58 Harriet St.,
San Francisco 3, Calif.
8th March 1964
World Congress of Faiths,
23 Norfolk Square,
London, W. 2.
Dear Friends:
I have your letter of the 5th and will send you my subscription shortly. In the meanwhile there have been a number of events which I feel you should have on record.
Study of Religions. I was disturbed recently when advised that there is another organization already established in Vancouver, B.C. with some intent to having branches in the States. I do not know whether it is your own group or another.
No doubt you have had the brochure from India of activities there. These are totally different from the methods used now in America, but which follow the original American pattern of the Chicago Columbia Exposition of 1893—of having each faith taught by its on representatives. We have gotten so far from that now that there is not only ignorance—which there was then—but pseudo-knowledge. In the Indian meetings each faith was offered by a devotee followed by suitable discussions which did not make the speaker either a mouthpiece or a pseudo-deity, in this way the actual living faiths are being studied.
We also have some persons and groups in America which purport to cover your own fields, but do not.
Schizophrenia. The reports of the convocations in Rome were all objective and told exactly what each person and each religious organization was doing, planning and believing. But in the cases of most of the religions of Asia this is not done. Some person is called on to address an audience whose knowledge is indirect and whose remarks not only mislead but anger the actual believes of little known faiths.
Taoism. Years ago I as associated with D. Henry Atkinson in “The World Conference for Peace through Religion,” an outgrowth of the “World Church Peace Movement.” He asked me to study the different faiths of Asia which I have. Recently The Parting of the Way by one Holmes Welch was placed in my hands which gives a very clear-cut Taoist approach to problems of war and peace including the SE Asia complex. I recommend this work for your library and students.
Buddhism. The general subject taught in the United States is not the religion of the actual masses of actual Asia like the Roman Catholic teachings are the actual religion of the actual devotees of an actual faith.
I think the original intent of the World Congress was to study the faiths as they are (or the now deceased religions as they were) and not be concerned too much with consents and reactions, even of the most favorable sort. At long last the Japanese of this city are aroused who will open up a real class in real Buddhisms, the first time I know of this in over forty years close acquaintance.
In any event we do have real Zendos in America today. (This has nothing to do with the writers opinions or reactions, but simply a report of facts.)
“The Sufis” is the name of a book by Sheikh Idries Shah and I hope you will invite this man to address your audiences. He lives in London. He had a long struggle against world renowned experts who write excellent books and give noble opinions about people with whom they have not lived and about faiths where they have not worshipped.
The Sheikh was able to get the celebrated Robert Graves to write a foreword. Opinions about Sufis do not belong to the world of facts; the first thing, I believe, is to ascertain the facts and record them and study them.
There have been a number of disjunctive biographies of Sufis of this century but this is, I believe, the first time a book has been published covering the subject as a subject and not just basing it around a personality. At least Mr. Graves has expressed is opinion.
There are, believe, about 40,000,000 (forty million) members of Sufi Dervish Orders in the world. This is a much larger number, for example, than there are Jews or Arya Samajists or Vadantists or even Zen Buddhists, but little attention has been paid to factual material, especially from the lips, pens, or minds of the actual followers.
My own manuscript is now in the hands of a publisher. It is based on actual meetings with actual saint-like characters of many faiths in many places. The places and names and data are always recorded and there is no mystery-mongering even about what some call mystery teachings.
There is also a Tibetan Buddhist school now flourishing in the State of New Jersey.
Samuel L. Lewis
(Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti)
772 Clementina St.,
San Francisco 3, Calif.
23rd September, 1964
Rev. L. Gillet,
World Congress of Faiths,
23 Norfolk Square,
London, W. 2, England
Dear Mr. Gillet:
Thank you for your letter of the 18th. It is easy to write a letter placing one’s ideas, or experience or wisdom on the line, and it is very easy to give a sermon on “Advaita” all the time holding that you are you and I am I, a comment practice which is always self-defeating in the end.
Half of my life is given to food problems and half to spiritual problems. And the psychological operations are entirely in line with Dr. C. P. Snow’s The Two Cultures. For the scientists and all the industrialists connected in any way with scientific procedures and technology are totally cooperative; while the philosophers, social scientists, press and politicians only see differences.
