly in the hands of the metaphysical people. A Kapleau or a Ruth Sasaki is an annoyance. There are now all sorts of intellectuals also lecturing on Sufism who have no connection with the still strong and active Sufi Orders.
(Tomorrow the Johnsons and I shall visit a shop in the city of Berkeley operated by a Sufi. One is encountering them or their immediate offspring all over. They have been shut out from our culture and hardly a speaker has dared to point out the story of the Taj. Akbar, the greatest ruler of India, never existed!)
Mr. Paul Reps long ago pointed out that Sam Lewis would have to start his own school. Dedicated to the brotherhood of man, this has never been desired. You have met my two young disciples in India. Both “Mrs. Judith Hollister and “Miss Julie Medlock at Pondicherry have been leaning on this person, while the active metaphysical “experts” have been proclaiming them and doing nothing. It is merely a case of “When the Gods arrive, the half-gods go.”
Love is electrifying and blessings are magnetic. The young are realizing this. The rapid growth of real new age movements out here has not been given proper consideration. You only read about the melodramas and sideshows in the press; that is all you see on TV.
With the new year I shall be joining a real cultural organization of Hindu students who so far have not recognized the professors, potentates and prelates, who have been paraded before the American public as “experts” on India. You will be glad to know they are programming a big reception for Swami Ranganathananda Maharaj, our good friend.
I feel this is only a foreshadow of the wonders of a new age. It is the young who are Sri Aurobindo’s people, not their dualistic elders who sermonize them on Advaita. In our Kurukshetra we have Sri Krishna on our side. The disciple in Sufism can see God, so to speak, in Rama, Krishna, Shiva, Buddha, Moses, Jesus and Mohammed, and perhaps does.
I believe we are not only awaiting the Christ consciousness, but that the Christ consciousness is awaiting us.
Love and Blessings,
S.A.M.
Garden of Inayat
910 Railroad Ave.
Novato, Cal. 94947
January 9, 1969
Dr. Huston Smith,
Dept. of Humanities
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge 39, Massachusetts.
My dear Huston:
A number of things are happening in this life demonstrating the validity of the law of karma. No doubt a combination of patience and fighting when is necessary will bring victory and satisfaction.
The wonderful cooperation and response of the Indian students here and their countryman in general anent the coming of Swami Ranganathananda Maharaj stands in strong contradiction to the policies of most non-Indian “experts” on Asian philosophy. The nationals themselves are taking matters in hand, and I am also invited to participate in their national liberation day. (This was also true when I was in India, and true here when the Indian consulate took over, but never when Westerners were in charge.)
Have you seen Mr. Paul Reps latest work? In general the comments are favorable from the young, unfavorable from the mature.
This is in conformance with the events of the day. The introduction first of dervish dances and next of Yoga dances have brought about an increasingly favorable response from the young and also from some students of Asian teachers of Asian philosophies. Added to that is the presentation of Darshan and no nonsense about it. Sooner or later this will be recognized because of its factual validity.
The first evidence of this was that without any advertising of any kind and in the absence of a large portion of my immediate disciples. We had a very large audience when the Sufi Pir Vilayat Khan abruptly visited my house. His address has been recorded by Mansur (Otis Johnson). The tape has been sent to Michigan proper copies will made later and one will be furnished you.
Mansur Otis is now in Los Angeles doing further tape recording on Pir Vilayat’s lectures. He has assured me that you will be furnished copies of these.
The new year has been veritably a happy new year. Hoping that you also are benefiting from the blessings of the season.
Cordially,
Samuel L. Lewis
Sufi Ahmed Murad
PS. The appearance of the Oracle has been delayed, but I am assured it will be out later this week. I shall see that you get a copy.
410 Precita
San Francisco, Calif. 94110
January 27, 1969
Dr. Huston Smith.
Department of Humanities, MIT
Cambridge, Mass. 02139
My dear Huston:
The visit of Swami Ranganathananda Maharaj turned out totally successful. To put one’s cards on the table and challenge may be daring but the young understand realities and recognized a real man when they saw him. Otis and I did not go to yesterday’s meeting in order that some of our group could go and I do not recall a single person who has not been impressed and enthusiastic—this after a long line of sometimes very questionable characters.
To save time copy of letter to Paul Reps is enclosed. But even since writing it more encouraging news has been received. It looks as if one may have to take the lead to meting presentation of real oriental cultures before the American public. But as reported, there is now a class at the university of Californian— given here in San Francisco—following the principles of your work, but also following it up with objectivity and hard facts and no more dialectics and “experts.”
Mr. Reps introduced me to an editor who asked for stories of Dervishes. I told him I would not go into any more historical research, that I would be glad to furnish real stories of living characters. I have plenty of them about Sufis, real yogis and real Zen masters—no more ghosts, and historical sub-heroes. He has just written that is exactly what he wants.
