University of Washington
Department of Philosophy
Seattle 5
January 28, 1952
Dear Mr. Lewis:
Thank you for your interesting letter which has been forwarded to me by the Cornell Press. One of the pleasantest rewards of authorship is the getting of letters from readers sufficiently interested to take the trouble to write.
The questions you raise are so vast that I hardly know how to begin to answer them. My ignorance of Oriental philosophy is profound, though I have tried hard to learn what I could in that field. One difficulty that I find is that so much gets lost in translation. The exceptional translation that really takes one behind the scenes, as it were—like the recent The Art of Letters of Lu Chi, translated by E. R. Hughes (Bollingen, 1951)—shows how much one is probably missing in using the available English versions.
As to my own writings, you might be interested in Critical Thinking (Prentice-Hall, second revised edition just published). This is a text in logic and scientific method, but my own standpoint shows through. My only other book is The Nature of Mathematics (Harcourt Brace which is more technical, but still, I hope, readable. The rest consists of papers in technical journals.
I hope this information may be of some use to you. Thanking you again for your interest.
Sincerely,
Max Black
60 Harriet St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
September 12, 1954
Dr. Charles Morris
University of Chicago
Chicago 37, Ill.
Dear Professor Morris:
Some months ago I received a letter from you which has resulted in a first reading of your “Paths of Life” and “The Open Self.” I must stress this point because I feel they should be re-read for two quite different reasons: (a) So that there should be a clear understanding of your thesis and its adaptation to the ends you seem to have it view; (b) Your style. It is almost a melodious prose and it bears a marked resemblance to the literary form I have adopted and hope to see in print before many months, of a “gatha” cadence to present deeper teachings than can usually find a response in formal literature.
I cannot underestimate this last. For example Korzybski has declared that there is no marked line between emotional and intellectual reactions. So much propaganda today is either over-emotionally or dry-ly logical that it fails of its purpose. But there is a higher type of emotion which manifests in the arts and I believe that you have corralled these emotions in your writings—a rarity, but invaluable accomplishment.
I have been engaged for many years—in a rather unknown way—to bring East and West together, especially by building rapprochements among the intellectuals. The most important of my unpainted works will shortly be sent to Vice-President Radhakrishnan, whom I have found a kindred soul.
Today I am torn between two entirely different methods to bring East and West together. The one has been loudly acclaimed and has a consistent record for failure. It includes the work of the State Department, much of the press, books like “Richer by Asia,” and the well-meaning but totally ineffective efforts of Professor Northrop. Through my connections with the American Academy of Asian Studies in this city and a number of collateral undertakings in this region I have both been meeting many Asiatics who visit these parts and am able to pursue much of contemporary writings, in books, in newspapers and periodical forms. The reactions by “Asiatics” is too often miles away from anything that appears in a large portion of the American press.
On the other hand I can note with whole-hearted approval the work of Michener, Reiser and yourself, not always effective in the press, but hitting the work with the audiences it would reach, producing same real, but lasting effects.
The reactions to the reading of your works may be allowed from three different levels. Each of these levels in itself also contains something from the East and West, especially where the poles of the world can be brought together.
The first philosophical studies I made were under the influence of the late Professor Cassius Keyser of Columbia. I was fortunate to be able to study Solid Analytical and Fourth Dimensional Geometry under him. During the course of years I read and re-read his works many times and was privileged to spend a day with him about six months before he died. The greatest impressions he made upon me were to essay to erect logical systems upon different mathematical bases, so that the proper logic be used in its field in a manner comparable to the use of any branch of mathematics in its field (accountancy, bridge-building, navigation, infra-atomic phenomena, statistics—all with different “mathematics” and ergo, different logics). And as we are both anti-Aristotelians I am not going to make any errors, such as I find constantly creeping into “ETC.” of utilizing A-logics and A-psychology to disprove A-philosophy!
Keyser’s, “Doctrine of Doctrines,” in my opinion should become a “must” in any course on real scientific philosophy. Your works are most definitely adaptations of such an outlook. You have given us some most faithful “maps,” and not only are they faithful but useful.
The same conclusion is reached from the standpoint of Sufism, the Oriental philosophy which I first studied (Mahayana Buddhism came very shortly afterwards). The Sufi teachers hold that a true Sufi is one who sees from the point of view of another as well as of himself. This ultimately reaches the same position as does Keyser in his “Doctrine of Doctrines.”
Again under the impetus of Keyser I began re-studying the Calculus when I was in my thirties and the psychological result has been fruitful. In one of his books R. Rolland footnotes that there are some very remarkable parallels between the higher echelons of branches of “Oriental philosophy” and what we today call meta-mathematics. The combination of Samadhi-experience with the higher mathematical outlooks is a rarity and I have not met anybody (also) who has had them both, although some, like Prof. Stromberg of Caltech come pretty close to it.
The map-territory description of Korzybski has become standardized and I have also listened to its explanation by our good friends “Don” Hayakawa and Vocha Fiske. But the integral psychology impressed upon my consciousness by the re-studying of the Calculus, plus more recent peregrinations into various facets of Mahayana have pretty well fixated me into the position: map-territory-analysis: territory-map-synthesis. Can we have a Synthetic-Protective philosophy? Can we have an Integral-Calculus logic?
The answer (to me) is unquestionably and undoubtedly “yes.” Not only can we, but we must. I do not see any peace in the world, let alone among college professors, until we embark more forcibly upon such adventures. But be that as it may, there is no question in my mind that your “maps” and my “maps” fit into exactly the same territories or universes. And since this is so, and if we keep this to the forefront, the commentary I wish to make next can be accepted in good faith. Furthermore, those things which are difficult to prove should never be over-accentuated in literature.
The map-territory analogy may hold for analyses of quasi-tridimensional genera. If carried too far we land back into Aristotelian logic. Yet every art student, compelled to occupy a different seat, will offer a different description of a model. Not only that—as he is not mere machine—there will be different factors which effect his work. So it becomes a question, in the art classes, as to whether the student is not actually making an analysis of a quasi-quatrodimensional form. In any event, we can, by observing, establish both the maps and territories/and/or the analysis and the synthesis at this point.
But when we pass from the simple analysis of a solid which can be depicted by Cartesian or formal plane-graphs, we are compelled to use other methods as in Physical Chemistry. There we find our mathematics of not such a simple order. We must establish either tri-dimensional graphs, of the triangular systems which take their place on sheets of paper. Other you will find in necessary—and we so do find it in books on Physical Chemistry and Statistics, that there are pages upon pages of graphs. The eye accepts them as such, but the mind is compelled to integrate them in order to follow the reasoning of the author.
If one were to make glandular analyses of people—and I have been a clinical clerk both for physicians and psychologists—they could easily establish how the life-force, whatever that is, is divided in its operations between the different glands, so that the total is 100%. By this method we find ecto-, endo-, meso-types, etc. But this does not tell how strong that life-force is. Irrigation water may be run off into different ditches proportionately, which gives us no idea as to the quantity of water.
So you can easily make a map of different classes of people and analyze them. And, if it does not shock you too much, at first hand your methods here seem to resemble those of an astrology more than they do of a scientific statistician. Thus you make a map of Mohammed. New read “The Ideal Prophet” of Khwaja Kemal-ud-din of the Mosque at Working and you will find not a map of Mohammed, but an atlas of Mohammad. You give a map, he gives an atlas!
The atlas which he gives of Mohammed is much like the map I give of the Mogul Emperor Akbar. You offer a theoretical Maitreya (or maybe not so theoretical), I at least present a man of whom we have both historical and literary knowledge. He is well balanced between the physical, mental and spiritual aspects; but an idiot might theoretically be so proportioned. A person of I.Q. 40 and a person of I.Q. 140 may be proportioned or not proportioned.
There is no question in my mind—and this conclusion has been reached by all those who have studied Akbar, that he was equally accomplished in physical-material, intellectual-artistic, and spiritual-ascetic aspects of life. But his physical, his material, his intellectual, his artistic, his spiritual and his ascetic accomplishments are reached very high toward the degrees of human perfection. Here is a man surrounded by wealth and with many women in his harem. Here is a man who knew how to overcome sleep and spend long hours in deep meditation. Here is a man who established workshops and laboratories way ahead of his time. Here is a man who did more to promote the arts of the sub-continent than anyone else, ever. Place him among the ascetics, he is high; place him among the gourmets, he is high; place him alongside any of the rulers of the Renaissance period in the encouragement of arts, he will top them. So I can go on, and on.
My “Akbar” looks in one sense something like your Maitreyic man. He also resembles the Maitreya of the Roerich Museum, etc. But so does the “Prophet” of Kemal-ud-din. He does not belong in the class of ordinary human beings at all.
Now I pass for a moment to an Oriental analysis which gives out such words as Naraka, preta, raksha, asura, manusha, pitri, deva, bodhisattva, etc. Can you analyze the lost types, such as the manusha (intellectual man), pitri or genius or gandharva (the over-man), deva or bodhisattva (the superman or higher), without taking into consideration the level or order or quantity of life-force, etc.
Putting it another way. If you substitute a cross for a single line, you have both vertical and horizontal methods. Will either alone suffice? Thus, there is not only a marvelous tolerant teaching in your writings, there is also a danger of a limitation which I do not think you want and certainly do not want to convey.
So far as the Western world is concerned at the worst I may be appalled at the look of complete objectivity and experience in the fields roughly implied by “mysticism” and “yoga.” In the scientific world—and I have done some satisfactory objective research—there was always a referent and a consistency between the mathematics, login and psychology. You did not combine one order of one of these with another order of another.
There may never be a literary method for communication of “truth.” But at least there should be an internal consistency on the way. And to pass from an Akbar or Mohammad (two men from the past concerning whom we do have sufficient data) to let us say a Sokei-An Sasaki of the near present, I also doubt whether the latter man who seemed to be to be above the “average” or “manushic” type in all facets of human life, could be possibly described within the framework you have presented.
Maybe I have mis-read. In any case this commentary is partly refuted by the implicit literary schemata which are quite esthetic and ebullient, and this is something. Maybe we are really nearer than any difference would imply.
Sincerely,
Samuel L. Lewis
The University of Chicago
September 27, 1954
Dear Mr. Lewis,
I was interested in your reactions to my books, and in the statement about your own work. I will be glad some day to have a chance to read some of your writing. Though I know little of the details of Akbar, he has been one of my “symbols” for many years. I hope you plan a book on him. We need such concrete examples of union in multiplicity.
I think of y work as simply one among many forces trying to give shape to a personality ideal for the man of the future. I certainly do not believe that the looks you need catch with accuracy the full depth and range of the human person. As you rightly say, they give a map or framework—similar in some respect to the Hindu doctrine of the gunas. But if levels are brought in I believe that the scheme is capable of much more subtlety than might seem to be the case. I can, I think, say much of what Aurobindo in the Synthesis of Yoga says about the gunas in my own terms, provided we add a series of levels. Perhaps this is something like what you had in mind. Certainly, as you say, mere proportions or profiles are not enough.
I was amused at your comparison of my methods to the astrologist [?] the “scientific statistician.” For as a matter of fact, I have been in recent years using statistical methods on the Ways to Live data. My next book will deal strictly and scientifically with the problem of the measurement of values in and across cultures, and with the isolation (by factor analysis) of the primary dimensions of value. If all goes well, I will finish it by June. The key analytical work has already been done.
I thank you very much for giving me your reactions. And I send you my best wishes for your own work.
Sincerely yours,
Charles Morris
Harvard University
Research Center In Creative Altruism
Pitirim A. Sorokin, Director
8 Cliff Street
Winchester, Mass.
March 16, 1956
Mr. Samuel L. Lewis
60 Harriet Street
San Francisco 3, California
Dear Mr. Lewis:
I wish the fullest measure of success to your tasks and your planned travels. If by chance you happen to be in the neighborhood of Boston, I would be very glad to meet you and to talk over the matters of common interest.
At the present time, among other things, we are busy here with organization and incorporation in the State of Massachusetts of a new (national) Research Society in Creative Altruism, which is expected to do the work of this Center on a much larger and deeper scale. Since for its development such a Society would need necessary minimum of funds, at the present time we are making some efforts to secure such funds. Whether or not we shall be successful will be shown during the next few months.
With best wishes,
Sincerely yours,
Pitirim A. Sorokin
P.S. At the end of March my new volume, Fads and Foibles in Modern Sociology and Related Sciences, is expected to be published by the Henry Regnery Company of Chicago. In May my other volume about American Sex Revolution is also expected to be published by the Extending Horizons Press, Boston.
Philosophy East and West
A Quarterly Journal of Oriental and Comparative Thought
Charles A. Moore, Editor
September 21, 1956
Mr. Samuel L. Lewis
c/o J. L. Rockwell
1011 C. Street
San Rafael, California
Dear Mr. Lewis:
I appreciate your sending me your long letter of July 21st, 1956, and I also appreciate—in the other sense of the word many of the points you make with reference to the fundamental principles which are of most importance in what you call operative or actual Buddhism. All I can say is that some students in the field are more interested in the philosophical or conceptual background of religions, whereas others are more interested in the actual practices, motivations, goals, etc., of those who follow the religion in their lives. I think there is a place for both of these points of view and interests, but I agree with you that those who are interested in the more conceptual side should not lose sight of the other influences and principles which guide the lives of Buddhists, Hindus, and Christians.
There is one point in your letter upon which I would like to comment, primarily to ask for further explanation and reference material at your leisure. At the end of your letter you say “It is not that Mysticism depends upon phenomena, but phenomena do occur, and perhaps cannot help but occur. Only they are of an entirely different nature from those of what are known as psychism and occultism.” In my own experience, I have had great difficulty in clearly demonstrating this difference to critics of Oriental thought and philosophy in general and mysticism in particular. As you know, much of the criticism against Oriental thought and against mysticism generally, especially Oriental, stems from the emphasis upon the occult claims of some of the adherents and propagators of those religions and philosophies. I feel that such people in the area of Los Angeles do more damage to the cause of Oriental thought and of substantial and significant mysticism than perhaps any other group of people in the world because of this particular emphasis. I also realize that most orthodox Hindus will have nothing to do with the occult as such—and that this is one of the reasons for their not being interested in or cordial to theosophy much of the time.
I would appreciate your comment upon the subject and further elaboration of the way in which you would explain and illustrate the significant distinction between the two types of phenomena and an account of any success you have had in convincing people of this difference.
Very cordially yours,
Charles Moore
Box #31, El Paseo
Mill Valley, California
July 10, 1957
To the College of the Registrar
College of the Pacific
Stockton, CA
Dear Sirs:
I have before me a letter which reads in part:
“Under instructions from the Graduate Council of the Academy, I regret to have to inform you that your application for admission to studentship has not been accepted.”
This is very interesting. When a person asks to take instruction at any American institution of higher learning, I did not know they had to submit to a group of graduates and that without any hearing of any kind whatsoever.
I myself am an American of several generations and have had most of my schooling here. While not a graduate my knowledge of Asiatics, or more properly of Asian philosophy, history, religion, and art has been sufficient to have been greeted at all levels, including the highest in Japan, Thailand, India and Pakistan, and at the highest in Burma where I did not stay.
I could give many references but offer for the moment just one: Professor A. Mohammed Siddiqui, head of the Department of Islamic Studies, Punjabi University, Lahore, whose guest I was. I may say also that neither he nor his comparable companions in other countries, whom I could name, would agree with the policy of these members of the “Graduate Council,” whosoever the are.
Which has not stopped the American Academy of Asian Studies (so-called) from accepting my voluntary contributions of moneys, books, radio, and the very research notes which would prove offhand that I have had more than the equivalent of credentials to this institution.
I have recently been on a tour of the actual Asia, the whole purport of which is known to many members of our Foreign Service. If I were to photostat the above and send it to them, I doubt very much if they would look too kindly upon an institution which you have taken under your protection. I am not protesting your policies. But this is strange, and if it continues i do not think the graduates will be looked upon too kindly in the actual Asian lands.
I myself, an old Californian, have always had the best of feelings toward your University which has done so much for this State and also produced that greatest Christian, Dr. Bromley Oxnam, at whose feet I once sat years ago, and whose teachings I shall always remember.
Sincerely,
Samuel L. Lewis
College of the Pacific
Stockton 4, California
Dean of Graduate Studies
July 25, 1957
Mr. Samuel L. Lewis
Box #31, El Paseo
Mill Valley, California
Dear Mr. Lewis:
Your letter of July 10, addressed to the Registrar, College of the Pacific, has been referred to me for reply.
First, permit me to say that the Graduate Council of the American Academy of Asian Studies is not a group of graduate students, as you apparently suppose. The Council is a committee of professors who assist the dean of the Academy in matters of admissions, curriculum, and individual student programs.
Then, you probably realize that any college or university has the right to reject the application for admission of any prospective student if, in the judgment of the administration, that college or university is not likely to be able to serve well the student in question. I have every reason to believe that it was on such a basis that your application was not accepted by the Academy.
Sincerely yours,
Willis N. Potter
Dean of Graduate Studies
106 Ethel Ave.,
Mill Valley, Calif.
September 2, 1958
P. A. Wadis,
K. T. Merchant,
c/o Elphinstone College,
Bombay, India
In re: “Our Economic Problem”
Dear Professors Wadia and Merchant:
A number of weeks back the writer suggested an interview with either the local Consul-General of India or one of his staff in order to submit what he considered fundamental answers to the problems besetting your country. This interview is now not necessary for your book includes about everything that I might have thought of. The material is arranged in an excellent manner, the book was very readable (to me) and there is little that could be added.
Unless I have misinterpreted, you have offered and “open” rather than a “closed” system and dynamic, rather than static approaches. Many economists no doubt use the terms “open” and “dynamic” but an examination of their points of view proves otherwise.
You may wonder why an American should be concerned with such matters. I suppose I am one of the few persons who has devoted himself to many facets of Oriental, and especially Indian culture and history. This covers many fields: history, archaeology, art, philosophy, religion, economics, agriculture, etc., etc. but not languages. In these respects I am not a tyro.
I did stay in your country about three months in 1956 and was welcomed by all kinds of people from Cabinet ministers to peasants, from professors to harijans, from the highest ranking holy men and Sufis to business men and felt quite at home. The one thing received universally was hospitality. I neither know nor care whether this was unique but it did happen.
The name of Professor Wadia has been known to me a long, long time. I was more interested in economics and politics early in life. But always having a world rather than a local outlook, I read the books written by him in collaboration with Professor Joshi. My objection to the narrow study of economics, as well as anything else, is that it tends to narrow our appreciation of nature, man and the universe.
Long years of study and discipline in both Oriental methods and almost contemporary scientific and mathematic teachings lead me to conclude:
All bodies, forms and beings in the universe tend toward a state of stable equilibrium.
This sentence seems to harmonize alike with the teachings of Buddha and Newton and with the general outline of social history. It finally brought me to the acceptance of the “New Economics” which flared for a moment like a brilliant Nova and then disappeared—or did it? Anyhow I must go along entirely with the last chapters of your book which contain prescriptions which I believe will cure the world of its dangerous and/or adherence to communism or Keynesianism which seem threatening to engulf us all.
Around 1954 I wrote “The Integration of the Ancient and Modern in the Solution of India’s Problems” while studying with one Satya Agrawal who was then teaching at the American Academy of Asian Studies in San Francisco, and the University of California in Berkeley. Through him I met Prof. R. L. Parks whom I believe is doing excellent work at the latter institution.
Among Americans I consider Prof. Kingsley Davis as one of the best. But our hampered philosophic and psychological outlooks seem to prevent us, as a nation, to grasp over-all views.
I met Villabhai Patel years ago and one thing impressed me: his assertion that the problems of India should and could be “solved” because in that many of the world’s problems could be “solved.” I believe your “Our Economic Problem” goes a long way toward fulfilling Patel’s dream and perhaps the wishes of many of us.
Sincerely,
Samuel L. Lewis
The University of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois 60637
Department Of Economics
August 3, 1965
Professor Samuel L. Lewis
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, California
Dear Professor Lewis:
Your letter is written out of a background of extraordinarily rich experiences. That your experiences should provide so many insights that confirm the kind of thinking that I’ve tried to set forth in the book gives me a very special pleasure.
I’ve not only read your letter once but I’ve read it a second time with great care and I’ve gained a great deal from it.
Last March for three days I had the privilege of sitting in on an evaluation of the last 5-year plan of Pakistan and then a critical evaluation of their next plan, at which the top individuals of the Pakistan government responsible for this part of their public enterprise were present as well as the American economists who have been involved. In recent years the agricultural sector has been making considerable progress in terms of production and they become quite optimistic in what they think they can achieve during the next 5 years. Without sharing this optimism, I did learn a great deal and my feeling is that the growth in West Pakistan is real and can probably be maintained if they succeed in making available increasing quantities of fertilizer, nitrogen largely, and the additional tube wells turn out to be really complementary to the old irrigation water systems. In East Pakistan, however, I’m afraid that the very considerable increases in production in recent years may be in large part due to good weather. But it is impressive. They should now be exporting very considerable quantities of rice and the amount is going up rapidly.
I may very well take off a month to try to help the Indian government sometime during the next year, if help one can even under the best of auspices.
I do hope you keep advancing your insights for they very much need to be part of the picture as we learn from our experiences and our many mistakes. Thank you for writing.
Sincerely,
T. W. Schultz
[undated—1967?]
410 Precita Avenue
San Francisco, Calif. 94110
Ian Stevenson
Department of Neurology and Psychiatry
School of Medicine
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Va.
Dear Dr. Stevenson:
I have read with delight the article on Reincarnation appearing in the December 17 issue of “National Enquirer” and wonder if it is possible to open up correspondence. I have by now become very skeptical not of psychic phenomenon but of persons and groups purportedly engaged in this field.
When I was living in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, His Holiness, Pir Dewwal Shereef, President of the University of Islamabad, asked me to contact groups in America engaged in what they call “spiritualism” (actually Ruhaniat which is somewhat broader: that they wanted cultural exchange; that they had already provided a considerable sum for that purpose, allocated and not to be used otherwise.
After returning to this country I wrote to three very well known institutions purportedly engaged in “Psychic Research,” and certainly very votive in seeking funds. One did not answer at all and two others are so concerned with the preservation of the traditional religion that they did not want traffic with Asia or Asians (but they still seek funds for “psychic” research, you can bet.)
I also contacted several authors whose books have created stirs but none of them replied. This contrasts so clearly with the methods of scientists who seem so anxious to get any objective data, no matter how small, to fit in with their investigations.
I remember the time Lottie Van Stahl came to San Francisco to read auras and found practically everybody at fault. I was thankful she had not read mine which, according to various clairvoyants, ranks in the top classes. This would have at once stirred the audience against one. We cannot have objective studies and personalisms and our society, as a whole is not yet ready to abandon personalisms (nor are some others either).
A number of years ago I was staying in the home of Roderick White, brother- in-law of the celebrated “Betty” in Santa Barbara. It was shortly after her death and the spirit of the late L. Adams Beck appeared. “I have come to restore your memory of best lives.” “I don’t believe in Reincarnation.” “I have not come to discuss philosophy; do you wish this memory willingly or unwillingly.”
The Spirit then began working on my “pituitary” or shasrara, which had already been opened in the course of my Sufi training and first dictated a whole life. All the elements of this have been investigated and corroborated. In Asia they want to know why you know; in America what is your social or some other standing.
I shall forbear the rest of my personal phenomena but one. Once when our good friend, Gina Cerminara was speaking on reincarnation a bitter fight took place between two “respectable” members of the audiences, the type that is permitted to speak anywhere. Unable to reach a conclusion they turned to me and when I said, “What do you want me to say? I remember my former lives.” If this had been a scientific convention it would have led to other matters. Instead there was a pall and a silence. And so long as psychic research remains a metaphysical art it will be thus.
I have lived all over Asia, mingled with all sorts of Asians, some having most remarkable faculties, but have been unable to give objective reports. The scientific data in my diaries—agriculture, chemistry, mineral resources, is acceptable and accepted. But the data on other matters shuts you out unless you fight furiously for the right to speak in a nation where so many people—very “humble” of course act: “Whatever you can do we can do better.”
I also once was paid for research on the real Jewish Kabbalah which presents reincarnation from another view. (This knowledge also shuts one out form the “best” circles.)
I have my diaries and data and many sorts of contacts. I am, Doctor, the first person in history to have been validated both as a Sufi Murshid and Zen teacher. The old refuse to examine this, shut out a priori. But now I am surrounded by reincarnated Indians, known as “Hippies” who cannot be other than they are because they come from another culture which we are loath to examine.
I have never made a complete report to Dr. Gardner Murphy, the one man who was willing to accept objectivity and who knows some about real flesh-and-blood Asians. I am very much interested in your work. In the Orient my knowledge of former lives places me in spectra in class … above; in this country one is an outlander, but now with the growing number of young who remember, one becomes a hero. Neither of these is honestly objective but they counterbalance each other.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
410 Precita
San Francisco, CA 94110
July 10, 1967
Department of Oriental Studies
Wisconsin University
Madison 5, WI
Dear Sirs:
Phra Sumangalo Memorial Fund
Some time ago I mentioned to your Dr. Richard Robinson the possibilities of establishing a fund. Phra Sumangalo, known better here as Robert Clifton, was friend and mentor to Dr. Robinson and my close associate for some thirty-five years. It was my original intention to establish or leave a fund in his name which could follow up Oriental researches. No answer was ever received and a complex of private matters in the last year have included these items:
a. A great increase in my own annuities.
b. Agreement with my brother should he pre-decease me, that half of my increased allotment would be assigned for Oriental Studies.
c. The receipt of all the papers of the late Zen monk, Nyogen Senzaki.
d. A further donation from his last disciples here of the Sangha library and a number of manuscripts, including the works of the great Masters, Shaku Soyen and Tai Hsu.
I am not going into private matters but long efforts to make my person known were invariably rejected to no purpose. The strangest case was some thirty-three rejections of a paper on Vietnamese Buddhism, itself the original joint effort of the aforesaid Phra Sumangalo and myself. But on the week of the last rejection I met Dr. Thich Tien An, a real “Zen” teacher from Vietnam who is now teaching at UCLA.
Legally I am therefor transferring the idea of the Phra Sumangalo Memorial Fund to the University of California at Los Angeles, with the possibility or probability of scholarships according to my own ability; or later by an agreement which incidentally is in accord with my own father’s last will.
Nevertheless I am now hiring secretarial help, instead of an immediate establishment of a scholarship and will gladly share the writings of the Chinese Tai Hsu with any university that wishes a copy. We are also going over the writings to Roshi Shaku Soyen to ascertain if there is any material not included in his “Sermons of a Buddhist Abbott.” There are a good many more things also in his collection.
I am also helping a new group in Studies in Comparative Religion in London, headed by one Clive-Ross and containing scholars of note who have studied the various Oriental philosophies directly with the “spiritual” teachers of Asia and not necessarily through the universities. Still I wish to cooperate with universities, only it must be objective and impersonal. I am, in fact, perhaps one of the few or the first person in history to have been ordained and initiated both as Zen Teacher and Sufi Murshid.
I previously had the experience of having brought back the Lesser Upanishads to go around begging before I found somebody who would accept the fact that these were in my possession. Then a teacher at the University of California in Berkeley was kind enough to grant an interview and he, of course, received them after I had copied what I wanted.
I also have some Sufi notes copied out of books now out of print. I hope to show them to Dr. Huston Smith of MIT when he comes here. This is quite beside my own notes, my creative writing or the teachings received from living teachers.
I am now planning an entourage to go to India in 1969. I should have preferred to work in and through Universities, but now preference must go to the University of California in Los Angeles, which is not only in my father’s will, but because there is an instructor who would be glad to have either the original or copies of materials in my possession. And, of course, in time moneys will be so supplied. I would much have preferred giving these things to Dr. Robinson.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia 19104
Wharton School of Finance and Commerce
Department of Economics
April 18, 1968
Mr. Samuel L. Lewis
410 Precita Avenue
San Francisco, California 94110
Dear Mr. Lewis:
Thank you for your informative letter in response to the symposium I arranged, recently reported in Asian Survey. I personally have learned very much from your letter although I see no obvious changes that your letter calls for in the major conclusions of my summary of the three papers.
With respect to what I interpret to be the main reason for your note I concur fully. There is a tremendous amount of underdeveloped area expertise in this country on the part of persons whose primary professional interests have no regional limitations. There should be more opportunities for those of us who are really committed to a region (even within a discipline) to exchange views more often with the agronomists, the engineers, the planners, the botanists, etc. who have spent intensive study or consultant periods in a region. I am happy to report that discussions are beginning in an effort to “fill the gap between those academics doing research on South Asia and those academics engaged in advisory development activities in South Asia. How and when is still far from certain.
Sincerely yours,
Wilfred Malenbaum
410 Precita Avenue
San Francisco, Calif. 94110
November 1968
Editors, The Humanist
Dept. of Philosophy
State University of New York at Buffalo
4244 Ridge Lea Road
Amherst, NY 14226
Dear Sirs;
In commenting on “Three on Zen” in your November 1968 issue one is placed in a peculiar position, that if he uses logic he may be criticized by someone saying that logic has no bearing on the subject at hand. If he does not use logic he may be subject to many sorts of replies.
Basically I should be in accord with Bernard Phillips. It is stated that he has edited the writings of D. T. Suzuki. I shall accept his relation with Dr. Suzuki. The question is, will he, or others, accept that this person has a similar relation with the writings of the late Nyogen Senzaki. For your information, the great Roshi, Shaku Soyen, visited this city (San Francisco) in 1906, bringing with him two young monks. One very well acquainted with English has become famous the world over. The other, very well acquainted with satori-experience, is not so well known. I am the last living person who was acquainted with Senzaki-an during the twenty year silence imposed on him by the Roshi. And of course, I was acquainted with him both in the San Francisco and Los Angeles Zendos.
If there is any further question about my status, Dr. Phillips is at liberty to consult Master Seo Kyung Bo who is his colleague at Temple.
The statement of Dr. Williams “Second, from a deeper point of view, it is the heart and essence of Buddhism…. As Americans for the most part are not very serious students of oriental philosophies, one must point out that Tathagata Sakyamuni did not teach Buddhism. He gave Arya Dharma. The central elements of Arya Dharma are the four-fold inquiry into causation, and the eight-fold path. It is not surprising that many leading Buddhists say Americans can never understand their teaching because they do not wish to involve themselves with the subject of suffering, etc. It was the inquiry of suffering that led lord Buddha to enlightenment.
While I would not wish to declare that suffering and liberation are the foremost facts in Lord Buddhas Dharma, there is a tendency to over-emphasize either at the expense of the other. And in reflecting on “Zen and Humanism,” I should say superficially these subjects meet as to suffering; whether they meet or not on the subject of liberation is open.
The general tendency among Humanists has been to support to the full Galileo as against the Inquisition. But when it comes to bizarre experiences including Zen, there is not always so much avidity towards accepting human experiences, living human experiences.
On this point I beg to differ entirely with Dr. Phillips when he says “Zen is religion, which is to say it possesses what humanism lacks, namely cosmic rootage, or any rootage? Dr. Alan Watts says Zen is not a religion; the late Mrs. Ruth Fuller Sasaki says Zen is a religion. There is a general tendency in all three articles to hold that “Zen is Zen.” My objection to Dr. Phillips is that he is constantly quoting ancients and emitting any references to moderns who have had Zen experiences.
The same criticism must be leveled at Prof. Ames. He is constantly running into the past. If Zen is to be valid it must have living exponents with living experience. It has just that. To support this statement I refer to, among any others, the aforesaid Master Seo at Temple University: Dr. Thich Thien An at UCLA, Roshi Sogen Asahina at Kamakura in Japan, and the more ubiquitous Roshi Yasutani, etc—by which I mean etcetera because the piling up of more names does not make the Truth more truthful.
I must call to your attention that in the last days of his life the aforesaid Nyogen Senzaki recognized a considerable absence of compassion in a large sector of what is known as “Zen Buddhism” I did not find this absence among my Vietnamese friends, nor among my few Ch’an contacts.
When Dale Riepe calls Alan Watts, “a California Zen master” he leaves all subjects undefined, indefinable, and indeterminate. In general science requires a few referents; persons, events data, etc.
Dale Riepe also says “But the Zen Masters presumably do not understand that the concepts of science…,” he is referring to his “Zen masters,” and not to actual ordained heads of monasteries and teachings. Nevertheless, my own personal experience supports Prof. Riepe in many points, and from the ego-centric stand point, I am fully in accord with him. Perhaps this is as it should be.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
February 28, 1969
Mr. Samuel L. Lewis
410 Precita Avenue
San Francisco, California 94110
Dear Mr. Lewis:
Thank you for your letter and Buddhist tract. I am appreciative to know that you are interested in my book review and that you have had some background in Chinese Buddhism. I imagine you must be associated with the Buddhist Universal Church in San Francisco.
I would appreciate seeing the manuscript of Tai Hsu, though I do not know when I would get to read it as I am preparing for a project in Japan. I think you will find the review book of great interest to yourself.
I am sorry you have your problems with Mr. Hayakawa, however we also have our own. This is the world of sufferings as Buddha has proclaimed and one can only hope that he himself has arrived at Suchness so that he may accept and relate to people for what they are and not as he would like them to be.
Thank you for your note.
Yours sincerely,
Alfred Bloom, Chairman
Asian Studies Committee
Associate Professor, Department of Religious Studies
410 Precita Ave.,
San Francisco, Calif. 94110
March 3, 1969
Alfred Bloom,
Chairman, Asian Studies Committee,
Department of Religious Studies,
College of Liberal Arts, Eugene, Ore, 97403
Dear Professor Bloom:
I wish to thank you for your letter of February 28. We shall send you under separate cover a copy of the book by His Eminence Tai Hsu. This has been sent to Tuttle & Co. in Vermont, and not being returned we presume it is being kept for publication.
We also have ready to submit to Tuttle:
1. Short Cut to Za-Zen by Ho-Shin Kawajiri, disciple of Shaku Soyen
2. Autobiographical notes on Shaku Soyen with supplement by Nyogen Senzaki
3. “Buddhism of Vietnam” by Thich Thien An
4. “Text for Zen Buddhism” by Dr. Kyung Bo Seo.
Dr. Seo is my present Roshi. He was also a disciple of the late Master Tai Hsu. There is also in San Francisco the Venerable Too Lun, another disciple of the same Master. He specializes on the Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch and Diamond Sutra.
I worked eleven years as a volunteer at the Buddha Universal Church and Dr. George Fung has been my physician—perhaps with some success because I have not had a sick day since he discharged me. But they do not go into the “depths” which Master Too Lun does.
There is an excellent article on Buddhist Logic in the anneals of the Royal Asiatic Society of last year. My teacher in Philosophy was the Columbia University Mathematicians, the late Cassius Keyser. He introduced me to Korzybski, the teacher of Hayakawa. The latter and his associates have never forgiven me and have rejected all articles on the man whom Korzybski called the “Maestro,” also all articles on Asian logic, also all articles on all subjects.
When Dr. Huston Smith was last here he mentioned he had not passed his Ko-an. When this man returned in 1957 he called on Nyogen Senzaki. “When Sam Lewis met Sogen Asahina were there one, two or no persons in the room!” “Have some tea….” With Yasutani it was even shorter: “Have some tea” (from him).
When Huston Smith praised Phillip Kapleau I nearly started an uproar by applauding loudly. There is no reason why experience in other directions should not be as objective and impersonal as in the sciences.
My first teacher in the Dharma was one Dr. M. T. Kirby (Sogaku Shaku). He was a disciple of Shaku Soyen. He told me the whole story of his enlightenment. This was rejected by all the “experts” on the ground that people attaining satori never told. He taught me the Sanskrit terms and the Theravadins have never forgiven me for that.
He became the teacher of Dr. Malalasekera. He introduced me to Nyogen Senzaki early in 1920.
I do not hold to the abolition of scriptures by certain Zen groups, and less with the “only in America” enigmaticisms which pass for “Zen.” But I am asked to submit real Zen stories of real Zen teachers I have met in the objective world, to be sent to England for publications.
I am now awaiting details for my next lectures on Vietnamese Buddhism.
I use the Jhanas here as the start for all people who come to this house. It is called Mentorgarten, the name proposed by Shaku Soyen when he visited this city in 1906—his idea was for Americans and Asians to establish cultural exchange through social equality.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
March 15, 1969
Prof. John Shover
Dept. of History
University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, Pa.
My Dear John:
As-Salaam-Aleikhum! It is rather under a confluence of happy circumstances that this letter is being written. I had been thinking a good deal about corresponding when a circumstance made it a musts
This morning I am going to hear a Prof. Williams, who used to be connected with Penn., give the concluding talk in a series on the influences of the traditional religions of Asia on modern developments. I must say that all of the instructors are open, above-board and objective. This is in marked contrast to the so-called “experts” of the past two generations. Nearly all of these “experts” had axes to grand, to which there is no objection, but they censored the most obvious facts which is reprehensible. One truth European-born “expert” positively refused to permit students to refer to the late Duncan McDonald and this was typical of two whole generations. Indeed I was blacklisted by a number of important institutions and only very slowly have been getting back into “respectability.”
A single incident on the Berkeley campus caused the new leaders in departments of Asian Culture to reverse the trend. They have also agreed to review copy of the paper I expect to send to Professor Williams based on my own experiences in Pakistan which might presumably throw some light on events there.
It is remarkable that a person who has been excluded and is still being excluded from conferences on Asia and in the field of universal religion should be regarded as totally qualified by the founders of The Temple of Understanding which is now in the course of construction near Washington, D. C. Also during the past year a very sound friendship has been established with Prof. Huston Smith of M. I. T. Aided by the fact that my chief secretary, Mansur Johnson, has been one of Huston Smith’s prize students.
My few relations with Penn have been very cordial. There is only deep respect for old professor Norman Browne. I suspect from remarks that Prof. Williams has been associating with the American University at Beirut, an institution for which I have the highest regard.
At the present time my god-daughter Miss Saadia Khawar Khan is at Cornell. She is on the staff of the department of Home Economics university of Punjab, Lahore. But she also matriculated at Beirut. I am therefore making a copy of this letter for Prof. Williams to facilitate a possible meeting with Miss Khan when she comes here later on.
She is my Khalifa in Tasawwuf. She also won first prize at an International Philosophical gathering for which I did not have “credentials.” I wrote the paper; she won first prize!
You are perhaps fortunate in being transferred from San Francisco State. Behind all the news and furor are nothing but personalisms. Everybody wants to get into an act. All the non-student has to do is to get to a microphone. There is very easy for a non-student and very difficult for a student. Unfortunately I committed a “sin” early in life for which there is no forgiveness. I was a student and disciple of the late Cassius Keyser of Columbia, professor of mathematics and philosophy; friend and mentor of the late Count Alfred Korzybski, Hayakawa’s teacher. Don has never forgiven me for this, but privately the pressures of the moment are too much. I understand he is relenting. He had better.
Having lived with Dervishes it has become a simple matter to open up classes in Dervish Dancing. I started with my own disciples. The number of these disciples is on the increase. The attendance at my lectures on the real cultures of real Asia is on the increase. Doors automatically shut before on the various campuses are now as open as they were shut.
(There is a droll twist to this. My brother and I have no heirs. We are tentatively agreed that in case he pre-deceased me one of our heirs would be a department of Asian Studies on some campus. You have no idea how hard it is to get interviews and my final will has been held up because of refusals even to grant interviews. This will include some professors who both you and Dr. Williams know!)
The methodologies in Dervish Dancing are “new” in the sense that they are the synthesis of dances and ceremonies which I have attended. But one does not stop there. Having a knowledge of Asian esotericism I am able to include what might be called moral and psychic culture in and through these dances. A whole field of Islamics is thus imparted, and rather successfully. Yet this comes at a time when one is also giving lectures on Christian Mysticism. I do not mean by this book reviews and abstractions of Saints of earlier periods. Without going into other details we practice the phrase Ya Hayy! Ya Hakk! This is the epitome of my program “Joy Without Drugs.”
As to my coming East. It is time not money which is needed. I have today a very full program, a growing number of disciples, and opportunities for writing previously rejected or ignored. In fact I am working on some of my own notes with stories of living Dervishes and Madzubs for possible early publication. In addition, my own disciples now have control of a local issue, The Oracle into which it is not necessary to go, but this is going to reverse once and for all the previous series I have had of a priori rejections.
I am in a sense sorry about Ayub. Americans know so little of his accomplishments. Among other things I have been a guest of the Basic Democracies. One of the leaders in this has been Begum Ayub Khan now living in Abbottabad, one of my two Pakistani homes. Her late husband was at one time Council General here. By neither my relations with the Begun nor the fact that I visited the Basic Democracies has led to the acceptance of any paper from me. I am not of course a sociologist. But I have read “Researches Into the Castes and Tribes of the Punjab and Northwest India.” I have lived in the country described by him. And I have found after many years the same institutions and folk habits. In a really objective world such reports would be welcomed.
[next page(s) missing]
Harvard University
June 8, 1969
Dear Mr. Lewis,
Please forgive this scrawl. I have been in Asia for 2 months and I am trying to catch up on my correspondence.
The only manuscript I have received from you is from Tai Hsu: Lectures in Buddhism, which I already own as a printed book, published in Paris in 1928. Do you want it back? If you have another manuscript, in which you recount your own experiences in Chinese Buddhism, especially with regard to Trebitsch-Lincoln, I would be glad to see it. You imply that you know where he was between 1928 and 1931. Do you?
Thank you for the nice things you say about my book. I appreciate them.
With all good wishes,
Holmes Welch
June 29, 1969
Donald H. Bishop
Department of Philosophy
Washington State University
Pullman, WA 99163
Dear Mr. Bishop,
It was very enjoyable to read your article, “The problem of Religious Three C’s” in the current issue of the WFB bulletin.
At the present time I am assisting in various researches in Buddhist-Buddhism (to be distinguished from the “expert”-Buddhism (?) so prevalent in this land. This of itself is a very large subject. All I can say here is that my first teacher was one Dr. M.Y. Kirby, later to become the Thera of Dr. Malalasekera, and that I must be one of the few Americans who studied the literature of the Open Court publishing Co., etc., etc.
Apart from this I have been trying for years to see a return to the policy of the 1893 Parliament of Religions. It is an excellent career if you want to be a martyr. we have had innumerable so-called “parliaments” and “conferences,” generally made up of carefully selected personalities, often those who in no ways represent any faith at all. More often the real representatives of the real religions of the real world are excluded, especially by the officials of the University of Hawaii. I shall not go into this.
My very good friend, Swami Ranganathananda Maharaj did hold a real conference of the real religions of the real world a few years back at Calcutta. The conference was kept open until every group presented its case and also faced the gamut of criticism and opposition—something we have abrogated in so-called “free America.” And I long to see the return of an American-American institution, i.e. the Parliament of Religions.
This is a long, long history into which I shall not into here excepting to say that in other lands—and slowly here—one’s credentials are being accepted, they being objectively true, not based on prowess but on deep experience.
But I wish to call your attention to the work of Mrs. Judith Hollister and her friends of The Temple of Understanding. They made some attempt to restore the American-American institution of 1893, but to do so had to meet in Calcutta. And I hope you know, or will learn about her efforts.
Personally, I have long since given up the conference method with its selected speakers from the State Department and often from the press, and its exclusion of many actual spiritual leaders. Plus the awful institution of self-praise which accomplishes nothing.
We are here working on “Dances of Universal Peace” drawn from the religions of the world. The young recite the sacred phrase of living, and now also from by-gone faiths with suitable movements in walk and dance. This awakens the inner spirit. They have found by practice, especially with a suitable “guru” that they reach states of joy-consciousness far superior to anything derived from mineral or vegetable sources, and so are finding the realities of depths within themselves.
The principle was inherited from my “fairy God-mother,” the late Ruth St. Denis, and has been dedicated in part to The Temple of Understanding and in part to leaders in contemporary India.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
PS. I have just read the editor’s note below your article. It is very whimsical. Aiem Sanghavasi and I are very good friends; her Serene Highness Princess Poon even closer and they have never replied any letter from me nor published a single extract!
June 30, 1969
Holmes Welch
East Asia Research Center
Cambridge, Mass. 02138
Dear Mr. Holmes:
Thank you for your letter for June 8. It is with some regret that one must report my early records were destroyed in a fire in 1949. And others of my Buddhist materials were offered to a well know lecturer who merely appropriated them and they disappeared sine die.
Trebitsch-Lincoln stayed around San Francisco for some time and found himself entangled with the Japanese community—perhaps for good reason. So he went to China and became involved in the Tai Hsu movement. He used to write here regularly.
I shall go over the materials here, or have someone do this. I have a good many things from the late Nyogen Senzaki and one of my disciple will also attend to that materiel. He is now studying with Mr. Lancaster at the University of California.
The chief disciple of Nyogen Senzaki was then one Paul Renandez (Zoso) and he received letters almost to the time of “Dr. Ruh’s” death. Trebitsch-Lincoln also became dissatisfied with Ch’an intrigues and then went to Omei Shan. I do not recall the year but he was on the sacred mountain in 1936 when the defunct “Literary Digest” gave him a big write up, mostly concerning his warnings and prophecies, which came pretty well to objectification, far more than any superficial “Jean Dixon” stuff.
I could use that Tai Hsu manuscript for Mr. Lancaster as above.
One Rev. Too Lun, a disciple of Tai Hsu is now holding forth in this city and doing very well indeed. Another disciple is in New York City. My own present “Roshi” is Mr. Seo Kyung So and I shall be glad to send you any of his writings. His specialty is “Korean Buddhism”
Reading several works on the history of Chinese Buddhism, especially by western scholars, they are all based on the suppositions, to me totally false, that the Dharma is based on deep speculation or thinking apart from human experience on this point I absolutely dissent. And so long as we adhere to intellectualisms we shall find impasse between our Hi Shih’s and Daisetz Suzuki’s who may have been grand scholar, but hardly “satori-wallahs.”
I did eleven years “flunky work” toward the building of the now rather famous “Buddha’s Universal Church” here in San Francisco, but nothing profound has come from it.
The latest issue of the World Fellowship of Buddhists News Bulletin has an editor’s note:
“It is a paradoxical truth that, whereas scientists can be united, can think beyond their nationalism and can admit their fallibility and the limit of knowledge, religionists cannot, because they dare not. What we need today, therefore, is religious people, not religionists….”
If the WBF Bulletin only followed its own advice, we should have a better world.
My own dearest friends for thirty-five years was the late Phra Sumangalo and not a single of his earlier colleagues who’d furnish a single item either for myself or for the Encyclopedia of Buddhism! And a few of his later colleagues did that but never to this person. We had a conference on spiritual experiences here. There were five “Buddhists,” so called. They agreed on two things: there is no God; and they would not talk to each other!
When I left San Francisco in 1930 I think Trebitsch-Lincoln was still here or he had just left for China. I was then in New York, and studied with the late Sokei-An Sasaki. During that period also the Zendo moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles.
I am trying to work for The Temple of Understanding in Washington but at the latest report they had substituted a well known “expert” for the spokesmen of the Dharma. In seems that yet egotism is triumphant but not for long. A new age is here.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Department of Humanities
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139
September 15, 1969
Mr. Samuel L. Lewis
410 Precita Avenue
San Francisco, Calif. 94110
Dear Sam:
It has been informative to keep abreast of spiritual developments, especially those centering on the West Coast. Tomorrow, however, I leave for the full academic year abroad; I let you know this to save work for your secretaries—items that come this way before July 1970 will not be likely to reach me. I look forward to being in touch thereafter. I hope it proves to be a very good year for you.
Most sincerely,
Huston Smith
410 Precita Ave.,
San Francisco, Calif.
December 8, 1969
Dr. O. H. Dodson, Director
Classical and European Culture Museum
University of Illinois
Champaign- Urbana, Ill.
Dear Dr. Dodson:
“Kang Translates Sumerian Tablets”
This is a headline in the latest issue of The Asian Student published in this city.
Some of us are quite interested as we are preparing to enroll in a course Ancient Civilizations on the Mediterranean, which is being directed by Dr. Andreina Becker-Colonna of San Francisco State College. Actually this course is being given by the extension division of the University of California and is a sort of joint venture of the two institutions.
Any further information that can be supplied on the above subject during the forthcoming semester will be of interest to ourselves and our instructor. And we are ready to pay for any available brochures.
Thank you for your attention.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
Jan. 24, 1970
Mr. R. C. Zachner
All Souls College
Oxford,
England
Dear Mr. Zachner:
Yesterday I came upon this book, with the most interesting title, interesting because the writer who is a Sufi Murshid is going this morning to sit at the feet of the Vedantist Swami Swahananda. How come?
Yours is not the first book with this sort of title (Hindu and Muslim Mysticism) valiantly backed by deductions from writers of other ages, having practically nothing to do with the objective world of humanity of the day. And very little to do with objective data connected with the subject matter. When I was living in Cairo I came upon a textbook on Sufism, at least it was called that, used at the American University there. Having encountered a Sufi center within walking distance I tried to arrange an interview between the writer of that text and the Sheikh of that center and was peremptorily dismissed. I am certainly not going to demand special treatment, but there is no question today that the so-called Judeo-Christian ethic from which such behavior stems is headed for a downfall.
Without going into details, I had to watch the rising tide of resentment, and then see with my own eyes a mob attack on the American Embassy. It is only now, after many years, that in this country very feeble efforts are being made to admit the existence of objective Sufism.
Today you must be aware of “Studies in Comparative religion,” Pates Manor, Hatton Road, Bedfont, Middlesex. Sooner or later the existence of these writers will have to be admitted. The young will go a step further and accept their honesty and perhaps their insight. Frithjof Schuon in particular is playing the exact role here that the discovery of Uranium played in the history or atomic transmutation, and even of basic science.
A number of years ago I visited the offices of the Royal Asiatic Society in London and asked, “What have you on Prince Dara Shikoh?” “Never heard of him.” “Please look him up….” “O, Mr. Lewis, we apologize.”
The historical existence of Prince Dara Shikoh, and to some extent of his grandfather the great Emperor Akbar, unfortunately disproves your whole book. The great Orientalist Stanley Lane-Poole did some excellent work in this field. I also seem to be one of the few Americans who read “Researches into the Castes and Tribes of Punjab and Northwest India” written by one H. Rose of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1896. In 1956 I visited much of the same country and found a slight partition, very little change. Of course I mingled with the people. My notes are still extant, but it has only been in the last two years that they have been accepted.
As I write, I find a totally different type of University professor in this region, men whose determinations are based on objectivities.
The great Imam Al-Ghazzali wrote, “Sufism is based on experience, and not on premises.” We might as well bury him and that. Stores and stalls are filled with works based on premises and not experiences. When Phillip Kapleau’s “Three Pillars of Zen” appeared, I danced with joy. “Now mystics can write about mysticism, and students do not have to listen always to the dialectics of subjectivists.” This is one of the things that is now happening in the United States, and particularly in the Western part of the United States.
Today our youth are demanding experience, not opinions, in the psychological and religious fields, just as is absolutely required in the scientific fields. They not only want it from others, they want it for themselves—as in the scientific fields.
I do not know whether you know the story of the last meeting between Emerson and Carlyle. I do not know whether you are aware of Emerson’s diary entry that he thought that if Buddha and Pythagoras and Jesus and Mohammed and others came together, you would not hear a sound from them. I do know I personally helped to introduce the Zen Master Nyogen Senzaki with the Sufi teacher Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan. I do know, first hand, that the meeting exactly fulfilled Emerson’s supposition. I do know that in addition to their joint reports of having entered Samadhi together, Nyogen Senzaki later wrote and spoke on their having a common understanding of nyaya logic which is somewhat different from our Aristotelian heritage.
I did not know then that the same was to have occurred to me personally in my meeting with Roshi Asahina Sogen at Kamakura, Japan, in 1956. And then on and on and on and on: facts, facts, carefully annotated. And I think it is time to rid ourselves of that horrible legend that a true mystic has to keep quiet. A true mystic is supposed to keep quiet while scholars, informed and uninformed, write books which the public is supposed to accept.
When the professors at the University of California in Berkeley saw the greetings between this Sufi and Swami Ranganathananda Maharaj they did a double take, and I am as much in today as I was not previously.
There are a lot of books emanating from writers, some of whom claim to be Sufis and some not; just as there have been many books on so-called Zen, mostly written by outsiders. The difficulty here has been the stubborn refusal to recognize the egocentric predicament; the almost universal assumption that “I” exist. All realisms are based on this assumption.
There are holy men in the Himalayas, who may be called Munis, but whom we can hardly classify as Sufis, Vedantists, Yogis, etc. I can refer to many books to support my stand. In the end it is living experience that counts, and I dare to state right here that there is very little difference between dawk, dharma transmission (of several varieties), real Hebraic mystical Kabbalah, etc.
The Upanishads are full of lines of decent of teacher and pupil. In actuality, this is most important amongst Sufis. Absolutely in those who belong to what might be called the traditional schools (a very awkward term) and others. Indeed, the Sufis to me seem much more sound on this point than most Hindus. They are, however, not more sound than certain tapes of Zen and synthetic Mahayana schools. I won’t go into the latter: there are too many books in the way. Both Zen and Sufism teach the need of unlearning and mental purification. Without them we can verbalize till doomsday and get nowhere.
On the other hand, no matter what the school of mysticism, the ultimate reality is found to be the source and essence of (actuality, living experience, not deduction) light, life, wisdom, beauty, power, etc. They are all there together so to speak in God Allah Brahm.
After the publication of “Three Pillars of Zen” Kapleau’s teacher Roshi Yasutani came to this city for a single purpose. We sat down together, glanced, drank tea and both departed. Hazrat Inayat Khan, a Sufi teacher said, “Heart speaks to heart and soul to soul.” The Bible teaches about urim and thummin; Sufis emphasize hal and makam.
We are most fortunate today in having a number of young Americans who realize in various degrees the similarity of mystical content. I myself emphasize the gradients of the Upanishads, that teach spiritual development through the dance and music.
I am sorry in a sense that a work has been written with this title with very little insight into either of the parties verbally inferred. Just before leaving India the last, I was a guest of honor at a celebration at the Dirgah Nizam-ud-din Auliya in Delhi. I was a guest of honor in one pavilion, and whom do you suppose were the guests of honor in another pavilion? Pundit Nehru and Dr. S. Radhakrishnan. The life, prowess, profundity, and noble personality of the retired president of India alone compels some hesitation in accepting so much of what you have written.
We all end in the universal consciousness. I leave the fruits of action to Sri Krishna, though my name is with all love and blessings,
Samuel L. Lewis
(Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti)
January 26, 1970
Center for Religious Studies
Harvard University
Cambridge, Mass
Dear Sirs”
In re Hindu and Muslim Mysticism by R. C. Zachner
Years ago I visited your institution and Dr, Slater said, “We would like to know all that you know that we do not.” But nothing seems to have come from it, and a mystic does not enjoy entering into arguments, often quite useless with dialecticians and linguists. There are many learned men in the world, but that does not mean that they have had the living experiences in the subject matter which interests them. In the sciences, yes; and I am optimistic enough to believe that the same impersonal objectivity can be pursued in all walks of life, and when it is I believe we shall have a better world.
The appearance of Three Pillars of Zen caused the writer to jump with joy. At last a book by an American who has had the spiritual realization, rather than long abstruse dialogues and dialectics by famous literati who have not. Indeed, the appearance of that book was followed by a meeting the following year with Roshi Yasutani, and the establishment of friendship with Dr. Huston Smith. It was not necessary to converse with the Roshi—we understood each other at a glance.
Strictly speaking, Sufism has been the field which has absorbed more time, more study and more mystical realization. I am not in the least concerned with either acceptance or rejection of these endeavors, or the life that came out of these endeavors, because any follower of Dr. Arberry or anybody else has chosen to ignore them. I have lived in many parts of the world, met many realized mystics of many schools, and associated at many levels with types of humanity not always welcome at institutions of higher learning. But I believe that day is going, and tomorrow night I am meeting Prof. Richard Alpert, now known as Baba Ram Dass. I do not know whether this meeting will affect the psyches of writers who have selected theses without any examination of the objective world. But I am certainly tired of works like the above which are not only confusing and abstruse, but most unfortunately are welcomed in some halls of learning.
After writing the author, in the belief that he would not welcome my criticism, I again re-read sections in “Eastern Religions and Western Thought” which are so contradictory in every level and on every subject to the conclusions of Mr. Zachner, that I am wondering how the world could seriously accept each of these outlooks without seriously contrasting them.
Of course I cannot compel others to accept the dictum of Imam Al-Ghazzali “Sufism is based on experiences, and not on premises.” Nor am I appealing any more for admission to forums from which men of my outlook and experience have been excluded in the past, for a number of very common-sense reasons:
a. A number of institutions an professors, moved by curiosity at least, are opening their doors and floors to mystics, and perhaps also to pseudo-mystics and charlatans, giving them the opportunity to express their point of view without having the door slammed in their faces.
b. An ever-growing number of young people have been interested in mysticism, pseudo-mysticism, psychism, and “far-out studies,” and fortunately or unfortunately they prefer especially those who are never given any opportunities by their elders.
c. A greatly increased income with possible further monetary increase in emoluments is going to speak for itself, this being most unfortunately the key which can be used, and certainly is going to be used by the writer and others.
It is very difficult for a mystic who is supposed to be motivated by love, generosity, and humanity, to write in this way. But evidently the so-called Judeo-Christian ethos (whatever that means) does not always take kindly to alternative, not to say conflicting views. Such an ethos will sooner or later run against the moral law as presented variously to the world by saints and sages of all times and climes.
The subject is further complicated by the appearance on the market by works purporting to be on Sufism, as there are works purporting to be on Zen, not based on experiences in Universal consciousness. One only hopes that the rising generation, which is far more motivated by both curiosity and honesty than power outlooks and prestige outlooks, will open up doors and hearts. At least I am scheduled to appear at the next conference of the religions of the world as programmed by The Temple of Understanding
I intend to take full advantage of obscurantism and narrowness, not to say prejudice, to open up more and more to our young people the knowledge of living mystics of all kinds. And not particularly seeking an answer or reply, but I am wondering if your institution is accepting works like that of Mr. Zachner, even as literature, would permit an alternative. I can assure you that more and more colleges and universities in the Western part of the United States are now awakening from subjectivity into objective reality in the inner sciences, as they must in the outer sciences.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
910 Railroad Ave.
Novato, Calif. 94947
February 18, 1970
Dr. Sharabi
Georgetown University
Washington, D.C.
Dear Dr. Sharabi:
As-salaam aleikhum. You may recall me as the little man with whom you spent some time when you were in San Francisco years ago at the time of the U.N. decennial. I also brought some disciples to hear you when you appeared at the University of San Francisco not quite so long ago. It is noteworthy that on that occasion there were very few members of the San Francisco mosque in the audience other than Arabs. There were far more Arabs in the audience who do not belong to the mosque for various reasons.
When you were in San Francisco I showed you the first pages of the epic poem “Saladin.” I am having a copy of “Saladin” sent you along with its predecessor, “The Day of the Lord Cometh.” These show respectively a Hebrew and Arabic interpretation of the Palestinian complex. They also belong in the same honorium of being rejected alike. It is the same type of thing that is causing me to write to you, sending a copy to “The Saturday Review” rather than write to the editors and sending you copy.
This time in life is very auspicious and propitious. I have little use for a culture/complex which is based on over-evaluating and de-valuating personalities for subjective dialectical anti-rationale. I had a friend who live long years in Vietnam, who thought he could save this country visited it twice and was turned down by everybody excepting a single Washington editor. The press, the state department and all the “experts” rejected him. We are now paying a terrible price.
At the present time I am enrolled a class studying Vietnam—not studying the editors, the commentators, the ivory tower pompous individuals who never mingle with the masses, although they are full of advice. Every person in the class is what I call “an ugly American.” All of us, including the teacher, have lived in one or another of the Southeast Asian countries and we can discuss dispassionately the humanity of the region, the problems, and potential solutions but not from any subjective dialectical dualistic antihuman standard.
My interest in Southeast Asia has been incidental and coincidental. My interest in Palestine has been fundamental and life-long. I did forty years research into the religions of the world and their possible usage to promote world peace. Excepting for the friends I have been disdained, ignored and even maligned. But La Illaha El Il Allah. And as the Arabian Nights say, “There is no power or might save in Allah.”
At this moment my secretary Mansur and I are preparing to attend an international conference of the world’s faiths. I am going as a representative of the Sufis. I do not mean the super-educated, Western, “realists” who have studied books and languages under Dr. Arberry and his colleagues. I mean a person who has had the experiences of fana-fi-Sheikh, fana-fi-Rassoul and fana-fi-lillah. The poetry is evidence of fana-fi-Rassoul. I am now working on Rassoul Gita which will bear evidence of fana-fi-lillah. I hope to be heard at Geneva in the near future. After that, I shall return to the United Sates and shall visit Washington as the directors of The Temple of Understanding request or desire.
I have worked for years on the principle that we should have Arab culture taught in this county by Arabs—so far, not too much response. The horrible slogan “Peace with justice” stands in the way. The greatest authority on Arab culture out here until recently was also head of the Zionist movement! If we had any idea of justice at all we should be having an Arab secretariat at the U.N.
I have lived in Egypt as well as in other Islamic lands. I protested vehemently against the drivel taught at the American University in Cairo anent Sufism. There was a strange series of incidents in my life which brought me in close touch with the Faculty of Arts at Cairo University. They kept on begging me for real cultural exchange. The Foreign Office snubbed the idea. I myself had to witness the mob attacks on the Belgium and American embassy. On the whole we still do not have Arabic culture properly taught in this country. Cultural exchange with communist Russia, yes! cultural exchange with the Arabic civilizations, ridiculous!
I am pleased to report, however, that the situations at the local San Francisco State College and the University of California are today totally different, and until this call to go to Geneva I have been studying various phases of Arabic culture.
I have lived in Cairo. I have walked on foot through practically every street in that huge city. I have visited a multitude of mosques. I came to Cairo already a member of the Chistia and Naqshibandi Orders of dervishes and left also as a member of the Shadhili and Rifa’i Orders.
One might assume that a born “Nathan, the wise,” that is, a scion of a Hebrew family by blood, and one who has come to accept like Mohammed Asad Mohammed as the last Messenger of God might be a fitting person to operate at this time. Not only am I fairly acquainted with Islamic cultures and history but also, not only from heritage but from actual employment, had to do deep research into Jewish philosophy and mysticism might be a proper person to be heard at this time.
I am not here going into my visits to Pakistan and India. It would be too long, but facts can never he hidden forever. I came back from Pakistan with the instruction that my life mission was to get 50,000 Americans to say “Allah.” It looked impossible. But I have had those mystical experiences which mystics have and which the literati disdain. I arose from a hospital three years ago with a vision of what was to come and it has come. I now have almost a hundred disciples. I now have succeeded in getting even thousands to repeat “Allah.”
I am teaching dervish dances which may horrify some Muslims but are attracting the young who are seeking the living God. They all joyfully join in saying La Illaha El Il Allah! Ya Hayy Ya Haqq! Mohammed Rassoul Illaha! The marvelous thing, about this is that among my growing numbers of followers are persons of full Jewish blood and even ex-Israelis. The backbone of my strength comes from persons who are partly Jewish or who have married non-Jews; also at least two blond women who were raised with Jewish families.
I am now being called upon to visit institutions in other parts of the land. My God-daughter Miss Khawar Khan is at Ithaca, (Cornell University) with a complete copy of Hadiths and Commentaries by our living Sufi teacher.
The stubborn refusal of all those people who think they can tell people with whom they have not mingled what to do, to accept the traditions from Boccaccio and Lessing is appalling.
I myself worked out a plan for the Near East which was accepted especially by the U.N. by Arabs who were citizens of the UAR and Saudi Arabia and Israelis. It was snubbed and disdained by our Foreign Office, by the Carnegie Peace Foundation, and by those unfortunate persons who believe that slogans can solve problems. But Allah is, and Shahud can be learned by mankind when we can physically, psychologically, psychically perform shajda.
That is enough now. It may take a little while to get my poetry into your hands, but, inshallah, we shall do it. Allah Mubarak.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti
February, 28, 1970
Prof. N. P. Jacobson
Winthrop College
Rock Hill, South Carolina
Bodhisattva:
It is not always pleasant to write in a somewhat dualistic manner to anybody. The writer would not dare unless he had actual experience to support his contentions. One has had at least 60 units of college laboratory credit; and many more in college lectures on scientific subjects, without taking any book or travel research into consideration.
Co-extensive with this has been studies in the depths of religions. I am not working on any supposition that knowledge is different if the field of endeavor is different. Perhaps my weakness may be due, or my strength may be due, to meeting one Dr. M. T. Kirby when I was a pretty young man. He encouraged a kind of parallel between religious and scientific research, both based on cosmic rather than individualistic approaches. I have never seen any reason to change this, though in general religionists, especially sectarian religionists, will not accept it. We have out here Dr. Lewis Lancaster who is teaching Buddhism a priori-ing the logic of Dignaga; while almost all the rest of the world is naively assuming either the logic of Aristotle or downright sophistry, based on the psychological assumption of an ego even when verbally or pseudo-logically denying it.
In Buddhism alone Dr. Kirby pointed me in two different directions, both of which I have followed. One of these is to practice the Jhanas. I find the Jhanas very successful pragmatically. But I also find that each success in a Jhana alters the personality, thereby confirming both anatta and anicca. While Buddhists naively assume—and it is a damned assumption—that we are subject to change, too often their operations are to the contrary. Dogma has been substituted for human experience and while there are nice words these words are not confused always by human experience.
In the spirit of modern science, as well as in accord with Dharma, I have totally accepted all and everything coming from Dr. Phillip Kapleau. But I dare to controvert the late semi-Pope Prof. Daisetz Suzuki who once wrote that Prajna, not Dhyana, was the basis of Zen. Poppycock. Absolute poppycock. Prajna (called Panna in Pali) has been badly mistranslated as “wisdom.” Millions repeat the Prajna-Paramita Sutra without knowing what they are doing, without understanding what they are saying. I have already tested the WBF: when Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Buddhist or non-Buddhist though he be, uses the word Prajna everybody runs to cover. When another ego uses the same word, it is a totally different matter, proving there is a gap between Buddhists and believers in dukha, anatta, and anicca (where I place myself).
When I was visiting Kamakura in 1956, and the universe opened up (it has often opened up) the attendant told me I was already two grades above Dr. Daisetz. Of course the “anatta” people are not going to accept that! But it is remarkable that I was taken on a cave tour to caves visited by the late L. Adams Beck and the late Sokei-An Sasaki, and was told “Daisetz was never here; he does not even know about these places.”
I must call to your attention here, Bodhisattva, that whether it is science, religion, mysticism, or adventure, I notate and annotate, which ought to bring a person a little closer to finding a scheme for relating science and religion. On page 4 you state: “All of your respondents in Southeast Asia bear out Kenneth Inada, a Buddhist philosopher now at the University of Buffalo, who remarks as follows: “Buddhism is the most thoroughgoing naturalistic discipline the world has ever witnessed, though it is unappreciated in this light for the most part.’”
The introduction of ego-element is not to my mind in accord with my Buddhist procedures. And if you read the present issue of Science 13 February, in the articles on scientific writing and elsewhere this subject of the introduction of the ego is variously discussed. Now suppose my experience is different. For 33 years I was perhaps the closest friend to the late Phra Sumangalo (Robert Clifton) who lived every land in Southeast Asia, without exception. I have also the materiel from Thich-Thien-An, a great scholar in the synthetic Vietnamese Mahayana. I have been the guest of Her Serene Highness Princess Poon Diskul, and she has been guest. We should be meeting soon at Geneva for purposes other than controversy. I am not a “general semanticist,” therefore I always use a referent. This is also pertinent to Nyaya logic which has dominated many Asian minds. Whatever the difference between Nyaya and Aristotelian logic are, they have formed a wall, an unnecessary wall of misunderstanding.
It is only a blatant braggart who would dare to say that anything is “the greatest the world has over witnessed.” By what standard? On what basis?
Dr. Phra Sumangalo left here several disciples, one of whom Rev. Iru Price has gone over hook, line and sinker to the rather famous Lama Anagarika Govinda who declares that he never met a fully illuminated soul anywhere in Southeast Asia. This watakshiwa has not illuminated souls in Southeast Asia. As a scientist, who is to be believed?
On page 5 you have written, “The Buddhist way of thinking always begins with analysis of reality….” I do not know what is meant by the Buddhist way of thinking. When Grand Master Seo-Kyung-Bo of Korea was this way and he gave all of us examinations in our putative knowledge of the Dharma, this person came out number one. I certainly shall not impose an anybody the Avatamsaka-Kegon teaching that all of us are illuminated to begin with; or how this works. I do know I was accepted immediately at Nara, as I was at Sojiji, as I was at Kamakura, as I was by the Shingi-Shingon devotees, etc. I personally believe, but I do not impose, that there is one cosmic Dharma. I personally believe, but do not impose, that the Lord Buddha himself taught 8 aspects of samma, which is not analysis, which is as far from analysis as one can conceive, being in every respect diametrically the opposite; being universal, cosmic, and unlimited. It is this outlook which to me substantiates his being called Tathagata.
Buddha Himself enlightened people by his Glance, his Darshan, his Samma Drishthi. Of course I never had this glance directly, but certainly the persons who made some of the pictures in the Arjunta caves must have had this experience of emancipation and deliverance and no nonsense. No analysis, no dialectics, no metaphysics; actuality.
I do not know how much scientific background you have had. I have always felt that Dalton’s atomic theory was based on his conditioning as a Christian, looking for a soul-entity. I have also believed that many of the cell-theories were based on the same approach, looking for soul-entities. Yesterday, fortunately, somebody placed in my hands material regarding Haeckel’s theories of the cell being functional, rather than individualistic. This would at once show how close real science and real teachings of Lord Buddha come together.
The discoveries of radioactivity, of atomic transmutation and transformation, and the modern doctrines in the science of Physics—I mean a science and not an empty word called “science”—demonstrate here the superiority of a tradition which certainly includes and involves Lord Buddha’s teachings as against the individualism of the West.
It is so easy to say that Buddhism arose in India. If we leave it there we are caught in a compound of words and confusions. This India had an actual Ultimate which is called the Dharma. Analysis of the Dharma is not the Dharma any more than a derivative of a function is the function itself (with a certain exception). All the Indian systems posit the existence of worlds seen and unseen; of entities human, sub-human, and super-human. The original terms are still found in Mahayana, insofar as Mahayana seems to have been originally written in Sanskrit. The Pali terms etymologically are comparable if not identical; but the explanations are sometimes neither comparable nor identical. How do we know which is the true Buddhistic system of explanation? How can we explain this? Science is based on certain types of human experiences which can be confirmed by other human beings. There is no room for dogma. But in certain types of Buddhist teachings there is not only room for dogma; sometimes there is nothing else but dogma. And in some Theravadin teachings where analysis is assumed without any background or proof, the explanations do not always explain.
For example, the common Theravadic interpretations of earth, air, fire, water, etc.—how can they be proven to be true? On what basis? Before you indulge in the very anti-Buddha practice of making samskaras (or its Pali equivalent), let me tell you there are explanations here, but they are not explanations which have been properly examined by Western scholars who have not delved deeply into the Dharma or into themselves—in the end these may be found to be identical, a single process.
You have quoted a single Ceylonese philosopher. How can one know that he is speaking either for the majority or that he represents the views one would have who has attained a realization in Buddhi?
Of course I agree thoroughly with Dr. Radhakrishnan, which does not prove we are right, simply that I agree with him. The WBF has recognized and honored Dr. Radhakrishnan; so have many Hindus. So have many Sufis, in India at least. His methods are not the methods of the analyst, quite the contrary. Those who are deeply versed in the Upanishads, from the actualization thereof and not from an analysis or speculative interpretation, by becoming the subject matter itself, would hardly agree with individualistic interpretations of any kind.
I do not dissent in the least from your social interpretations, but a blank statement on page 13, “Forty different forms of meditation,” are footnoted with a reference to Buddhaghosa. I do not see any forty types of mediation; what are they? Again, before you react, I own and have read “The Path of Purification” many times. And, above all and under all, we practice Jhanas here, we practice the Jhanas and they lead to changes in personality. We actualize, we realize greater scope for love and joy and peace—actually. This is today a common occurrences among living human beings, all young no doubt.
When I was in Hong Kong a number of years ago I met a Dr. Leung, who claims he was thoroughly versed in all schools of Mahayana. He was also a very successful medical practitioner. He told me had received a PhD in nuclear physics. We discussed the behavior of light in various types of sugars, and how much these seemed to resemble Yang-Yin and other cosmic hypotheses. We predicted that the next Nobel Prize in Physics would go to a Chinese. Before I returned home this actually happened. There are realms where apparently different types of human behaviors, human psychology, and human philosophy, meet. It would be well to look into the types of mind found in higher beings, be they human or non-human. For instance, I personally see a vastness in the Surangama Sutra which even my old friend and colleagues Dwight Goddard could not fathom. When areas of consciousness are awakened, actually awakened, and when one enters into higher states of consciousness well within the scope of practicing devotees, the outlooks become transcendent.
Anyone who dares to say that the Nirmanakaya, the Sambhogakaya, and the Dharmakaya are not only realities but the reality, can easily of course be accused of egotism. But what about the egotism of the ignorant? Of those who write on such subjects without any experience? Buddhism remains apart from science because science demands some experience on the part of those who choose to represent it. Science is trans-personal. Buddhism has become unfortunately most individualistic, and while it remains there—I have written before—I can now call myself a Buddhist.
But I do not believe there is any such gap between the Dharma and science. The Dharma is the whole from which we may derive science, religion, philosophy, art, anything. At least that is my view.
I am therefore not opposed to your analysis. It is perhaps as good as any analysis can be. It may even be perfect analysis. But I do not think analysis has any place here whatsoever. No doubt my point of view will be attacked by traditionalists, by sanctimonious monks, by sanctimonious non-monks, by individualists of every sort. So be it. I guess I am the elephant which the six blind men described differently.
I am going soon to Geneva to the conference of the world’s faiths. I shall not attack any religion. I shall uphold devotion. I shall justify any actual practice of any forms of meditation, but not description, gossip-reference, or the summoning of ghosts to disprove what the actual humanity in the audiences my say. Above all, I shall not throw around loosely the word Compassion as a weapon to show that the other people are in the wrong, ever.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
(He Kwang, Zen-shi)
March 8, 1970
Mr. Deepak Merchant
c/o Operations Research Dept.
Cornell University
Ithaca, N.Y.
Sahib-j i:
The writer is an old friend and correspondent with your esteemed father. He is taking this opportunity to write to you, although writing alone may not be sufficient. Still, the enclosed correspondence may be helpful.
I am particularly stimulated at this time because an article has just been published in “California Monthly,” a publication of the University of California and particularly its alumni. I am enclosing a copy to show you the outlook of a man world famous for his researches in Physics and Astrophysics. I have not met this esteemed gentleman because nearly all my work is done in Asiatics and food problems.
I am now on my way to a conference of the world’s religions to be held at the end of the month at Geneva, Switzerland, and your esteemed father has cooperated by giving me introductions to certain members of the Indian delegation, although it is quite possible that I also know other persons of the same general nature. I have been all over India and have studied pretty thoroughly the various religions of the world.
I have been invited to Cornell, but neither my present financial resources nor my spare time permit this at this writing. I have to go to Geneva, London and Boston in turn, and then must return to this city (San Francisco) because of legal involvements; if these involvements are faced they may well benefit me financially; if they are bypassed there will be other complications.
I am writing this, asking you to do me a favor if you can:
My god-daughter, Miss Khawar Khan of Punjab University, Lahore, Pakistan, is also enrolled at Cornell in the department of Home Economics, dealing particularly with fabrics, clothing, and related items. I am wondering if it would be possible for you to look her up. I must advise that she is a devout Muslim, although she has, under my influence, been moved somewhat toward a universal outlook. In order to promote real peace in this real world, I am supporting this universal outlook, and have at least vague hopes that the world also may move in this same general direction. Without it I can hardly see any approach toward actual peace between warring factions, philosophies, and humanity. But in stating my position, I am merely stating my position, and not demanding its acceptance by others. No doubt, in your country there are many others of the same outlook, including of course the late Prof. Wadia, your father’s very wonderful instructor and colleague.
If there is success at Geneva, or if the legal transactions in this area terminate to my satisfaction, or if I receive external financial assistance, I shall also be leaving as soon as possible for Ithaca. At the moment I am dependent almost entirely on my own resources which are limited, but at this writing an interest in my spiritual work has been instigated at an educational television station, and the next few weeks also may determine an outcome which also may change my status socially, intellectually, and financially. But this as we say is in God’s hands at this writing.
I hope you are enjoying your stay in the United States. If you come to California we shall be glad to see you, and also to host you, without any further obligations on your part.
Miss Khan’s home address is 215 Fall Creek Drive.
Sincerely and cordially,
Samuel L. Lewis
March 14, 1970
Dr. H. Sharabi
Georgetown University
Washington, D.C.
Beloved one of Allah:
One appreciates very much your comment on the poetry sent you. Someday no doubt people will see that there is an Islam surrender to a living God, a Deity who is reality, and of whom my disciples, constantly growing in number, in forever and attitude, say, “Ya Hayy, Ya Hakk!”
As corroborating evidence. I have a disciple here named Hasan who has a printing establishment. He had to discontinue his work to earn his livelihood. But Allah, to whom he all praise, has seen it that he has received recently a large boost in his salary, and at the same time, financial assistance from his wealthy parents. He has already proposed the publication of these poems, together believing they belong together. We have been taught that a Sufi sees life from the point of view of another, as well as of himself. And the deep understanding of real Hebraic mysticism and spirituality only strengthens the standpoint of pure Islam. Indeed today I have a number of persons of both Jewish and part-Jewish ancestry who joyfully repeat Kalama.
It is also notable that young Americans, many young Americans whom I meet, know all about the story of The Rings given to the world by the Italian Boccaccio, and its sequel “Nathan the Wise” by the German Lessing. In the days of Hitlerism everybody was referring to them; but today they are smothered out of sight.
But with firm belief in the Living Allah, and His Messenger and Prophets, I am personally preparing to go to Geneva to meet with the top religious and ecclesiastical leaders of the world at a conference with the working label of “peace through religion.” With firm belief in Allah, and with a conscious awareness of the descent of Baraka through the seal of the prophets (on whom be peace!) my disciple Mansur and myself will soon be leaving here, to return within a month.
In the meanwhile I shall take these matters up further with printer Hasan and will keep you informed about matter referred to here, and related subjects.
Most faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti
Geneva Swiss
April 4, 1970
Center of Religious Studies
Harvard University
Cambridge 38, Mass.
Dear Sirs:
The writers are both close friends of Professor Huston Smith of MIT. We are now attending the final sessions of the conference of The Temple of Understanding about which, no doubt, you have heard.
We expect to arrive in Boston shortly after the middle of the month and are enclosing copy of letter to our host. This letter includes names of various well- known people, some of whom have been our friends for many years; some of whom we have known through correspondence or reading; and some of whom we have just recently met.
We hope to visit your center, even if it be only for a casual occasion, or for a serious one if you so desire.
Samuel L. Lewis
Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti
May 8, 1970
J. G. Wilson
Lecturer in Philosophy
University of Canterbury Christchurch
New Zealand
Dear Mr. Wilson:
I have before me your article “Sankara, Ramanuja, And The Function of Religious Language.” It is difficult to determine whether a reply is warranted, whether a reply is acceptable, what common or uncommon grounds are made, or rather assumed: whether you are really attached to Ramanuja or hold to your statements, “This should remind us—an important point when discussing attempts such as this to put in modern terms what function religious discourse is really performing—remind us that what religion does is provide us with an ideal, an inspiration; and occasionally, a man who lives up to this ideal to a remarkable and inspiring degree, a Buddha, a Sankara, a Confucius, a Jesus or a Mohammed. It does not guarantee—or at least has never in the past claimed to guarantee—complete and immediate transformation for all men.”
Being in substantial accord with Sankara and not always with Ramanuja, I find it difficult at this point to comment. You yourself have listed Sankara as being in the highest level (to which I assent) and have not placed Ramanuja in that category.
I have just returned from a conference of all the world’s faiths recently held in Geneva, Switzerland. This was an actual conference of the world’s faiths and their leaders, and not one of metaphysicians and literati. There I met again my good friend Swami Ranganathananda of the Ramakrishna Mission. For years he has been to me personally and privately the Vivekananda of the age, and he certainly functionalized Vivekananda at the conference. To me the conference was one of and not about.
Swami Ranganathananda not only fictionalized Vivekananda, but told us about his own “The Message of the Upanishads” which we immediately purchased. I cannot impose on anyone the existence of cosmic harmony that may exist between persons of presumably different backgrounds. There is a theory that people who reach the highest levels will always agree with each other except perhaps on verbiage, while Swamiji played the role of a Vivekananda, the writer, an unknown, was able to communicate with all the delegates representing many different religions because of some insight or knowledge, or even perhaps because of spiritual attainment.
One cannot help contrasting the functionalism of the Ramakrishna Mission representatives, who adhere more or less to Sankara, with the functionalism of the followers of Sri Aurobindo who lean toward the Ramanuja outlook. The Sankara people function like Whitman, “In all man I see myself.” The Ramanuja people practice forms of dualism which may be called advaita but are certainly not advaita either from the standpoint of Sankara, or from absolute spiritual attainment.
Assuming the promises of the Taittiriya Upanishad, or the 5 sheaths outlook, the late Sri Aurobindo has been called a Vijnanavadin, whereas to me and others the late Sri Ramakrishna an some of his followers embody and illustrate the complete Anandavadin outlook which, according to this Upanishad, would be superior to the Vijnanavadin. And when you add to that the fact that the Vedantists are either followers of Sankara or of Ramakrishna, operate as if there were no differences and distinctions dividing men, one has a right to question whether Ramanuja, and after him Sri Aurobindo, were not operating from a lower level.
There are some items which I think have been omitted from the Sankara outlook: a. The influences of Mahayana Buddhism and particularly the school of Nagarjuna; b. The evidence from Sri Sankara to majestic poetry further substantiating the Anandavadin outlook; c. The probability that he was a jivanmukti.
On this last point you seem to differ in your argument and agree in your conclusion.
If we take the Upanishad in general into consideration they seem to be based, and I believe they are based, on the ability of humanity to become completely realized, even while dwelling in this earthly body.
A point of departure perhaps. But you have brought the questions of Christianity and New Testament into this discussion. Here I am calling to your attention an event of last year when I pointed out to Dr. Huston Smith of M.I.T. that the three bodies often discussed in Indian literature might be the same three bodies as are mentioned in the Christian Scriptures. I was a little surprised to find he had not given this much thought. At that time his conclusions were reached as a philosopher and metaphysician and did not arise out of his personal experience. But I understand that he has since become a chela, submitting to Indian disciplines.
I call attention to the fact that prowess in spiritual awakening may not be based on intellectual backgrounds, but for the most part a goodly portion of our culture operates as if this were so. A Whitman for example would be given small scope before gatherings of intellectuals, even if be had the knowledge, inner or outer, which bright clarify the dilemma.
I agree with you thoroughly when you say, “I believe a study of Sankara can clarify the issues involved in the Christian controversy.”
A number of years ago I was given an examination by the first cultural attaché at the Indian embassy in Washington, just established. When I presented myself as a disciple in Sufism he asked me about Ibnu-l-Arabi. When I spoke to his on the identity of Ibnu-l-Arabi and Sankara he came and embraced me. But the report of this experience was until recently denied by nearly all these intellectuals who have been regarded as authorities in these fields. Later experiences, both geographical and mystical, definitely substantiate my stand, but these certainly will not detract from your article or its conclusions.
I am hoping that the time is nearing when the experiences of human beings will be evaluated alongside or even above the speculations of others. We have seen this in the writings of Phillip Kapleau on Zen and now of Swami Ranganathananda on the Upanishads. I believe just as Jesus Christ’s “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow,” all aspects of Divine wisdom, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
Aug. 29, 1970
Prof. Andreina Becker-Colonna
Professor of Mediterranean Archaeologies
Dept. of Anthropology
San Francisco State College
My dear Dr. Becker-Colonna:
As matters stand I shall not be registering for any courses at the local universities this coming Fall for a rather dramatic and even historical reason. I used to go around saying that the greatest achievements in my life were being a guest of honor at the Imperial Palace grounds in Tokyo and having a free dinner from Armenians. Then I added also receiving thirty-three rejections for a paper on Vietnamese Buddhism.
Factors concerned with my family history have so changed external affairs that I now have a solid, good monthly income. This led me to go to Geneva to a conference of the world’s religions, since which time many doors have opened, are still opening. The real leaders of the real religions took very seriously the statement that I was an incarnation of Lansing’s “Nathan the Wise,, and this Nathan-the-Wise career is now going on with much drama and still more success for which there is constant praise to God, and no nonsense about it.
The increase in my income made me feel it proper to devote energies toward peace. One of the very top personalities connected with the history—not with the news but with the history—of Vietnam, said he was writing on the events of that unfortunate part of the world, and by agreement I felt it proper to work for real peace in real Palestine.
I believe absolutely in the Holy Land, I believe it should be a nonpolitical state where the three great religions should be participating and cooperating. But this is out of hand.
Only three or four people took me seriously. But chief among them was a Swedish representative, a delegate of the UN, who told me my project was by far the most sensible he had ever encountered. He may have said so, but then the churches, the peace groups (so called), etc., differed. I have no intention to go over that part of my life.
Then we have already had a joint Israeli-Christian-Arab dinner and it would appear we shall have more. This picture looks very beautiful, or as I once told a great throng, “Youth of the world unite, you have nothing to lose.”
In the meanwhile, the Dervish Dances and my lectures on the Oriental philosophies of Orientals are attracting greater and greater attention, both among the young and in the Universities. Everything is expanding, and I am hoping to leave for the East Coast late in September, inshallah. I mention this because we are still concerned with your project for visits to Arabian cultural centers and archeological remains. I shall fight for cultural exchange with the Arabs. We have cultural exchange with the Communists, and are spending billions of dollars also to prevent them from expanding. We have very little cultural exchange with non-Communist Asia.
Everything looks good and I am terribly busy. Best wishes to you and your wonderful students,
Samuel L. Lewis
Sept. 20, 1970
The University of Chicago Press
58th St. at Ellis Ave.
Chicago, Illinois 60637
Dear Sirs:
You will find a check for $15.50 enclosed. We are really in a quandary, and we certainly do not wish to play any dualistic games with you.
For example, the very well known Dr. Martin Lings of the British Museum refuses to recognize we are Sufis, but Sidi-Abu-Salem Al-Alawi, once visited San Francisco, declared this person a Sufi, lost his audience, and from that point on our work has been very successful here—among the young. Indeed, while at the conference of the religions of the world which took place in Geneva earlier this year Dr. Seyyed Hussein Nasr asked why this person was not permitted to be present at certain gatherings. If it was impossible to convince a Martin Lings what can one do with a late Dr. Arberry or living Montgomery Watt? One is not even going to bother.
Imam Al-Ghazzali said “Sufism is based on experiences and not on premises.” And not all the PhD’s in the Western world are going to change that. My work with Dervish Dances not only excited interest here, but aroused money, real money from people who want real things going on in a real world, not in the minds of subjective professors, no matter how great. Dr. Nasr, and at least one leading Presbyterian prelate, and more than one Rabbi, have been of great assistance in promoting the filming of holy places and sacred convocations. They are being filmed and recorded, and the American Society of Eastern Arts here has expressed a willingness to examine them.
We have been very successful before Allah-God but not before the press in our joint Israeli-Christian-Arab gatherings here, and are programmed for joint Yoga-Sufi gatherings. These are all quite in accord with valid historical mysticism, and sooner or later the historians of religion may accept them. But we ask nothing; we have our own publication, and thank God and praise Allah, our financial situation is so improving we hope to establish a peace scholarship at the University of California, Dept. of Near East languages.
But our real enigma is with so many growing centers and so much need for study on the part of the young people who are interested in mysticism and not on Omar Khayyamish lectures about it and about, that we really may want a number of subscriptions, whether you recognize us or not.
We appreciate very very much what you are doing, but agree with the great founder of the Sufi Sohrawardi school, that consideration consists of showing consideration and never requesting consideration from others.
Love and Blessings,
Samuel L. Lewis
Nov. 17, 1970
The University of Chicago Press
11030 South Langley
Chicago, Illinois 60628
Dear Sirs:
I am deliberately taking advantage of the communication from Ralph Wendell Burhoe. Yes, I am interested in what I call religion, and in what I call science. But I find, generally speaking, this means that I should contribute money to the publishers of religious magazines. I have a background in science; every article I have ever written on pollution to a scientist has been published or acknowledged, not a one to a non-scientist has ever been even acknowledged.
I used to consider it one of my greatest accomplishments that my paper on Vietnamese Buddhism was rejected 33 times. This is norm to our “Judeo-Christian Ethic.” It won’t be rejected any more because the Vietnamese Buddhists have started their own publication in this land, and I am going to send them some money shortly.
Once I attended a conference of The Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. A terrible row took place between the leaders. When it was all over I said a few words to the chairman and he said, “Why didn’t you speak; you had the solution; why didn’t you speak?” So I wrote the papers demanded to the chairman and each of the antagonists and following the usual “Judeo-Christian Ethic” never even received an acknowledgement from any of them.
Now I am the first man in history, if you believe in honesty and in history, and I mean history and honesty, to be publicly instituted as a Master in Zen by a Zen Master, and as a Sufi Murshid by a Pir-o-Murshid of several Dervish Orders. Both of these have been confirmed by leaders in the two respective faiths.
Of course this can’t be, because it can’t be, because it can’t be. Emerson would have differed. Al-Ghazzali said that Sufism is based on experiences and not on premises. So if you write an article on Sufism based on premises, or if you write an article on Zen Buddhism based on premises, it will be published. Phillip Kapleau has smashed the egocentric dialectics which has dominated the literature of Zen Buddhism and I hope, inshallah, to do the same for Sufism.
Not being under the “Judeo-Christian Ethic” I am not demanding anything. I have a publisher for my articles; now. But I will no longer send one cent to any group that will not accept the solid, substantiable fact, that I have been publicly ordained and initiated as a spiritual leader in what egocentrics and dialecticians consider as separated faiths.
I am today meeting more and more scientists who have had adventures in fields of consciousness which may be regarded as the domain of mystics. Anybody can write on mysticism except mystics themselves. If they attempt it, it is maintained it is self-evident and self-explanatory they cannot possibly be mystics. So I withhold my dollars, which I can afford to give you, until I can be addressed by you, as sincerely yours,
Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti
November 18, 1970
Dr. G. Kentwell Smith
Dept. of Religious Studies
Harvard University
Cambridge 38, Mass.
Dear Dr. Kentwell Smith,
Although we have met but once and corresponded a little I am presuming it is quite in order to send you some information which may, Inshallah, be of interest to you. It’s a very hard thing to impress it seems to be that although Al Ghazzali said Sufism was based on experience and not on premises, a very large number of writers have been quite successful not with their experiences but with their opinions. And it is quite possible that the best of opinions cannot throw very much light on actual experience. In any event, I am enclosing copies of letters which tell what is going on and some day future generations may look with a degree of amazement on a generation which seems far more concerned with opinions than with facts.
In any event, all those efforts which have consumed years of life and study and research are now succeeding.
I visited Dr. Bernard Lewis in London shortly after my brother’s death with the enigma of what to do with an income much larger than I had ever had and being a dervish in the minds of the dervishes, although not always in the minds of the scholars, I even had in my mind if there were continued rejections of my work in this land, I might even set up a scholarship for Doctor Lewis, although I did not tell him so.
Recently my former publisher Mr. Phillip Davenport was asked by dervishes in Iran what I had been teaching him, and when he chanted Zikr, which he does beautifully, they said you must have had a real dervish as teacher. In any event, totally successful locally in teaching dervish dances to the young I have embarked on an extensive career of Zikr instructions to disciples.
I am making no attempt to acquaint what I called establishments with the existence of Sufis. Last Sunday there was a large spread concerning the Maribouts and Mureeds in Senegal. There appeared to be millions of them just as there are millions in other lands. I am totally opposed to our neglect of Arabic culture which does not wean I am necessarily support any group of Arabian politicians, nor for that matter any group of pro-Israel anti-God politicians.
Our joint Israeli-Christian-Arab dinners and parties have been overwhelmingly successful here, not news. But then again a man who won the interest of Gunnar Jarring and was summarily dismissed by most churches and peace groups does not expect otherwise.
My last piece of business will be to try to establish a peace scholarship at the University of California at Berkeley, Near East Languages. It is quite possible God-Allah, or some mighty power is in favor of this, for my affairs social and financial are improving, and I hope to interest other people in these efforts. In any event, the young are coming more and more, and they are also doing great things that are ignored by press and publications. Even President Nixon knows better.
In writing this I am not asking any consideration or assistance other than success on our part for a certain elite to a demand for your books and writings.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
(Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti)