772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
January 4, 1966
Anne McKeon,
1101 Francisco St.
San Francisco 94109
My dear Anne:
Happy New Year. A nice Christmas greeting was received from Daggie and you jointly. I was able to see her for an hour last night, mostly devoted to her painting, on agreement that other matters world be taken up, say at a dinner together. At the moment I have both Bank of American and Diners Club credit cards and told people I was a Chinese; that is, I paid all my bills before the end of the year, so we have a clear conscience, etc.
Daggie told me you were in New York. I have been busy seven days and nights, whether believed or not; but the new semester at Cal. Extension is making it impossible to take classes as such a time that by readjustments, both evenings and days will be free.
The end of the year showed definitely that if one has ideals—whatever that means, and has knowledge sooner or later these ideals and this knowledge will become accepted. In my case I have already made provisions for my diaries and manuscripts. When people wish to write history these will be of value. And while I am generally rejected by the press, the world affairs groups, etc, the top historians have a totally different view, and in this is the hope of the country and maybe of the world.
Last month I had some time with Prof. Glock of the Research Survey Center of the University of California. At the scientists meeting I was bawled out by some VIPs for keeping quiet, and the upshot is that all the materials which were rejected by Scalapino & Co. are now requested. It is a pretty awful picture when a university publishes a report on Pakistan from a statistical review made by a scholar in Ethiopia and rejects eye-witness reports from both Americans and Pakistanis. And that is the world in which we live, or rather exist. For our “realists” are among the last persons to accept realities.
The biggest joke, and tragedy of the year has been the acceptance of Wayne Morse by the press abroad. This is the first time I have ever known an Americans to be spontaneously accepted and accepted even by peoples who are on bad terms with each other. Nixon was followed by Earl Warran who was sent to Asia to pick up the pieces and I was there and assure you the American public was kept on the dark. If Nixon had been elected, it is probable we should be in the midst of a World War.
Someday my files concerning Vietnam will be of value. I have kept out of it because of the unwillingness of Americans to associate actually with Orientals. Vietnam—of you want to call it that—has made contributions to university culture and we know little and care less. After the exclusion of Chinese from conferences on Asia and China, I feel little kinship with even the “Doves” and most of the protest meetings show animosity toward the “Hawks” without evincing any love for Asian peoples.
Our good friend, Lim Lee gave me an introduction to Ambassador Goldberg. I have not written out my peace proposal and one reason was the remark that there were a number of doors open. While the locals refuse to recognize this, a top diplomat from the Near East told me he would return so we could collaborate. But the other day a top Indian scientist proposed openly collaboration on both the food problems of India (with some emphasis on desert reclamation) and on bringing peace with Pakistan. I shall go over neither of these here, but this proposal was followed almost immediately by letters from top VIPs of India and by another from the Research Station in New Zealand which is concentrating on Desert and other forms of reclamation. This will be followed almost immediately by actions—one has contacts all over the world regardless.
The sessions of the scientists here brought nothing but increasing contacts for “How California Can Help Asia.” By “Asia” I do not mean Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines visited in turn by “Lord” Unruh and Veep Hump. They did not get to the mainland, have never associated with Asian-Asians and both have been misled and are misleading.
What keeps me from being in revolt is that LBJ has three foreign policies (at least) and I have been in and by a strange career always seem to find myself in. “Asia Foundation” accepted everything. End of subject.
So the Cloak-and-Dagger existence continues. Now two Asian-Asian lands want my memoirs but it is a luxury in view of the terrible tragedies persisting in South Asia, tragedies which will continue to exist, part because of their faults and part because we have never, as a Nation, given heed to the actual contributions to culture of Asian nations, only hypocritical lip service.
If I can find my early poetry this will be clarified but all my research was destroyed in 1949 in a fire, only memories persist plus what I told friends of long standing.
My peace plans contain elements which might be of service to each of the Burtons but for quite different reasons because one is working on a local scale and one on a much larger scale. These are often very simple items overlooked by people dealing with Asian Problems but who have not associated with Asians. All of this leaves little free time. You cannot do serious research and run around playing (not a sermon but a situation).
So, your play, darling. Hope you enjoy New York, the city I cannot live with ad cannot live without.
Samuel L. Lewis
S. A. M.
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
January 16, 1966
My dear Gavin:
I have been told you have returned home and hope you are well and happy. No doubt this is karmic compensation for the previous near miss in which what was close to injustice was done.
The last man you sent here is no doubt a striver for spiritual freedom and if this urge is great enough he may find the way to inner awakening. But there is such a differences between the American attitude and the Oriental practice; it is not easy to bridge the gulf. And though Americans make much noise and publicity they do not experience the universal state established in Asian literature. If they did they would find the scriptures easy to read and explain.
The attitude in class room, especially in Anthropological studies is so different. Scientist want facts. They do not care for superficialities or externals. And one’s reception in the scientific classes stands out always in marked contrast with one’s non-reception elsewhere. This came to a climax in your absence when one was rebuked—one us always rebuked—but this time it was for not speaking. Being in an area and arena where outside the scientific departments one gets nowhere, one had to be cautious. He finally gave it to pressure—this was from scientists at the AAAS meetings and before the thunder and shouting died almost every theme on which he has written (and rejected) was asked for.