It is time we get out of “Paris Peace Talks” and meet living people. This is part of my work. One of the first things I am going to offer is “The Religion of India’s President.” The “experts” do not seem to want it so I am going directly to the public, on this and much more.
We have also established an entente with the Consul-General of Iran. We are buying the costumes of Asian countries and using them, and the foods and all means to peace and understanding but no more “experts” and Profs. “Suez Canals.”
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
San Francisco, Calif.
February 1, 1969
Dr. Huston Smith,
Department of Humanities,
Mass. Institute of Technology,
Cambridge, Mass. 02139
My dear Huston:
This has been a very “exciting” period! The Sufi Pir Vilayat Khan has been here, crowding in my full program but not remaining long. Mansur (Otis) Johnson, however, went down to Los Angeles and not only taped his talks but has copies of others and I am sure he could provide you with this material.
Then came our good friend, Swami Ranganathananda Maharaj. One put all his cares on the table, praising him to the fore after so many instances of taking a stance of indifference, shallowness or downright criticism. This was not only done openly but scores of long people agreed that this is a man, a man of integrity and real spiritual development.
One answer was very typical: when asked about “transcendental meditation” he replied that all meditation is transcendental. He was unequivocal on his criticism of drugs and psychedelics as ways to his type of spiritual awakening. The mystical experience is so different from the psychedelic one. He was also clear on reincarnation, differing from too many well-known “authorities” on Indian culture.
Hardly had he gone when Dr. Nottingham arrived. We are using your book in the class on the influence of the traditional religions of Asia on Modern movements. Dr. Noronha who had the two sessions on Hinduism is the first man I have ever heard giving Emperor Akbar any consideration. Our culture lives in the clouds, and keeps far away from the contributions of historical personages when their influences do not accord with the opinions of the people in charge. And while I have been slightly successful in getting our friends of The Temple of Understanding to recognize the work, and even the existence of Akbar, I am withdrawing from any more criticism. Let the “experts” control the seminars: I am going to the young.
The conversation with Dr. Nottingham was entirely open and above board. While I have admired her from afar the admiration grew both with her address and then our subsequent conversation. She saw no reason to react against my real relations either with Swamiji above or her serene highness, Princess Poon or many of the great spiritual leaders of the day in many lands.
This is causing me to stop trying to get into any more seminars or conferences. There are too many debating societies and too few of the leaders interested in the spiritual experiences of living people—they want enigmas of the past, the more enigmas and the further back the “better.”
Through the good-will of my friend, Mr. Paul Reps, I have at last found an editor who is willing to publish living tales of living Sufis. As a culture we do not want them. Sufis are excluded from conferences. I did success with The Temple of Understanding, and therefore God, this success is passing on to the young. They want the living experiences in the transcendent as well as in the here now. We cannot remain objective in the sciences and subjective in other domains of men’s experiences. “The meaning of God in human Experience” is going to be out in the open.
The work with Dervish and Yoga dances proceeds. It will be known that Ruth St. Denis had a direct influence and there is now a “legend” going on in dance circles. The Orientalists (?) will be the last ones to accept the living experiences of living mystics unless we are jolted enough to went real peace.
I have never met a Vietnamese with whom there was not direct communication.
My own Roshi, Grand Master Seo Kyung Bo of Korea wishes to come out here. Now I am on somewhat better terms on both the Berkeley and Los Angeles campuses of the University of California. Master Seo has published in Korea a goodly section of my memories. They are going to be altered a little because of the strange fact that there are power structures in certain faiths which I did not find but which are alleged by Koestler. Rump sitting does not constitute Enlightenment and although not a “Buddhist” we are practicing and rather successfully the Jhanas and other teachings of Tathagata.
But my main work is in Sufism. It is not only that we are excluded from conferences but by the very people who should be more circumspect. With the hatred between Arab and Israeli there should be some careful measures to bring these people together. The rejection of my own mission lead to Tashkent. Important people simply would not accept or believe. It is only people with universal consciousness who are able to cross barriers.
Anyhow the young are coming to me more and more, and one teaches the real Buddhists, Hindu, Christian and Islamic mysticism. I enclose a speech of the late Mahatma Gandhi. You can be assured this sort of thing is almost never presented to the public by orators.
Fortunately I am beginning to get help. Otis (Mansur) joins in sending regards.
Faithfully,
Sam
San Francisco, Calif.
February 20, 1969
Dr. Huston Smith,
Mass. Institute of Technology,
Cambridge, Mass. 02139
My dear Huston:
The other day the subject for the class in New Testament mysticism was “Sophia and gnosis” but in working on the theme I came upon the word epignosis. This and gnosis are translated the same, but I doubt whether they mean exactly the same. I do not know too much of either Greek or Sanskrit. The equation gnosis=jnana holds etymologically. It may hold more than that. The possibility of prajna, being para-jnana is also held by some, especially by seeks who have had some cosmic experience (this has nothing to do with speculative philosophy). This brought up the question whether Paul’s epignosis could mean something like prajna.