What is needed today is to treat the scriptures of the world as laboratory manuals and not as bases for deductions, differentiations and dualistic moralities. This is seldom done. On my sixtieth birthday I was invited to tea by the Swami Maharaj Ranganathananda, Secretary of the Ramakrishna Mission and present also was Prof. S. C. Chatterji of the Department of Philosophy, Calcutta University. Without an introduction he broke into a seething diatribe against a strange American institution, the European Professor of Oriental Philosophy. It was not the first outpour nor the last, although today, thank God, we are gradually replacing Europeans with Americans and the first thing the Americans do is to draft Asians as their assistants. Thus for the first time we are having real cultural exchange with some Asian lands.
Swamiji said; “Wait until you have heard his point of view before you criticize him.” I turned to the professor and said, “Which do you want, to heart the flute-of-Krishna or have an immediate impromptu explanation of Chandogya Upanishad?” The professor apologized, which does not mean until this summer that I have ever been permitted to demonstrate publicly the Flute-of-Krishna or give a talk on the Upanishads—or rather, one single swami would have permitted it, made unnecessary by the “Yoga” experience (and Yoga I mean “union with God” and nothing, nothing else.)
The other day a woman asked me what I was doing in Asia and I said, “You won’t believe me.” “Well, what was it?” “I was teaching holy men.” Of course she did not believe it, but it is true. Only there are two ways of “teaching.” In the one you teach; in the other you attune, pick up the vibrations, thoughts and wisdom of the other and verbalize them. Outwardly they are the same, inwardly they are very different.
Recently the University of California accepted my credentials in all three religious-cultures of Asia-Buddhist, Hindu and Islamic, because of the pronouncements of the speakers and professors themselves, based on direct participation in the wisdoms and not on book reading.
Jesus Christ said: “He that believeth in men the things that I do, he also shall do and greater things than these shall he do.” But the world, based on the assumption of ego-existence, of thingness existence and deduction and differentiation cannot accept this. Nor can it accept, “I am the Vine and you are the branches thereof.”
Science has accepted the integrational processes of Newton and Leibniz. Religion has not accepted, let us say the Vijnanavada of Sri Aurobindo. And even in this part of the world we have the bizarre situation of trying to introduce Sri Aurobindo along with Dr. Daisetz Suzuki who has made the most vicious and totally uncalled for attacked on Vijnana, a subject in which he has little knowledge.
I was amazed to be told at Kamakura I was two grades above Dr. Suzuki (1956) in Zen attainment and I was shown places that he had not visited though he long lived on a bluff just above. But description is no more participation in spiritual processes than is deductions or analysis.
The Sanskrit language has the complete vocabularies for all psychological and spiritual processes, which does not mean that those processes are not described in other scriptures. A linguist could easily fathom Greek, Hebrew and Arabic homonyms and parallels. The Upanishads posit Vijnana, Ananda, Prajna, Samadhi, Moksha, but these terms, excepting the first, are beyond even integration. “Love ye one another” is a cosmic attitude even more than a truth. Therefore it is not necessary to try to convert anybody from any religion, but to confirm experiences therein.
My two closest heart friends in your country are Rev. Jack Austin and Rev. Cecil Gibbings, and it is the increase in intensity and communion with them that is more important than verbal niceties. For years I was rejected by everybody and along with men a number of other social martyrs. Practically every negative outbreak in Southeast Asia today is due to the refusal of authorities to accept the eye-witness statements of “us” and this “us” includes an every growing number of seemingly misfits who were honest, straightforward and had no axes to grind.
Within the past month I have been asked or invited to contribute what is being done or has been done by self or colleagues in worlds of “exotic” faiths and philosophies, knowing that the term “exotic” varies from place to place. Although I am a full Sufi Murshid, made such at a public ceremony with hundreds of witnesses, until this summer nobody would believe it because it interfered with lecturers and book-writers who give their sermons and essays (some very good), but which sermons and essays do not fit facts. Some speculations as to the relation of Gnostic Christianity with Sufism can be corroborated by the writer because he has been present at such ceremonials and rituals. In a scientific study of religion this would be valid evidence, but so long as we lean upon linguists, query linguists to explain philosophies and metaphysics in which they have not participated, we can only see the degradation of “religion” and the elevation of “science.”
Mr. Feel Brunton was a protégé of the late Sir Frances Younghusband. For years we corresponded but I was not permitted to meet him because I had neither wealth nor social prestige nor glamour. Which did not stop him from “telepathing,” initiating me (no words) and the experience of samadhi. One thing we did discuss was the relation between Jewish mysticism and Hindu mysticism. My knowledge of the former came from being secretary of a lady who translated both the “Sepher Yetsira” and the whole “Sepher Ha Zohar” on the one hand, and other mystical works on the other. My knowledge of Hindu mysticism came through gurus, etc. But until I met an accredited Hindu teacher of Indian Philosophy there was a solid wall against even reporting the conversations with Kabbalists on this point.
There are now two organizations in this country on the scientific study (?) of religion. But the World Congress of Faiths was established by noble people with noble outlooks and not just intellectual zeal. True, I once lost twenty five years research in a fire, but since then I have been fortunate or blessed to meet the spiritual loaders of all faiths, at many levels; to deal with each in his own language. Many or those are recorded in diaries.
But so strange was this solid wall against intellectualism that I could not get even the simplest interview with anybody in the whole country, excepting swami Akhilananda of Boston, until this summer. So now I have been able to present to the University of California “The Lesser Upanishads” which clarifies at once the relation between Yoga, Mahayana and Tantric schools. And although I knew the late Nyogen Senzaki for thirty seven years it was only recently I was invited to present his dharma-transmission (to a very close frond of brother Jack A).
It is only that now I am using a Christian text for a koan. I have had koan training and a “diploma” therein. My ko-an is “Feed my sheep” and all efforts are now based in this direction. The “scientific culture” unanimously accedes; yet it is elsewhere that we have the answers to psychological, moral and spiritual problems. You can quote your scriptures. What is needed is to use the scriptures more as laboratory manuals and not as sources of premises from which to draw arguments and prove our seeming superiority.
If there is anything specific you want, please let me know. God bless you.
Samuel L. Lewis
Sufi Ahmed Murad-Chisti
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
16 August 1965
To the Editor, “World Faiths,”
Younghusband House
23 Norfolk Square,
London, W2
Dear Sir,
One reads with extreme pleasure the tribute to the late Louis Massignon by N. Bammate which appears in the June issue. Indeed, if what the writer says is true, this article can be translated into other languages and accepted by living disciples in tasawwuf with alacrity.
The interpretation of “God” and “experiences” in this article is in line with the teachings of Al-Ghazzali on the one hand and with that which comes from the hearts and lips of many living Sheikhs and Murshids, many of whom are not recognized in the West, yet.
The “Interiorizing” of faith called for in this article has been also echoed by many disciples in Sufism and is now the call from Khalvat San in Ceylon, where there is an effort toward “Universal Sufism,” which is also re-echoed in other quarters. This is mentioned only to support the thesis of Dr. Massignon.
From another point of view Mrs. Dickermann Hollister has been working for “The Temple of Understanding.” When the editor told her about Emperor Akbar and Fatehpur Sikri she was most delighted. Unfortunately there have been tendencies to obliterate the early efforts of Emperor Akbar, despite their historical importance, mostly by people who wished to establish their limited thesis.
Louis Massignon’s outlook seems universal and true. We welcome all efforts to “deepen further this fraternal compassion between minds oriented towards congenial scientific study of the philosophical and artistic thought of the East and the Far East.” The University of Islamabad is being established for this purpose, among others. President Radhakrishnan is serving in a manifold of purposes and missions toward the same end. Some of us know a little Arabic, Persian, and Turkish, sometimes know a little about the stages and states of mystical unfoldment and, like the great Sufis of Persia, also write inn poetical forms—for posterity. When the mystic is permitted free speech on mysticism (other subjects do not matter), we shall come closer toward promoting understanding on all levels. The teaching of mansur Al-Hallaj still goes on in Khankahs and Tekkeyes not often visited by scholars.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
4l0 Precita Ave.
San Francisco, Calif.