Elsewhere it is different. At the meeting yesterday on Vietnam when a young man arose and said, “I have lived four years in Vietnam and…” he was immediately rebuked and categorized by an “expert.” “What has that to do with the subject we are discussing?” Fortunately this won the audience to the young man. We listened to him. We may not agree with him but at least we listened to him. This so infuriated one “expert” that he left.
Now I am writing—it may be in vain—the universal rejection of my mission to bring peace between Pakistan and India has helped Kosygin no end. This mission was neither my suggestion nor inspiration. It was the suggestion of Pakistani-Pakistanis and it was received by Indian-Indians (among them Dr. Radhakrishnan). As we, as a nation, love “realism” above all and hell to realities, one is making one’s final remarks in the non-sciences and is preparing to leave but also write in the scientific world. This world loves facts and information; the other world loves opinions. One leaves the opinions to the opinion-makers.
The New Year has become a new year.
Faithfully,
P.S. I am just completing my paper on the Mysteries. As “society” has rejected this possibility in me, these are going to two separate universities one is accepted and respected.
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
January 18, 1966
Vedanta Society of Southern California,
1946 Vedanta Place,
Hollywood 20, Calif.
In re: Ramakrishna and His Disciples
Dear Friends:
The Vexation
In one sense one should not be vexed or disturbed. Self-choosing to be born in a certain place, in a certain time, under certain conditions one should be aware of the hazards one has to face, will face. Yet it is true that not only the traditional spiritual philosophies are demonstrating themselves but today the scientists are entering into this field of serious study. Lord Snow has declared that the West has two cultures, which he calls the “scientific” and the “literary-humanist”—LH for short. In every instance, the latter are guilty of egocentricity, are trapped by egocentricity and do not know how to escape; even do not choose to escape.
It was an LH Westerner who wrote derisively first of Dr. Isherwood and then of Bhagavan, which caused one to break with the group of associates involved. Western people, beguiled by LH approaches, use words as if there are charms. “Higher truths” always attracts an audience, and to say, “Truth” or “Sat-Chit-Ananda” needs no substantiation to gain followers. The very sound “Shanti” is a break in universal silence, and Mauna Yoga is a dead thing.
The grades of Ananda and so of spiritual evolution are posited in Brihadaranyaka. The same teaching in a negative sense appears in the “Sutra of Forty Two Sections” which was introduced into this country by the Zen Master, Shaku Soyen in 1906. It is based on the same cosmos as is positive in the Upanishad. The successful infiltration, not to say acquisition of the parody called “Zen,” not to say other sectors of Buddhism, obscures the study of Dharma, but does not interfere in the least with the operations of Dharma. The LH people, being limited and egocentric do not and will not face this.
All the blah-blah and personality acclamation in the universe do not impinge upon karma. Karma is karma and if people are strictly honest and strictly impersonal they can see into the future much better than the psychics of any and all grades. But the LH people are against such absolute honesty; at every step one sees this.
So came the terrible drought and the resulting famine in India, as well as the complex relation with Pakistan, events foreseen and discussed with a single companion who has been through it all but enough to corroborate, corroborate what is taught everywhere and applied very seldom.
The hiding of truth, facts and information from the American public by the LH people (Christ’s Pharisees) and the press (Christ’s Scribes) does not alter events. The Sutra of Forty Two Sections is part of the Buddha-Dharma, only in details different from the Indian Dharma; the words were printed, the statements were said, and the curse so to speak descended upon Mother India, a curse which was forewarned years ago.
This forewarning was, of course, utterly ignored and when leaving India in 1956 the writer gave the moneys, saved for the purchase of books, to Swami Maharaj Ranganathananda and said: “I have been all over your country impersonally, dispassionately and scientifically. India has had only one complete Prophet. It is the conclusion of observation and it is also the conclusion of heart. It comes from one who had had many Dikshas, but not of your school and therefore is even more corroboratory evidence.
But the LH people of India delight in “prophets,” in “Avatars,” in “Sadgurus” (a simple guru is no longer sufficient), and are as far away from the cosmic truths of scriptures as at any time; and yet not far at all in another sense and the Truth will win.
Vijnanavada
The rise of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion shows the keen interest of our more unbiased intellectuals. You have already had evidence of this in your congregation. This group is not interested in personal claims not backed by evidence and is influenced by evidence whether there are personal claims or not. In other words, the scientific methodologies are being used.
The Department of Parapsychology at the University of California in Los Angeles, beginning with the assumption of reincarnation, has found scientific methods to trace former lives. There is nothing of that outrageous “Bridey Murphy” stuff where the Scribes parade before the Pharisees and “excitement” was aroused. The chief Oracle is a personal friend who has been rejected all over by the LH people who wish to parade specialty names. When questioned aloud her faculty and facility of apprehending Light, she said, “There is only One Spirit, the Divine Spirit who is all Light. I have nothing to do with what you call “spirits.” The LH people, the cultists, the metaphysical people do not take lightly to this. They all have their private, secret “Truths” which do not come out into the open and they make secrets of about everything but the “Secret” itself which they do not know.
There is an extreme contrast between the conferences on “Religion” as held by Swami Maharaj Ranganathananda and those held here. Devotees of each faith and outlook were called on to deliver their formulae; they had to face audiences openly for question, answer, information and discussion. Before God-Brahm this is the only honest, valid way. This is the way used by our scientists, this is the way not used by other groups.
Indeed it is a characteristic “only in America” that conferences on Asia, outside of scientific circles, begin by excluding Chinese and Muslims, but never British and Europeans. There was one acceptation last year of the university professors themselves, not reported in the press.
When the scientists met in Berkeley recently this person had the rare experience of being rebuked and soundly rebuked for keeping silent. It appeared before the top scientists (never in the LH groups) that he had the knowledge they wanted. The Monday session ended with him speaking on “The Saint in the Modern Society Order” and was followed by requests for all his papers, heretofore rejected on similar subjects. Smart or authoritative LH people in every walk of life enjoy throwing negative remarks at others. The whole procedure in the scientific circles is to get truth into the light and ignore the personalities involved.
Evidently there is truth in Karma, in Dharma and the real higher teachings of the real Upanishads, taken specifically and practically. Vijnana and Prajna are, and they are explicitly used by scientists. They are not empty words to be orated and charm with affecting life. So again Dr. Chandrasekhar and this person met, quite out of schedule, because Prajna is an operative function. And he proposed to the writer the solution of those elements of Vexation alluded above:
The famine and food shortage of India.
Constructive peace between India and Pakistan.
No details on this are offered but to show the Divine Harmony behind the Samsara and the possible adjustments after baleful karma. The meeting with the scientists has completely altered the external side of life and one can now rise out of the social milieu based on externals and a priori rejections.
Anandavada
Ramakrishna and His Disciples by Christopher Isherwood is the most difficult book I have ever read. One constantly falls into states of ecstasy, blinding light arises from the heart and encompasses the eyes and this person who read a whole book in one day on another one of the innumerable “perfect men” of India, finds it difficult and unnecessary to cover more than ten pages at a time, sometimes cannot cover more than a single paragraph.
If “the proof of the pudding is in the eating,” one writes now without being half-way through. It was very enjoyable to get a Westerner’s version. Prema no doubt delights Orientals and emotionalists, but there are Mehta and Karuna and other aspects of Divine Love which are more sober. One is not going to “analyze” forms or aspects of Ananda, for Bliss is not in its analysis. This is reported here for what it is worth.
Some time ago one received a British review, which from our point of view would be complementary though you have heard it often and often: The comparison and contrast between Jesus Christ and Sri Ramakrishna. The writer wrote the Christian critic that he had done what so many had done, coupled these two names. By the mere coupling thereof, he was showing tremendous respect to Sri Ramakrishna even though he did not accept him.
One wrote that if the Christian clergyman’s bliss in Jesus Christ was the same bliss as Christopher Isherwood’s bliss in Avatar, then either the cleric and the author were comparable or Christ and Ramakrishna were comparable or both. There could be no alternatives granting the validity of the Christian minister’s statements.
No answer was received from the critic, but an associated, one of the secretaries of the World Congress of Faiths (I have been almost a charter member) wrote a most beautiful letter saying I had offered a solution to a problem that had vexed them for years. The logic was that of Vijnana and not of Ahankara-Manas.
The word “Advaita” does not rescue one from dualism any more than the term dialectics or other words. A Sufi has said: “When thou becomest I and I becomes thou and there is neither thou nor I.” 1964 came when Sri Surendra Ghose of the Lokh Sabha lost an audience of LH devotees by telling them that he had come five thousand miles to meet the writer. 1964 ended with that letter from the World Congress of Faiths.
The American St. Vincent Millay has written:
“The heart stands out on every side,
No wider than the heart is wide.”
One will return to the Orient when his legal matters are settled. The feeding of the masses of the East physically and the feeding of the masses (or even the special classes) of the West spiritually may be the two aims in life.
It is possible that one may call at your doors at the first of the month.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
January 21, 1966
Beloved One of God:
The surprising (to me) excellent reception of my paper on the Greek Mysteries and their continuance into contemporary cultures was so excellently received last night that it encourages one to go ahead.
There is little value in trying to reach the metaphysical people and the cults but this is the second attempt to reach the scientists and scholars. The first effort was not strictly speaking on esoteric grounds; this one was.
The metaphysical people, in order to reject one’s mystical knowledge deny one’s geographical movements. After the horrible event of last Saturday there was no other recourse. There was a meeting on Vietnam and a young man arose, “I lived four year in Vietnam, and ...” That did it. The panel expert blew a fuse. This has happened so many times (including self and friends) that one finds it useless to plea at all. Many people are determined to remain in ignorance and to repeat the national prayer: “Our will be done in heaven as it is on earth.”
The paper on the Greek mysteries also went to two other universities. Omitting my own experience one relates here some facts of one’s predecessor and one contemporary, both Women-Oracles. Nila Cram Cook was born in Berkeley of Greek parentage. She was involved with a movement to restore the Oracles headed by a family known as Sikelianos. The movement seems to have died.
Nila went to Kashmir and was suddenly seized with the recollection of her former lives. She was initiated into the Sankara Vedanta movement. She joined the Gandhian politics and later came into the Shiva-Shaktis and Sufis in turn. For years she edited a magazine on “Kashmir.” She is four years older than I am and I don’t know whether she is alive.
Her career suggests parallels between the Greek and Indian mysteries. This is not so in the world of Ritual and is so in the world of Vision. There is no doubt in my mind that the present new Prime Minister of India had her career foreseen by the Oracle who lives near Delhi Gate. I have been several times to the home of this Oracle and what happened there, though not in the least secret, is totally and absolutely rejected here by all and sundry under the assumption that one is bragging.
How silly and egocentric such criticism is can be refuted by the simple fact that three San Francisco ladies and myself met one evening to discuss this Oracle of India whom we had all met and I have just had returned a book of the Oracle which has been read by Mickie. As facts have no importance in the lives of metaphysical people, one has to turn to the scientific people and scholars who, although they may not be intrigued or interested in mysticism will accept some facts.
As we want the Mysteries veiled and clouded, we welcome any effort that it not be clearly in the light. We do not welcome anything that is totally above board.
I was not in Egypt long when a delegation of scientists called on me. This was not strange in itself for I was there on a scientific mission (Agriculture). “The Hierophant sent us.” I am asking nobody to believe this. It has become fruitless to ask people who are preoccupied with conceptions. They told me their mission and gave their message.
All I say here was it was a sort of peace movement, and yet not a peace movement. I shall retain silence over the part played by me excepting the present efforts to bring peace between India and Pakistan. The Pope’s mission to this country was definitely a part of that effort for His Holiness said almost word for word what was told me.
More recently Her Serene Highness, Princess Poon Diskul of the World Buddhist Federation sent a picture of herself with His Holiness, Pope Paul. When I waved this at a meeting it caused confusion. But after efforts to present a letter from Dr. Radhakrishnan to a public meeting one knows better, The Wheels of God move on and we want everything through personalities and not our own awakening.
I am going South again on the peace mission. Before it was to represent Pakistan to deal with India and at the moment it looks like India to deal with Pakistan. Having met the spiritual leaders on both sides and being on excellent terms with the spiritual leaders on both sides this may be possible. One is annoyed not by rejection so much as the utter confusion of so-called Astrologers. This person has a clearly marked Mercury, he is in every respect Mercurial and he is always being accused of parading as a Solar or Jupiterian type which he decidedly is not. His work is Mercury and in the Universe of God he has been given Mercurial functions.
One feels very much like a Columbus of the spirit. The high reception by scientists and scholars who at least permit one to state his case or his mission makes one feel he should explore those avenues more. The next step as to the mysteries will probably be on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles. There the doors are open. One finds it very easy to find people who will accept there are “agents” in this world. One finds it most difficult to get these people to accept the actual agents.
There is nothing “secret” about the paper on the living Mysteries, but there is extreme circumspection. In 1957 one could not get a score of people to believe on but one’s experiences 1960-62 were hundred times greater. The present dilemma in India arose by the attacks of the metaphysical people on the great Holy Ones of that land, a story better skipped.
Love and blessings,
January 22, 1966
Dear Vocha:
Adventures in One Mind! I had no sooner written the letter to Bryn, copy enclosed, than your letter arrived. I shall immediately inquire to the possibility of a ticket to Apple Valley by Greyhound through Riverside and/or SB and shall make arrangements to leave sometime late in next week. I should be back here about February 5th. Must visit my uncle if he is in Seal Beach, but if he is in San Diego, will have to alter trip plans. But it would be easier for me to come to Apple Valley first.
You will notice in letter to Bryn that Lloyd and I have made peace. It got disgusting when he attacked my personality when I mentioned possible collaboration with Prof. Chandrasekhar, made all the more so because the scientific world has rejected the Hayakawa interpretation of G.S. who it need not. But then the Humanists have in general rejected that that mind is equally in all human beings. They may say they accept but they have not.
The mail brought in some very choice tidbits of the One Mind. Especially from Escondido and Tucson regarding the World University and world research on desert problems. Efforts are as welcome (in reports) to scientists as they are not elsewhere.
This must be followed by conformation as to movements. If I have to go by train—in case there are not good Greyhound connections will arrange which travel agent (Olson) next Tuesday.
Lots more going on but will keep. Will mail before going to Greyhound offices.
Love,
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
January 24, 1966
My dear Lim:
I wish to join in the congratulations for your being placed in a position of authority, responsibility and renown. And perhaps it is significant also that this should be at the beginning of the Year of the Horse.
You will find a carbon enclosed. One can easily over-evaluate the importance of one’s errands or missions. But even if over-evaluated they are on the human level and not on that high-abstraction level of idea versus idea without regard to human beings which dominates the scene today.
The success of the World University financially may amuse you. I think there are enough fair-minded Americans to be willing to listen to all sides and not our phase “all sides” which has been substituted therefor.
This is the period of finals followed immediately by departure. Besides for some time you will be involved in your new duties.
I shall continue to visit the Golden Gate Avenue office on the progress on each point brought up in this letter and the previous correspondence. Real Peace is no doubt wonderful but he word “peace” as now employed by the press and foreign services has no relation to the word as it appears in the texts of all religions.
Faithfully
Samuel L. Lewis
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif
January 24, 1966
My dear Harriet:
Now that you are presumably retired I am letting you have it. Nothing hard I hope but you can trace the “karma” of a person who has set out with a certain pattern and this pattern is succeeding or failing according to the context. Sometimes one’s eggs are thrown into a single basket.
I looked for you rather feebly at the AAAS meetings in Berkeley. In this part of the world it was the intellectual change of life, however you interpret it. One does not need a psychiatrist to demonstrate Lord Snow’s The Two Cultures and recent telephone calls are anti-climaxes or climaxes.
I am about to depart for a trip to the desert and UAR following what occurred in Berkeley. It is ironical and yet just that all my papers rejected and over 90% of the time a priori rejected should now be asked for at the graduate level. But if this crisis was reached the first day of the AAAS, what happened on the second day absorbed everything else.
Dr. Chandrasekhar is world famous, perhaps the greatest known demographer and sociologist. My meetings with him are out of the story book and when he proposed collaboration I nearly fell over. My two great all-absorbing themes are peace between Pakistan and India on planes of understanding and facing common problems, and solutions for the world food problems.
The university, as all other institutions, is definite split along the lines of Lord Snow’s The Two Cultures. This was behind the scenes in the “Free Speech Movement.” But as all the press, radio-TV, writers, etc. belong to the literary-humanist outlook they could not, do not and even can not face the realities of the work of the scientific cultures no matter how defined. My “How California Can Help Asia,” although in the beginning in intuition—it has proved to be a very good intuition—has been amplified and corroborated by more objective material than one could write on if I stopped everything for the next thirty years. But this sort of material is absolute rejected by certain groups of so-called “social scientists” whose names are withheld although you either know them or know about them.
It is this group that has dominated all the so-called seminars on “Asia,” dogs, Chinese, Buddhists and Muslims excluded. And if you think this is nonsense all you have to do is to read Sarkhan, the sequel to The Ugly American.
Bishop Pike has written that when he returns he wishes to confer with all those who have partaken of the history of Asia. I can assure you Harriet, that the official historians have accepted minor corrections by this person, but your ‘social scientists” on the Berkeley campus have not.
The beautiful irony is that these corrections have mostly to do with the neglect to and of the excellent researches going on all campuses, mostly by little people hidden in nooks and neglected by the press and all the excitement-mongers who write articles. I have conferred incessantly with Dick Erickson and my next trip abroad will follow this up. It may seem humorous but it is more true than humorous that to succeed in UAR all one had to know is “Mohammedar Rassoul-lillah” and “Oskie-wee-wee.” Indeed the central point of my next project is the top botanist of Pakistan, graduate of Berkeley and Davis.
On the first day of the AAAS this person had the rare privilege of being taken to task for his silence. The general view that this person is an obstreperous, pompous egotist and should not be heard was reviewed in a few moments when it was found he had the knowledge that was most in demand by this particular panel. And on Monday afternoon I had the rare privilege of not only speaking but by speaking solving the problem being discussed and was roundly applauded to boot. Then the demand for a host of papers rejected, as above, a priori by smarties who are PhDs and veddy famous hero but who are abhorred in Asia.
On the second day the good old intuition was working after and one went to ye old California Hall which as entirely empty excepting for a single person sitting alone to get out of the rain. It was Dr. Chandrasekhar and was he glad to see me! He had just completed a book on foreign aid. He had discovered what our press and social scientists and writers have refused to face, “California Can Help Asia.” He is here on “Desert Reclamation Research.” When I told him that I had oodles of materials he proposed collaboration. Then he, not I, took up the problems of peace with Pakistan. I told him had already been sent on such a mission—to be scourged and rebuked by the foreign office—same old stuff, and he also proposed collaboration. Then the fun began!
Sarkhan, the sequel to The Ugly American is out and this ol’ Ugly can vouch that some of the incidents are true. I-witness and eye-witness and others are true ear-witness. Corroborator right across the street but don’t let that interfere with panels on “Asia.”
I got home and had letters from the Chief of the Indian Farm Bureau, and from old A.P. Wadia. I hosted the former and he offered me his home and facilities. Now I wish to take them up in seriousness.
Wadia is an old Vedantist and at one time, as you may remember, was very active in Theosophy. But it is his works on economics that allured me. He is much more scientific but very close to the ideas impounded into my cranium by my late collaborator, of Luther Whiteman. He was over 90 when I met him but insisted on a long session on Vedanta before discussing social problems. I was amazed to find he is still alive.
Within a few days I got a flock of mail—and it is still coming in from all kinds of people in all parts of the world engaged in Desert Research (indirectly another this morning, too).
As Chandrasekhar had to leave the next morning I could not even tell him about the wonderful Botanical Garden in Strawberry Canyon. You can see that “How California Can Help Asia” only needs integration (very difficult) to bring all kind of materials together to answer real problems of a real world while politicians and writers harangue and harass in oratory, neglecting actualities.
I must leave as soon as possible for UAR, having some immediate finals. This will also include a trip to the desert depending in part whether Ted drives me or I have to take train or bus. As soon as my examinations are met off we go.
The first examination was by-passed in part by a paper, “The Sufi Heritage of the Greek Mysteries,” based largely on personal experiences plus mention of Nila Cram Cook, a forgotten American who was born not far from where you are now. I do not know whether you remember the Sikelianos etc. Nor do I know how far your kin would be interested either. But this is objective and the why the instructor reacted I think am going to get an “A.” Copy of this has been sent to the Survey Research Bureau above the campus.
In the Anthropology class also I have submitted “Vision and Ritual in Sufism” and copy of this went to my collaborators of San Francisco State. Some of these professors have been in Pakistan and their objective views are totally out of line with the subjectivities thrown at us in all directions by “experts.”
It was annoying when I went to a conference on Vietnam dominated, of course, by the PhDs of your social and political science departments. In person I introduced the Mekong River Survey; the visit of Senator Morse to India and Pakistan; and the picture of Her Serene Highness, Princess Poon Diskul, President of the World Buddhist Federation with His Holiness, Pope Paul. As it can’t possibly be that this Ugly American can associate with this lady, this was the second time in the year that proceedings were upset be this ego. Even eye-witnessing must be discountenanced when it interferes with private dialectics.
I have omitted reference to her in my memoirs which are my immediate undertaking. Both of us are small, insignificant persons who are veritable elves or leprechauns having, if you don’t like us, Napoleonic complexes and if you do, answers to some of the most problems of the day. Maybe both are true. But if you saw us together you would say we are either leprechauns or idiots. The whole thing does not fit in with other events and exploits.
The Vietnam meeting ended when a young man arose saying, “I have lived four years in Vietnam and….” If you think Samuel’s introduction of the above material was annoying, this absolutely broke up the assemblage.
In the meantime—there is no peace to the…, I have been besieged by other letters anent a World University. Wherever there is a “World University” I am trapped on the mailing list. I tried to present this idea to Dick Erickson. Too late the philanthropist!
One of my Integrationalists colleagues came out with his own brand of” World University,” advertised a seminar on Vietnam where the Vietnamese could participate and invited the Buddhists to join. This is something us respectable Aryans never permit. A nobody from a Luce to a Felix Greene yes, all Aryans yes. Ugly American (Sarkhan) and Asians, nix. When this man tried it and the shekels and memberships rolled in and rolled in at such a rate he was not ready. The idea of a conference on Vietnam where real people and their views would be presented! No New York Times, no PhDs, no British diplomats! Anyhow the money is rolling in and in and in. Nobody else has tried that.
I won’t try to tell you about to “World University,” especially as more stuff just arrived. The prime instigator and the one whose ideas are appropriated by everybody is Dr. Oliver Reiser of Pittsburgh, a close associate in all matters.
So I am off to the desert, UCR and UCLA. There are so many wonderful things on these campuses ad the more one looks the more one finds.
The “karma” is simple. We reject our fellows who have gotten along fine with Asians and so Kosygin steps in. A few weeks ago the Asian press was lauding Morse, and now it is Kosygin. They are regarded as the two chief exponents of Peace by Asians and such facts are kept away from us.
I remember once in going to a toy level scientific conference in India to be greeted: “Where have you been? We have been waiting for you!” One cannot even write this in memoir, or can one? This chair also will go on in history, for we are facing a complex in Vietnam because we would not accept the reports of Robert Clifton who once sat in it. Now he is being memorialized all over S. E. Asia, He has been given a big chunk in the new Encyclopedia of Buddhism. I have to carry on where he left off. He died of a broken hear but this old stubborn mule is very much alive, even kicking more than he is alive and is off to discuss with a top level Hindu. Whatever happens, whether we meet (he may leave soon) or whether one has to write, the life dedicated to studies of the real Orient has not been in vain. One has the satisfaction of being trusted by any and all Asians.
Locally my chief Chinese confidant is now in the news. He has been made Postmaster of San Francisco, There is a long history behind that, a long history but it has to do with “another part of the forest.”
Well, old dear, I am off and when one returns may bother you with a phone call or visit. Only a lawsuit stands in the way of my return to Asia (expenses paid). In the meanwhile am signing up for three courses in Anthropology at UC extension. Why not get credit for what one knows. The public won’t listen, the teachers and classes do. My botany teacher leaves for the Antipodes. He is going to be a government guest, just as this one was before. As I have written to Art Hoppe, “If you can’t lick ‘em, laugh at ‘em!” So I send love and plenty of
Cheerio,
Escondido
January 31, 1966.
Mr. Samuel L. Lewis,
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
Dear Mr. Lewis,
Many thanks for your very interesting letter of January 22nd. The books were sent you today (or Monday rather) and I hope they will arrive in good condition.
I want to mention here that, since the first Sahara Expedition as dealt with in Sahara Challenge, Mr. Baker had completed another journey around the Sahara. (1964). After the convention of “Friends of the Sahara” in Rabat February 1964, which the Undersigned attended, Mr. Baker paid visits to 25 countries bordering on the great desert. A most interesting report was published in a limited number and is now sold out. The publication in book form has been delayed time after time because of the unwillingness of publishers to take a risk. This is highly disappointing since I feel the report is a most valuable piece of literature.
There is a possibility that Mr. Baker will visit California sometime in February and stay with us in Escondido for a few days. He will then give a couple of lectures, I suppose.
I agree with you that co-operation is the key to success and nothing would please Mr. Baker more than to see such a possibility materialize. Right now we are discussing ways and means to place desert reclamation among the overall peace endeavors.
Well, thanks again for your letter and for your truly humanitarian attitude. By the way: Do you know Mr. Frank D. Steiner? If not, I want to introduce you to him. He is a very scholarly expert on water and trees. A copy of this Bio-Technology is enclosed—free of charge.
Sincerely yours,
Knut H. Scharnhorst, PhD.
Dear Gavin:
I am enclosing a letter to a lady with whom there has been an unusual, and perhaps karmic connection. Her father’s name was “Samuel L. Lewis.” I never met him but I did meet her mother and we recognized mutually an element of perennial karma which united us.
I never met this “Samuel L. Lewis” who had lived in Carmel and Santa Barbara, among other places and certainly knew some of your relatives. His widow and I had concurrent views on so many subjects, it was most remarkable.
I was a friend of this Margaret and her husband independently while living in Marin County. She is a sort of poet-laureate of that region.
I tried to get the horoscope of my god-daughter but she does not believe in Astrology. I do know she is remarkably advanced and this came corroborated by the sudden acceptance of her by Ruth St. Denis and the reciprocal feeling.
I am not going to brother here about any readings. I had plenty in the Orient, indeed was welcomed back to Pakistan by a poetry party.
I am now in close touch with the new poet Laureate of this State.
One only waits for the settlement of his family estate when it may be advisable to return to Asia where one has felt more at home than here, although this will not be a finality.
I feel you have gained tremendously by your marriage. Corinne has told me about some methods for curing Arthritis and Cancer which they are using effectively and hope others can find out about them.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
February 8, 1966
Dear Mother Divine:
Lest we forget. Maybe Saturn is sitting on my biceps or something but I haven’t a batting average at all on the phone. Anyhow with flocks of mail to overwhelm one I feel like a Sultan whose harem is all drowning at once and have an awful choice of who to rescue first.
Well I got one copy of the book from Escondido but things are humming from the visits to UCR and UCLA.
Now you can psych me (or sock me) and these things do happen. As to the pen, I don’t care.
But shades of Prajna. I go to LA and run into Leland Stewart and he announces that Oliver Reiser is coming in May. As if that were not enough I walk, not run, into the nearest entrance and quite on my footsteps is one Lloyd Morain and he announces that Oliver Reiser (and summer) is a-cumin. So I signed up to help Lloyd in any and every way possible.
Neither of us has exactly located Dr. Chandrasekhar who is around and the Hindus do not know either.
This was at a meeting on Vietnam and it was the craziest meeting I have ever attended. Everybody but the speaker stuck to the subject and showed they were interested in Vietnam and not in measuring or debunking LBJ and they listened with interest and awe to the lady who lived in Vietnam and taught them and associated with them. I had to pinch myself to see it was neither a dream nor fantasy but this was easy. The Chinese food was very good.
I must confess that Lloyd and I talked a good deal more about OR than about you. But with two zeros on phone calls I shall try Margaret in the daytime first, although it may be possible to put your exhibit on at Rudolph Schaeffer’s. Have not taken that up either.
Ran into the Sufi head for Europe and listened to him first at a panel discussion where he had the temerity to stick to the subject and explain what he meant, which was very “rude” because everybody else ran all over the place particularly to prove their colleagues were wrong.
Received a lot of literature from the AAAS follow up just what I wanted but not at a time when I would want it. Started school today and ran into some peculiar situations there also. Old Saturn don’ obscure the rest of my planets.
Presume you have copy of that broadcast so you can bring it as your own letter of recommendation. My friend Iru Price is busy trying to sell his home. It was there I had hoped you would get an invitation to speak, etc. He has a good lecture hall. It is too early to tell about other things. Thursday A.M. the class on Japanese culture starts, which opens another door, one hopes.
From vocative, pro-vocative,
February 8, 1966
My dear Bette and Hazel:
I wish I had not gone on this care of trying to invent mouse-traps. The whole world is beating a pathway to these doors and sometimes the beating does not stop there either.
My relations with the Chinese here have been complicated by two errands. One is a mission to promote justice for a VIP but forgotten Chinese family. The other is that my hostess on the desert has a tremendously valuable Japanese Art collection and this involves a lot of errands. And this is only the beginning.
Add to that the sudden running into one old friend after another in L.A. plus an excellent cementing of relationships with my best friends and a lot more, and involvements upon involvements with an already full program. Ezekiel may have seen those wheels way up in the middle of the air but what happens when they are grounded!
Well I was in Chinatown last night to a real meeting on real Vietnam, with the Federalists. It was the first and only time so far when people talked about the Vietnamese and not how to reform America or the UN or the Chinese or anybody else. And women were given equal opportunities to speak with men.
Generally the meetings are “democratic” meaning that the panel experts extol democracy and tell us peasants to “shut up.”
Yes, nobody bothers about the Buddhists and there are two kinds of reporters—those who are misinformed and those who misinform others.
I can’t give final answers about food problems in Indian or anywhere else. But I did meet a UCLA prof who just came back and has learned that those spiritual Indians limit spirituality to a certain portion of the psyche only.
I hope the package arrived all right. I keep on having good surprises which is fine externally but the gigantic work piled up here—oooooooo! At least I have my health.
Tell mother I have signed up for a course on Folk Law. I won the beautiful Finnish girl by expressing one theme from a folk-dance and she came right over to me—it was the “pancake mix” gesture! The rest of the time we spent discussing children’s games and Christmas customs and then child’s verses not found in gardens! Better stopped, you will feel home-sick. One thing which makes me sometimes apathetic about race-segregation—we have left the Orientals out of it and now my friend Lim Lee is Postmaster of San Francisco.
Love to you both,
February 12, 1966
My dear Gavin:
It was very nice to see you yesterday and I refrained from asking any embarrassing questions.
Having heard from Thea while away I have written her in a drole fashion but in the spirit of indifference. This has become necessary not only because the vast majority of my acquaintances simply refused to accept anything of my visits to the Orient, but not because the vast majority of my non-acquaintances do.
Besides it seemed better to get college credits for one’s experiences. And there one meets with honesty and integrity.
On top of that some of the leading research in this country is being done by non-PhDs. A non-high school graduate at Ohio State and a dirt farmer at the gathering of scientists have contributed some of the best work in the agricultural sciences. They are respected by the true scientists and are not respected by the PhDs in other fields. That is the way in which we act.
Today my biographical notes are accepted abroad and by the scientists here. One keeps away from the cults and metaphysicians. The fiasco of the Witch’s visit here was followed by learning I had been inducted into a vast network of scientists and occultists working together but without the metaphysicians and cultists. So my work is cut out.
The whole tragedy of Vietnam has followed because nobody would believe one of my colleagues. Compared with him I have been lucky. He died of a broken heart. Nor are we going to have peace and good-will until the least person is accepted equally with the not so least.
Faithfully,
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
February 12, 1966
Dear Thea:
This Ugly American has just returned from a short career of being a Desert Rat and was informed you tried the Bell system of reaching him while away. He is therefore taking advantage to write the story of his Unlife in three chapters. The story of his life will not be told or told at all until be can find a few people who believe it. And on this, the celebration of Lincoln’s Birthday when it is veddy virtuous to speak: “This world needs moral and social and spiritual reform” but it is not necessary to tell the truth at all, we start in with
Chapter I—The Book of Laughter.
Pen Pal Art Hoppe and I write: “If you can’t lick ‘em, laugh at ‘em.” One got tired trying to lick ‘em. Letters from Dr. Radhakrishnan were spurned and a picture of Princess Poon Diskul caused havoc. So why bother about the truth? Nobody cares. Or as a friend said in public recently: “Cosmic consciousness depends on the applause you get from the audience.”
It is hard to play the role of “The Whirling Ecstasy” when you find you are O’Neill’s “Lazarus.” And it is very disconnecting to critics and “expects” to find that by some magic this body and this body do not atrophy. Indeed every time one is turned down—which meant until recently all the time, one kept on getting younger and younger in appearance. Not being the Cheshire Cat or Alice, this has evoked envy and malice and in turn these add to one’s vigor. So I depend on critics and enemies to keep me young, alive, alert and active.
Every now and then I cross and street to see my fellow Ugly American. Being adepts but only in the freak lands of real Asia, we make predictions and the predictions always come true. We are afraid we shall be found out and accepted and then we shall not be able to predict anymore; we shall be pleasing people and as we become popular, we shall lose our faculties. But Ugly Americans are not popular, they are not even unpopular, they are just ignored while the Doves and Hawks tear at each other without knowing what they are talking about.
But all bad things come to an end. At a meeting last Monday the Ugly Americans were listened to. We got behind a blonde who had lived and worked in Vietnam and Ugly Americans have good reasons to prefer blondes especially if they had been there. And this blonde was, of course, spurned by all the ladies, females, femmes and such and of course by the “experts.” But by gosh, when we counted noses, us ugly Americans were in the majority. Every year some more Yankees come home and nobody listens to them. As a whole we prefer the editors and commentators.
The career of Laughter began with P. Puck. “P” stands for Puddinhead. Puddinhead was the name given to Mr. Mark Twain’s hero, Wilson. Now all the world accepts thumb-prints and some day some of the world will listen to the little men and now little women who have been there and know what it is about.
Chapter II—The Book of Love
This also involves a lot of Ugly Americans. Some of us have been at the feet of the Master, have sat in Ashrams, have studied with real saints and sages and imbibed some Oriental Wisdom. We have never read “The Book of Charm” which is the special property of PhDs. who lecture on the Orient and which has nothing to do