I had hoped, in joining the “Society for the Scientific Study of Religion” that some article by a mystic sight be accepted. This has not been so at all and letters are very seldom answered. It does not matter for I have found in the British publication, “Studies in Comparative Religion” the proper people, men qualified in both Western culture and divine wisdom, East and West. I am therefore sending them money to cover a subscription for you and if you already have it then I would like to transferred to some other person or institution. For here we have the same objectivity, the same impersonality, the same use of human experience as in the sciences but in another direction.
The article in Playboy has been praised rather than otherwise because I have been recorded as a Sufi. This is absolutely true, but it is equally true I have been excluded from conferences in the United States because of pressures from well-known people who have not had the mystical experience themselves. There is as certain parallel but only up to a point in the career of Sheikh Idries Shah in England. But this man does not represent the traditional Orders of the Sufis; he merely refers to them. And the hard, hard fact that I have been initiated into these Orders, several of them, has been vetoed by this culture. We cannot go on being half free, half dialectic.
In April the University of California is going to have a seminar on mystical experience. I wish to say, parodying Shakespeare that
“The evil which mean do lives,
The good is oft interred.”
And I mean right now. A small group of students, fomented by a larger group of non-students gets all the publicity and the tremendous achievements of both the University and Multiversity are kept from the public’s eyes.
I am also subscribing for Peter Dunne to get “Studies in Comparative Religion.” I find all the articles so wonderful, it is a great joy to find there is some objectivity in this field. If you read Playboy you will see what is “acceptable” in California, and no doubt elsewhere. But the absence of reference to Meher Baba (deceased) and Krishnamurti (retiring from the scene) may lead to some objective acceptances of living mysticisms. For I have both companions, if not colleagues, in the schools of Sri Krishna and Lord Christ, backed by living experience and not by super intellectual dialectical reviews, passing off among the “elite as religion.
Swami Ranganathananda’s scathing remarks to the Unitarians has impressed the young in the audience—experience, not rituals. Al-Chatzali said, “Tasawwuf (Sufism) is based on experience, not premises. But whether it is Sufism or Zen, the passing show has been in the hands of non-mystics.
I am enclosing carbon of a sheet which I am having multi-graphed. It is from “The Awakening of Faith” and is among a number of other things rejected by Dr. Hayakawa, the atheist, who has rejected his paternal heritage and is parading himself off before the public as a “semanticist.” He has never forgiven me for having been introduced to Korzybski by Cassius Keyser of Columbia, i.e. from the top down and so he has rejected all my efforts, especially all that he and his colleagues requested.
As the University of California is also planning courses on “Semantics” I may copy from both Buddhist and Sufi sources a number of articles based on the theme that words are not the things they represent. When Count Korzybski’s secretary, my very best friend and still living, told her principal that much of what he was writing was found in Mahayana Buddhism he accented. But not his “successor” who accepted articles by noted Englishmen (whom he has since disowned) as authoritative in re: “Zen” and has refused practically everything from the Orient!
I am now having an ever-increasing number of young in my audiences and this is preparatory to my next appearance in the Haight-Ash bury District. My “Aquarian Asian Philosophy” is simply the philosophy of Asians and has nothing to do with the stars.
No nation can remain half free, half dialectic.
Sincerely,
Sam
San Francisco, Calif.
May 24, 1969
Dr. Huston Smith,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Cambridge 02139, Mass
My dear Huston:
No doubt one is deliberate in writing. One has come to the end of negative protestations, and can now rather calmly watch certain movements follow the same roads to oblivion as their predecessors. They begin with universal appeals and sooner or later become caught in small issues with small persons. I have seen this so many times.
I am sending copy of this to The Temple of Understanding. The themes have been, “My House shall be a House of prayer for all people” and “Unless the Lord buildeth the house they labor in vain who build.” But the Lord does not build the house excepting in a few instances where a group has been willing to become all-inclusive and listen to the least as well as to the greatest of these my creatures.
Mansur Otis Johnson amazes me. He is becoming involved in the same type of activities with the same approaches and same points of view I had earlier in life. It is remarkable. He is on his way to New Mexico now. On his return he will lead a caravan to Colorado to lead them with Pir Vilayat Khan, the Sufi teacher, in a mountain climbing retreat.
He has been very active in a new “The Oracle,”a publication taken over almost entirely by friends and disciples. But it is not only “The Oracle” that has been active. There is a series of new publications coming out from and by the young. While all the metaphysical psychologists and sociologists are blaming everything on “environment” which means exactly the same as “devil” or “what’s his name” or “they,” the majority of the local drop-outs come from comfortable homes, have ample means at their disposal and are seeking outlets for their frustrations.
One new editor merely listed the rejections one has had during the years: “Vietnamese Buddhism,” “The Religion of the President of India” (the Hon. Zukair Hussein, recently diseased); “Integration In Mogul India,” etc. All this type of article rubs against some movement claiming to be new, claiming to be world-wide, and in analysis shows it being nothing but vocabulary stealing for profit-hungry people.
It is not only this but the growing number of very objective and keen professors on the various campuses. You hear only of campus revolts, which are often the work of outsiders and do not always involve many enrolled students. You do not hear of real “revolutionary” movements toward humanitarians, universality and real integrated outlooks.
Prof. Nottingham recently gave me an “A” without waiting for the term paper. Prof. Needleman of San Francisco State (the campus in perpetual revolt) has been accepting one paper, both prose and poetry, after another showing evidence of cosmic ideation. And this coming month one is enrolling in a course on poetry writing as influenced by the study of Oriental Philosophies.
There is a steady increment of my audiences and now there is movement of moneys also to real integrative movements which will integrate and not merely select “important” persons to lead (or mislead) the rest of us.
I have started to present Sufi Poetry to the Hippies. The courses on spiritual dancing are drawing from the real backgrounds of the real religions of the real world. If I have to go east I shall bring these to The Temple of Understanding in Washington. It will take a great deal of time to write them up. Both Mansur Otis and my other chief secretary Daniel Lomax now have full time outside jobs. And we are making world-contracts—I mean geographically and culturally—with no proper secretariat. Thus Lomax has heard from Prof. Conze, now in England, and one of our next ventures will be to collect copies of “The Encyclopedia of Buddhism” which I am now able to donate to various universities, etc.
When Mansur Otis returns we shall see that you get copies of certain new publications. There is not a dull moment.
Besides this we have enough material to help work out a real rapprochement with the real people of real Vietnam. This is a long and very ugly story in American history.
Cordially,
Sam
Samuel L. Lewis
410 Precita Avenue
San Francisco, Calif. 94110
June 11, 1969
Huston Smith,
Department of Humanities
Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Cambridge, Mass. 02199
My dear Huston:
There was no need to write further on receiving your letter of May 30. But now The Oracle is out again with a fine article by Kapleau (and also more material by this person or about him). So I shall see you get copy of this issue too.
This is a New Age in which honesty, morality and knowledge is replacing more opinions of important persons and especially in Orientalia. There must be some cosmic justice that now more funds have been released from my family estate and this is enabling me to purchase copies of The Encyclopedia of Buddhism, so far as it is published. It will get into the hands of valid instructors—and I am finding more and more of them on the campuses in this State.
This comes after a whole series of “experts” not only refused to consider my spiritual but even geographical and social backgrounds. All they wanted was money for research. But I found Prof. Lozicki on the Berkeley campus going far ahead on the themes of my life, “How California Can Help Asia,” and then Prof. Lancaster who did accept objective reports.
It was from Lancaster I learned you were coming to California soon. But more important he turns out to be one of Senzaki’s last disciple; and accepting the hard fact that I have so many of Senzaki-san’s manuscripts he not only will accept them, I am rapidly coming into a position to help him and also the Department of Oriental Studies at UCLA.
The number of disciples has grown very rapidly. Audiences are larger and more responsive. Otis is away on a research trip and is expected this week. At times he acts almost as if my “reincarnation.”
Cordially,
Sam
P.S. More about Vietnam Later.
910 Railroad Ave.
Novato, Calif. 94947
July 10, 1969
Huston Smith
c/o Fifth East-West Philosopher’s Conference
1993 East-West Road
Honolulu, Hawaii 96822
My dear Huston:
We obtained this address from your secretary Mrs. Marilyn Smith. The reason for writing you is that my colleague, so to speak, Prof. Seyyed Hossein Nasr is again with Dr. Cantwell Smith at the Center for Religious Studies at Harvard, and I thought a courtesy visit would be in order. He may be coming this way, also to be our guest, Inshallah.
There is quite a story here. A number of years ago there was an All-Asian (and I mean Asian) philosophical conference. My God-daughter Miss Khawar Khan won first prize in a contest. She felt very ashamed because her paper was written by this ineligible person. We are still wondering when and how we can have East-West conferences which will be East-West conferences and not what was our lesson for today!
“It is the lover of God whose heart is filled with devotion, who can commune with God; not he who takes an effort with his intellect to analyze God.”—Hazrat Inayat Khan.
Of course, one cannot impose one’s will on any conference, or for that matter on any person. The totally different method of religious parliaments held in certain foreign parts and those held within the domain of the United States is sooner or later going to cause a scandal. The Asians for the most part follow the principles first put into operation at the world congress of faiths held in Chicago in 1893. I do not know when this general program has been used within the confines of our country. One may write a paper which can win first prize at an all—Asian conference, but one may not even appear at a so-called East-West conference within the domains of this country. It is becoming too ridiculous even to consider.
There is going to be another “East-West Conference” in the city of San Francisco in August—all properly chaired by a German, flanked by three Frenchmen, one Italian and one Irishman, all properly credentialed. What this has to do with anything Asian, I do not know, and have never been able to find out. Money of course would be welcomed!
At a recent so-called “Sufi” meeting in San Francisco, one of the very least of my disciples asked, “I thought Sufism was the religion of the heart?” The speaker did reply, “Your question is worth more than all our speeches.” But though Sufism may be the religion of the heart, the above quotation is only slowly being acceptable in this land. It is going to be, because the young want realities not opinions no matter how important the person whose opinions are being expressed.
Miss Khawar Khan (my disciple), was the youngest full-professor in all Asia despite the fact that she is both a woman and a Muslim. I am not going to try and impress “experts” with this hard fact, but later Miss Khan became an associate of Europeans who really know the inside of Asian wisdom, viz.: R. Schuon, Titus Burckhardt, Marco Pallis and their colleagues is general. I believe these men and not intellectuals or “experts” are bringing the real Asia and the real West closer together.
The Sufi Pir Vilayat Khan was here and has been very much impressed by our spiritual dances. He has asked Jemila, Otis’ wife, to help teach these dances to the young in other parts. Last week when Pir Vilayat was here, we had Zionists, Hindus, and non-Zionists Jews joining with Muslims and Sufism in doing spiritual dances in a Christian seminary. I believe this is setting the pace for the new age. One cannot compel old type mind intellectuals to account this, yet….
Anyhow we are writing up those spiritual lances and firmly believe, Inshallah, that the heritage from the late Ruth St. Dennis will sooner or later cover the world.
In the meanwhile, we have had cordial greeting from Philip Kapleau. Also, I have placed the copies of the Encyclopedia of Buddhism as far as available in the libraries of southeast Asian and Far East departments of the University of California in Berkeley. This is part of my golden anniversary gift. Another set will go to UCLA. A totally new objective impersonal and heart-cordial understanding has been reached with so many of your younger colleagues. It is wonderful and I think ultimately it will be most effective.
I notice you will be at UCLA next month. I shall inform this to my friend and colleague Dean Carrol Parish. And I am sure he will be most cooperative.
With cordial greeting from us all,
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
Otis Johnson
910 Railroad Ave.,
Novato, Calif. 94947
August 29, 1970
Dr. Huston Smith
Department of Humanities,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge 39, Mass
My dear Huston:
One is writing knowing that your office may receive this before your return, and will hold it for you. The report here is like a composition of fairy stories or complex folklore. I am seated alone in an office dedicate to the spreading of Sufism with my chief associate in the hospital and the absence of secretaries for very favorable reasons!
For instance Otis Mansur Johnson is no longer with me. His wife, Dickie Carolyn left him, but please, no samskaras, that would be the worst thing showing the vanity of dualism with which we are so imbued. She is now chief secretary of the Sufi Pir Vilayat Khan, my closest associate.
Mansur went to Europe with me to the session of The Temple of Understanding and did quite is good. Then also to Lama Foundation in New Mexico. Now he is full time employed on a venture which grew out of “my” own endeavors, Dance of Universal Peace. This was long discussed with the late Ruth St. Denis ad the first s taps began before she died, spiritual walking. The class which included Otis progresses so well we tried spiritual dancing and whang!
We began with Dervish dancing and then added Mantric dancing and on and on. I am busy all the time both teaching and receiving and this goes on seven days a week while we are trying to organize the Sufi Message. Then in a row Paul Reps, Richard Alpert and Pir Vilayat Khan—all separately, practically told me they were leaving this country to Sam, and helped spread the dancing. We have been entirely successful in Arizona, New Mexico, New York and New England.
While the “big” and “important” people refused to have anything to do with the dances or this person, evidently God-Allah-Ram thought differently. While at Geneva I learned that my brother had died. We had been enemies for 50 years, became friends and he died almost alone leaving me in a good financial position, alhamdulillah.
Meanwhile the universities began to change their attitudes. So long as “Oriental” studies were under Englishmen and Germans and other Europeans I not only did not have a chance but was actually black-balled. The same applies to Hawaii whose East-West Center is controlled by those of Jewish outlooks. Not all Jews have the Jewish outlooks. I went to hear the Chassid, Rev Shlomo Carlebach and never saw so many crosses! True, not sarcasm.
I worked forty years for the World Church Peace Union, my own experience and studied all the religions—although most “experts” on “Oriental Philosophy” not only refused to accept but actually opposed and blackballed me—but no samskaras, please. It is God Who does all work. All this knowledge is now at the disposal of The Temple of Understanding and Mrs. Judith Hollister and “Peter.”
At Geneva I think every single group either talked or diner with Otis and myself, and the “play” of begin “Nathan the Wise” has now broken out, really. For instance this week my disciples were extremely successful in an Israeli-Arab dinner and they wish this ventures to be in connection with The Temple of Understanding—this their idea. The next planned dinners already oversubscribed and a radio station—not, a “liberal” one, is going to advertise our efforts! The “liberals” like to play it cool and have. Man bites dog—never news! But I think one news reporter has now acknowledged those efforts.
The Lama visit entirely successful and they are all for the Temple and so is New Mexico and your colleagues Archie Bahm at the University of New Mexico.
Then things boomed. My local editor lost his paper and found a wealthy editor who was looking for Sufis! He is returning soon. He grabbed another secretary and this man who also knows Sanskrit is reaching those intellectual who are dissatisfied with Gurdjieff and Sabud. The third secretary was in the above ventures.
During all these years while everything was turning me down, one man gave me four hours and thought the “plan” I had to the Holy Land was the most sensible thing he ever encountered. His name: Gunnar Jarring. But I am not alone. My colleagues are research scientists of the University of California, not recognized, but I am going to get help pulling out documents.
At both my homes the telephone is now constantly ringing, and a growing number of long distance call and visitors. The dances are spreading; our peace efforts are growing; I have the most wonderful groups of young.
Also giving lectures on “The Three Body Constitution of Man According To St. Paul.” Very well attended. Beautiful large audiences, all young. Being taped and will be sent to Rev. Lowell Ditzen in Washington. No free time, no dull time, and God be praised, good health.
Love and blessings,
Sam
P.S. Should be in Boston area in October.
September 18, 1970
Dr. Huston Smith,
Department of Humanities, MIT
Cambridge, 39, Mass.
My dear Huston:
The stone which is rejected is become the corner stone.
This looks like a bombastic statement and all through my life one has been accused of forecast and therefore not permitted to speak. In recent times every article written on “Pollution” to a scientist has been accepted and not a single one to a non-scientist has been even been acknowledged. My chemistry teacher advised I’ve been one of the best soil scientists they ever turned out, point on which all the newspapers-scientists and poly-scientists dissent. But my vine has given forth about ten times as many grapes as last year and my fig tree has to be harvested every day, so heavy with fruit.
Indeed the Garden of Inayat is becoming famous locally because of its beauty and heavy crops although it is badly attended. I work seven days a week and Otis (Mansur) Johnson is now employed at a very good salary on one of the so-called impossible projects growing out of our works. Indeed the Garden has become profitable because we have been prospering no end and yesterday a few of my disciples met because both my private income and the Sufi Order have surpluses.
I don’t know where to begin. Accepting Lord Buddha’s teachings but not Buddhism, a fifty year family practice ended with a strangest sort of problem—where could we find heirs? Practically all, but not quite all, the great authorities to mysticism and Oriental philosophies refused to recognize either this person or him work. Sidi Abusalem Al-Alawi thinks I am an advanced Sufi and Martin Lings doesn’t accept me as a Sufi at all. Amen. This is the usual. Doctor Arberry has left this world and I think the future will find that this world will be leaving Dr. Arberry, so popular in Western cultures and totally anesthetized by Muslims, especially Muslim bigots. There you have it.
All of this supports Lord Snow’s outlooks but I had better tell you what is happening this year in the world of God and Rand-McNally “the best of all possible worlds.”
Otis and I went to Geneva early this year to attend a conference of the world’s religions under the auspices of The Temple of Understanding. It has changed the whole life. I had worked forty years actual research into the actual religions of the worlds of God and Rand-McNally. The first days were marked by sincere apologies from leading clerics of the Jews and Christians. Today Revenends, Babel, Ditzen, and Spicehandler are giving us such corporation that everything is more than topsy-turvy from the past. The conference began with a kiss from Mrs. Judith Hollister. Nothing but approval was received from the senior Birla and the Lord Atoni who came there. Princess Poon of course is an old friend. Swami Maharaj Ranganathananda gave such a sendoff to me that I cannot repeat it. Otis and I were invited to dine with every single group and this happened to nobody else. The Chinese representative said we were the only ones who understood him! And one could go on and on.
During the conference my brother passed away and this and my successful career since then have been adding slowly but definitely to what could be called “the good things of life.”
We then went to England and had wonderful greetings from Marco Pallis, the Royal Asiatic Society, the World Congress of Faiths, the Zen master, and others, but not from the official Buddhist group! We then went to Boston being the guests of the Sphinx bookstore in Cambridge and our work received so much attention my new secretary Sitara are leaving shortly for New York and then will proceed into New England. We are assuming you will be back but will advise you in any event of our program.
The day is over when dialecticians and speculators and linguists will be the “experts” on mystical experience. My presentation of the dervish dances will not much longer be ignored by the “experts.” I’ve been down to New Mexico first as a guest, then as the guru of Lama Foundation. I did not even have time to visit my good friend Professor Archie Bahm of the New Mexico university, whom I can recommended on all fronts.
A little later, independently, the same week Pir Vilayat Khan, Richard Alpert (Baba Ram Dass) and Paul Reps all said they were leaving the United State as my spiritual bailiwick. The big people dissent, the young accept. I not only work seven days a week, the night is filled with visions which have become dances. The dance classes are very well attended, bringing in additional revenue and enabling me to have Sitara Cessler as a secretary in San Francisco and Hussain McGinley as my new secretary in Novato. We have been given nothing but help and encouragement by families of actual Sufis.
I had the most delightful meetings with professors Gurgi and Benz and as for my colleague Seyyed Hossein Nasr! He is giving us every form of cooperation and most effectively and successfully. My first stop will be at Ithaca where my go-daughter, Miss Saadi Khawar Khan, is receiving her PhD degree. She once won first prize in an all-Asian philosophical contest. The paper was written by guess who! I think that’s over.
The dances began as dervish dances and then added mantra dances. The theme is dances of universal peace. The two chief inspirers have been the late Ruth St. Denis and the living Schlomo Carlebach of Jerusalem. This so excited Pir Vilayat Khan and others that the filming of the dances began and this spread to include a number of projects in this country and abroad. This keeps Otis (Mansur) Johnson employed full-time, also seven days a week and instead of him being on my payroll he is helping me.
In the meanwhile … at Geneva I told people I was the incarnation of “Nathan the Wise.” Of course this is stupidity, nonsense, braggadocio! But in the end they accepted it. Not only that, I have as disciple a young Israeli girl who was kicked out of that land for befriending Arabs. Now a lot of young people are promoting Israeli-Christian-Arab dinners with prayers and dances. They are not only doing it here but my disciple and friend Phillip Davenport has done this in Jerusalem. Don’t tell newspapers, diplomats, or establishment people. Huh! Anyhow, yesterday there was a tape recording at a radio station and a promise to program it in November. And one of the national broadcasting companies is even mentioning it—not the press, not the magazines. This is still the person whose paper on Vietnamese Buddhism was rejected thirty-three times.
But even this is good. I expect to call on my old friend, retired general Edward Lansdale and the news department of Southeast Asia Studies at the University of California at Berkeley accepted the paper as a matter of record.
I was the oldest living acquaintance of the late Zen Monk, Nyogen Senzaki. He left me a number of things, including his last manuscript. A lot of funny things are happening. I was one of the original students of Sokei-an Sasaki in New York. Now disciples of the First Zen Institute have taught the tea ceremony at Lama, so I have sent Zen Sasaki-san’s tea ceremony set. I am also giving valuable pictures of him to Dr. Lewis Lancaster at the University of California at Berkeley, all except one, the legendary-traditional picture of the historical Sakya-muni-Aryan, not mongoloid, etc., and etc.
Yesterday I was visited by a group of young people working for peace, especially for peace in the Near East. They have seen president Nixon and received unusual encouragement.
Those who have had cosmic vision do not see any third world war. I had exactly the same psychic experiences as the late Winston Churchill—knowing in 1910 that the world war would soon come, and in 1936 the same. But I’ve had a vision of the whole history of the world while in the presence of Sokei-an Sasaki in 1931. Much of my mystical pre-visions appears in poems, all of which have been rejected by the good people until recently. This is the way things have been done. You are judged either by amateur psychiatrists or sub-Euclidians who try to procrustes into a world revealed and pre-determined by the way Frenchmen sat in their assemblages after the revolution of 1789. If you can’t be fitted into that semi-circle you are treated as psychiatrically unsound. Anybody that accepts anything like Spangler….
The one man who gave me time to consider a plan for the Near East was Gunnar Jarring. I received so much encouragement from him and later from his colleagues I called on the various peace and religious groups. Fortunately I have a strong rump; it was calloused. But the day of this “Judeo-Christian ethic” is over and I still think Robbie Burns was something of a prophet.
At the moment I am rather bewildered—no sleep, wonderful visions, wonderful dances, larger attendances, more acceptances by the young and the universities.
Phillip Davenport did not make a success of the Oracle. He was called upon to find a summer camp site for Pir Vilayat Khan and ran into one Walter Bowart in Tucson Arizona. To adopt a phrase from one of the cartoons: Then the fun began. Even more fun than all related above.
Tomorrow I give my concluding lecture on “The Three-Body Constitution of Man according to St. Paul.” It is being taped. It will go to Rev. Lowell Ditzen and also Walter Bowart as above. I touched lightly on this subject when we were together. This makes sense of all experiences of mankind and it is easy to understand all the facts of psychodelia. Baba Ram Dass has been of greatest encouragement and so have others. There is not a dull moment. I do not know how clear this all is but it is certainly a reverse of the early years of life.
Next week I’m joining in with Yoga Bhajan’s public affairs and then leave.
Love and Blessings,
Samuel L. Lewis
November 27, 1970
Dr. Huston Smith,
Department of Humanities,
M. I. T.
Cambridge, Mass. 02139
My dear Huston:
Yesterday was a very fine Thanksgiving both for Otis and myself. The gist of my affairs is found in the letter to England of which copy is enclosed.