July 17, 1970
The Secretary World Congress of Faiths
23 Norfolk Square, London, W.2
England
Dear Friends:
I am enclosing a personal check for $10 in presumable renewal of my membership. I am today no longer in an humble mood. God, so to speak, has seen to it that I have become perhaps the first person in history to properly validated as a Sufi Murshid, an Indian Guru, and a Zen teacher. This on top of the fact that I am at least of part Jewish extraction and had a Christian education. And in the external world God-Allah-Brahm has seen to it that my material affairs have been improving constantly in the past two years, and are improving now. But I am no longer willing to share any of my material benefits with those persons and organizations claiming to be religious or spiritual who do not accept these credentials. There are no one-way streets in cosmic morals. So I am throwing all my efforts into The Temple of Understanding in Washington.
Without my doing anything a group of young Americans sent for me to conduct a summer school high in the Rookie Mountains. They had already been won over to the principle “My house shall be a house of prayer for all peoples.” One night a drama was presented, “The False Guru”. Before it was ended somebody in the audience yelled, “What do we care about a false Guru when we have a true Guru in the audience. And before I left New Mexico mobs of young people had reached that conclusion.
Indeed when I called on the dramatic troupe I found they were ready to present plays derived from the Ramayana and Mahabharata. I don’t know whether you see the wisdom and justice in my wishing to help endow young artiste who work in such a field and who accept my presumable spiritual credentials rather than established groups who do not.
I returned to San Francisco and was faced with three immediate choices:
1. The raising of funds for a peace scholarship at the University of California for Palestine. I am in a quandary not about the raising of funds, but from over help from people who have investigated my background and found then real.
2. Master Seo Kyung-Bo, one of the top Korean Zen Buddhists is here, and I long have accepted him as my Master in this field. He has recently been very successful and is establishing a spiritual centre in the state of Virginia.
3. Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach is here from Jerusalem, a beautiful Chassid, and he has also sent for me. Without going into details, we are trying to bring human beings together—not diplomats, not ivory-towered commentators and experts—but members of the real humanity who have to suffer from war and genocide. I believe with Code help we are going to succeed.
But all these items and others integrate into The Temple of Understanding. And yesterday I received a telephone call from New York indicating that I am now being recognized by the young as I have long been by the real people of real Asia for my backgrounds.
Tomorrow I am starting my commentaries on The First Epistle to the Corinthians. There will be two themes: “Love,” and The Three Body Constitution of Man.” Even my good friend the learned Dr. Huston Smith of M.I.T. has not been fully aware of the parallels be seen Judeo-Christian cosmic metaphysics and Indian cosmic metaphysics. People who have had mystical experience know better, and the young of today are looking to mystics rather than to scholars or theologians for guidance.
But the purpose of these studies will be to throw light on the psychic constitution of man and all the problems and complications which have arisen because the young have accepted the existence of the psychic constitution (proclaimed by all the scriptures) while the “establishment” peoples reject their own Scriptures.
I believe there can be a profound and serious commentary-study which will fulfill and not destroy extant religions. In any case my papers will be dedicated at the start to Rev. Lowell Ditzen of Washington and Bishop Kilter Myers of San Francisco.
It is so easy to say “The people without wisdom perishes.” But now it is time for some people who may have some vision or wisdom to express themselves. Fortunately at this writing I both have a loyal, competent following, and indefinite financial aid and opportunities in the offing.
I do not wish to compel others to accept. My first Sufi teacher said, “I accept no rejection from the heavens.” But after 33 rejections of my papers on Vietnamese Buddhism, I have become very cautious in my dealings with those who claim to adhere to a very cloudy ethic.
This is just to let you know what I am doing. At this writing it would appear my articles will be published in the state of Arizona and/or whenever either of the reverend gentlemen mentioned above wish.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti
Rev. He Kwang
410 Precita Ave.,
San Francisco, Calif. 94110
9th August, 1970
World Congress of Faiths,
Younghusband House
23, Norfolk Square,
London, W.2
Beloved Ones of God:
Your letter of the 1st July has been received and is much appreciated. But I am wondering if you expect others to believe in your efforts while you reserve the right not to accept theirs. This has happened in the past and was the cause of my withdrawal. Yes, we agree philosophically, metaphysically, social and perhaps in all respects other than your previous rejection of “In the hour ye think least the son of man cometh.”
I have had the usual “Judeo-Christian ethical treatment from so many. I used to say that the two greatest achievements of my life were being a guest of honor at the Imperial Palace grounds in Tokyo and getting a free meal from the Armenians (because of my knowledge of their folk-lore). In general all Asians from one end to the other inclusive have accepted my knowledge of their cultures and 90% of the Western “experts” on Asian philosophy have either ignored or rejected, this being the usual pattern of those in the “Judeo-Christian” ethic.
From the Sufi point of view and also the Buddhist this is due to our positing the ego. If the ego is not “right,” whatever that means the person is out. If he be famous, and sometimes if he is wealthy and always if he is renowned he is in.
This last week I was compelled to incorporate. This came before your letter. None of the “world,” or “integral” or “universal” organizations have accepted my backgrounds—Judeo-Christian ethic again. But I am perhaps the first person in history to have been publicly proclaimed as a Sufi Murshid and Zen Master. Even Dr. Lings did not want to accept that; to write it in a book fine, but to face reality!
I even wanted to organize branches for you in this land. You decided otherwise. So I waited and then had to make a decision without reflection and that caused the complete union with the efforts of the Sufi Pir Vilayat Khan, (no “Judeo-Christian ethic” there).
Since the Geneva meeting the income has increased, the following has increased, the recognition by universities has increased and we now have at least one wealthy publisher who wants all my things. I did not want it that way. So I had to my past achievement, thirty-three (33) rejections of a paper on “Vietnamese Buddhism.” We can spend billions of dollars in Vietnam. Hawks and Doves are quite in agreement in ignoring the faith of the great majority of the people prior to the war. The war has made many skeptics. So I certainly have no intention to send your or anybody else a copy of either my paper on “Vietnamese Buddhism” or papers received from Vietnamese Buddhists. The University of California which stands for Reality and not for our diabolical “realisms” has long since accepted such papers and this means I am going to cooperate with that institution and also The Temple of Understanding.
One does not like to write in such tones. One would like to see mutual understandings and acceptances. The young wish to worship together. The young would accept all your principles but not your calling incessantly on the famous men of outstanding traditions. Words are but reflections of truth. According to the Sufi, Truth can be experienced, not necessarily “his” way but perhaps in many ways. Read Sir Richard Burton’s “Kasidah.”
With a full fall program nevertheless one is sick and tired of the hypocritical “peace with justice.” Every dictator, despot, tyrant believes in that phrase. We tried to get Arabs and Israelis and others to come together. We have been successful, praise to God. The press, of course, would not believe that. If we brought them together and someone spit at somebody else it would be news, even “world news.” But to succeed in applying Jesus Christ’s “Love ye one another….” well, that is the Old Age. Older people won’t accept and I am not trying to get anybody to accept but the young and they accept absolutely and enthusiastically. The only thing they have asked is if they cannot harmonize, even unite under the auspices of The Temple of Understanding. And we have many—but not those of the “Judeo-Christian ethics” studying the book of the Prophet Malachi.
Then I am now engaged in explaining the “Three Body Constitution of St. Paul, No nonsense. I am not a dead G.R.S. Meade but a living person who has experienced these bodies and has methods and processes whereby others experience, chiefly in song and dance. And more and more young people, indeed everybody but “realists” and acceptors of the “Judeo-Christian ethic.”
The reason is to throw light and sanity on the psychedelic experiences. After all isn’t an “hallucination” an experience “I” have had and “you” have not had? To me all God’s children have wings and no nonsense and no insidious substitution of muttered phrases for direct experience. And these talks have been received with enthusiasm. They will be submitted to Rev. Lowell Ditzen and others end the probability of their being published is great. But I have no more time to do any more submitting of a paper like “Vietnamese Buddhism” to be rejected. There are higher faculties such as the “Prajna” of Dr. Radhakrishnan. The older people accept this as true when he says so and unimportant when an unknown says so. That day is over. We have judged and misjudged and we listen to the “important.”
My motto for this year came from Handle’s “Messiah,” “Every valley hall be exalted and every hill laid low and the crooked places made straight.” Mrs. Judith Hollister is a valley. There are other “valleys.” In the hour (guise) ye think least the Son of Man Cometh.
One only hopes you will take this seriously. The young want to worship together. The young want brotherhood and harmony. There are many ways of producing it. I am doing it through the dance. They accept my reports on mystical attainment of this person and many he has met. So far very, very few older people have and I do not care.