Otis says to tell you he is following in your footsteps with film-making etc. and recently things have been working out quite well. I told him about Clive Backster and am joining that real psychic research society shortly. It is so different, objective and scientific. It is like the dawn of a real new era in which real scientists and real occultists can work together.
The day of entertainers and manas-ahankara people dominating East-West “relations” is over. All the events of the day, both pleasurable and tragic point to objectivity and honesty becoming more and more the means of promoting human welfare.
Cordially,
Sam
December 29, 1970
Huston Smith,
MIT
Cambridge, Mass. 02199
Dear Huston:
Before being able to mail the letter of the 27th with enclosures, some friend was kind enough to present me with a copy of Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. I think this is an excellent title. It is written by Sot Roshi, Shunryu Suzuki. It is written keeping the readers in total ignorance of Koestler or for that matter Kapleau (whom I both admire), and Daisetz Suzuki who wrote voluminously without showing signs of heaving reached ultimate attainment. But ultimate attainment is of no importance to certain schools of “Zen.”
The epilogue says, “I feel Americans, especially young Americans, have a great opportunity to find out a true way of life for human beings.” You see Lord Buddha whom I have studied and admire said there were 84,000 ways of salvation. And Buddhists uphold this because it is so broad and the come out for each his own “true way of life.”
During the past week one of my greatest “sins” has been forgiven. The semantic movement had never forgiven me for the unpardonable sin of having studied with the late Cassius Keyser, friend and mentor of Alfred Korzybski and now, after many, many years, they are beginning to change. I knew about Korzybski long, long before Science and Sanity was written. But there is something in the egoistic mind which cannot be touched. It is as it is and no logic, no evidence, no anything can change it. And the world is now full of “Brotherhood of Man Movement,” Me leader, or Us leaders.
I think Shunryu is to be commended. He has written “Kill the Buddha.” This is a saying popularized by “Zen” experts who have been professional women chasers and drunkards. I have no objection to men, Buddhists or non-Buddhists, being women chasers and drunkards but their use of “Kill the Buddha” is a wonderful phrase. It justifies every sort of indifference to human suffering, and the more indifferent to human suffering you are, the better your “Zen Mind, 1970 style.”
I still believe in the historical Buddha. I still believe in compassion and consideration. I still believe that Gautama Siddhartha came to show us how to get rid of pain, sorrow, ignorance and woe. He was not a very good “Zennists”; you can be sure.
Recently I was called to task by some Soto Zen Buddhists for telling how Lord Buddha stopped wars. They said, and proved I was against some items in the “Patimokkha.” This to me was a compliment; the “Patimokkha” did not agree with Lord Buddha so Sam Lewis was wrong. But the writer was a Zen, not a Hinayanist and did not accept or practice “Patimokkha.” Nor is it necessary to have any moksha or moksha experience any more. We just have “deliverance.” Sit down, do nothing and “Kill the Buddha.”
I am no Soto-ist. I am about to join a Vietnamese Buddhist movement. I am terribly concerned with the suffering of humanity. Like Jesus Christ I believe, “Whatsoever ye do to the least of these, my creatures, ye do it unto me.” With the Hindus I agree, “Tat Tvam Asi.” We are so busy working against war in the Middle East and gathering materials for the East Pakistanis that we have no time and even less inclination to sit down doing nothing and praising ourselves for it. One leaves the divided religions to do that; only they see it differently but yet agree I utter self-praise, each has The Way, the only way to “enlightenment.” But this leaves me out for I long ago took the Bodhisattvic oath against having “enlightenment” while humanity is suffering.
But look at the delightful way (?). No more humanity, no more suffering, no more Causation, just delightful, perfect Us! This is Zen!
Of course Daisetz said Zen was Prajna and not Dhyana. I remember once at Kyoto, crossing a temple grounds I refused to proceed until they explained the Gate . We had a long argument and then I was about to turn back and the guide smiled all over. “You are the first man ever to discover it; this is the Royal Gate.” Prajna is all right to recite but never, never to practice.
In December 1941 I said to a dear Zen friend (he is still alive), “I am angry.” “Why?” “Japan is about to be destroyed.” “I don’t think so.” “I know so.” But it is remarkable how few if any “enlightened Zennists” protested against mass murder of Chinese; or foresaw the war and its dire results and I see no change.
I learned from Sokei-an Sasaki that Prajna and Karuna were most essential. In the last days my long friend, Nyogen Senzaki, accepted the Pure Land Doctrine of love and compassion, and therefor Amida. But no, we don’t have to do that. Sit like an idiot, kill the Buddha, ignore the sufferings of humankind and don’t be bothered. Enlightenment means not to be bothered.
This is a good book, this Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. It justifies Koestler and does not disturb Kapleau. In fact it is a nuisance to have facts interfere with opinions, but….
Everything looks beautiful at this writing.
Faithfully,
Sam