I will be glad to join you when “we” visit England again. I hope you will appreciate my point of view. I do not demand you accept it. I am very strong in the traditions of Emperor Akbar, a name verboten by so many of the pretending “world” groups.
I shall accept anything you send. I shall try to cooperate in any way possible but I have no need now to submit any more articles. There is a demand for my writings. There is a demand for my research. There is a demand for my person to attend inter-religious conferences called by the young. There is a demand to present spiritual dancing and spiritual practices and spiritual attainments.
I only hope you will a appreciate what is written.
Love and Blessings,
Samuel L. Lewis
September 12, 1970
Kathleen Richards
World Congress of Faiths
Young Husband House,
23 Norfolk Sq.
London, W. 2
Dear Friends:
This is a very rapid acknowledgement of your letter of the 20th of July. It would seem as if God wishes us to work more closely together. At this time there are some rather ironical obstacles, not bad, but ironical:
At this writing my housekeeper and my chief disciple are both in the hospital. My secretaries have been prospering, but their replacements have been ill, yet not a cloud is the sky, not an obstacle to the fulfillment of “Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.”
It began with “Dances of Universal Peace,” a sort of inheritance from the late Ruth St. Denis, a relation which a very large majority of those who presumably follow the current Judeo-Christian Ethic absolutely refused to consider. Indeed we had a very hard time getting any current group, excepting The Temple of Understanding in Washington, even to acknowledge these possibilities. In any event the joint disciples of Pir Vilayat Khan and myself undertook to film and record this work. But it is quite evident that the Will of God is something totally different from the beliefs of peoples who verbalize surrender to God:
We received the cooperation of a very large number of real spiritual groups and also of enough financial backers who believe that God is something other than a thought in the minds of only privileged persons or institutions; Both the filming and the Dancing spread at a rate beyond my capacity to central, even if secretaries were available. It is become a world project.
Along with this have been very successful efforts to promote Israeli-Christian-Arab dinners, which include these dances and prayers. We are succeeding locally, and praise to God-Allah, also in Jerusalem! At last one national broadcasting company and one local radio station have accepted this.
Secretary Mansur is now full-time employed as a secretary for those projects; with a salary so satisfactory he is now contributing to his former Murshid. The other secretaries are also involved, and this will lead, Inshallah, to publications and news articles in the hands of a fairly wealthy man whom we are going to interest in both your work and in the work of The Temple of Understanding.
While the “good people” effuse me interviews, or anything but financial contributions, and never give recognition, the last issue of The National Geographic Magazine has a two-page pictures of Lama Foundation in New Mexico. I don’t know if I asked this group to become a member. If I have not, please let me know, and I shall send for immediately upon notification. The Lama Foundation was also filmed and shown at least ten times during the week on a national televisions program.
While the “good people” and the metaphysical people, and the churches, refuse even to grant interviews, the one man who gave me four hours time and told me I had the best plan for the solution of the problems of the Neat East is now famous, i.e. Gunner Jarring. It is going to be an ironical exposure of all the “good” organizations, that they will not recognize anybody that is not important, no matter what the contributions of that person or group may be. And this going to be the end of a lot of nonsense parading as spirituality and morality.
As soon as this letter is completed, I go to a local Seminary to continue the lectures on “The Three Body Constitution of Man, according to St. Paul.” Even our good friend the famous Dr. Huston Smith was not aware of this. It is also based on St. Paul’s “We have the mind of Christ.” Generally speaking, young people accept this seriously, while their elders adhere to “I believe.”
There is every sign this will be published either by our publisher-editor friend or with the cooperation of Rev. Lowell Ditzen of the Presbyterian Cathedral in Washington, D.C. The series will be completed next week, after which we shall take off for New York and the East Coast. Before we leave, we shall be cooperating in another Holy Man’s Jamboree in this city. We are demonstrating that Sufis do cooperate with followers of all faiths, not verbally but in actuality. And the young of the world are realizing it.
I am personally busy every day of the week, all the time, but by the Grace of God, the health of body and mind persists despite age. There is a vast difference between mechanical and super-mechanical exercises called “Yoga” and the Divine attunement which makes it possible to draw upon the Divine energies of all levels with full realizations at the same time.
I am very glad you have Dr. Radhakrishnan as patron. We are very close to each other and can communicate both verbally and non-verbally. You have all my love and blessings, and I am only sorry I am constantly being rushed.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
December 15, 1970
World Congress of Faiths
Young husband House
23 Norfolk Square London, W.2 England
Dear Friends:
I am acknowledging the autumn 1970 issue with both interest and concern. I first met the Baha’i Ali Khuli Khan about 1911 and saw him from time to time throughout this life. But I do remember a confrontation in the city of Portland, Oregon, when I asked him what would be the difference between a world with 700 conflicting faiths and 700 conflicting “universal brotherhoods.” To me, then, the faiths were not claiming to be universal, but we have reached a day and age when there are so many apparently conflicting “Universal brotherhoods” that one does not know what to say, excepting perhaps that God is far more dead in the hands of religionists then in the hands of unbelievers. Too many simply do not recognize the existences of others.
The one thing that is lacking in your report is the absence of the young. Jesus Christ may have said that unless we are like little children ours is not the kingdom of heaven and elsewhere in a logic, “Seek me in children until the age of seven.” We Us, simply will not have that, we simply won’t.
So it is the Baha’is who suffer, not the Sufis, when there are such a multitude of verbal “universal brotherhoods.” I know of five in India alone and a growing number in this country. To the best of my knowledge the boards of directors are exclusively English, Americans and Hindus; the only Jews are those who have left the faith of their ancestors. Mongolian Asians and all dark-skinned people simply do not belong!
(This is particularly awkward to me personally for my summer “ashram” is in the state of New Mexico where we are on excellent terms with the Amer-Indians. I personally believe, but I will not impose it, that universal means universal and inclusive means inclusive. I do agree with Mohammed that God has given a Message to all peoples in the world. But I differ from nearly all Muslims in accepting this a fact, whereas they accept it in fancy.)
The difficulty with the young, excluded by their elders in age, is that they seem to have what they call spiritually (I don’t know what they mean) without a God or a Supreme Being, or even reverence. They seem to agree with their elders in promoting ego-leadership.
Sufis practice the presence of God (Allah) and we seem to be benefiting in all directions. My present lectures: “Christ versus Christianity and Mohammed versus Islam” are attracting much attention. My Dances of Universal Peace, which mean just that, are attracting the young. We actually believe in an inclusive brotherhood of man and while we are not disturbed by the young refusing to accept the existence and efforts of their elders we are equally concerned that their elders do not seem to accept their existence and efforts. So in some directions the world is being divided almost as much by those with universal outlooks as those with sectarian outlooks.
But the day is coming my friends when books by mystics will be accepted. Al-Ghazali said, “Sufism is based on experience and not on promises.” The refusal of all and sundry young and old to accept mystical reports of a mystic means of course the honest people of the future will not always regard them as they wish to be regarded. It is a terrible thing when a book by a real Zen devotee based on real experience—I mean The Three Pillars of Zen by Kapleau—is not taken seriously while works on Zen, using the word Zen, by drunkards and lechers are considered important, and everyone is afraid because they themselves are not secure.
Now my poetry and prose alike are being evaluated and perhaps will be published and I am not the least concerned by any rejecting by subjectivists or intellectuals. We practice that God is, we practice that in God we live and move and have our being, we practice the God is love and compassion. We practice.
I understand my paper on “The Three Bodies of Man According to St. Paul” has already been set up, but date of release has not been determined. Copy will be sent to you whatever it is available.
This coming Sunday we are having a Bazaar with three purposes:
a. To promote peace between the actual humanity, Israelis, Arabs, and Christians, who live in the Near East or are concerned therewith.
b. To help this person in his various efforts.
c. To raise funds to help alleviate the suffering of the poor people of East Pakistan (we already have made longees which will be sent at an early date).
We differ widely from those persons concerned with what they call “humility” and “compassion.” Like Edward Carpenter and Edna St. Vincent Millay, we are concerned with the sufferings of humanity and not with our own prowess, and not with our own leadership, and not with our own “superiority.” We agree entirely with Jesus Christ that whatsoever we do to the least we do unto him. We entirely agree with Jesus Christ that him who would be master should be the best servant, and this is illustrated in our daily lives, not in pompous articles or self-praising documents.
But we also accept what others do, and sometimes take more seriously what they are doing than what we are trying to do. And so we express our appreciation of The Temple of Understanding and The World Congress of Faiths.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti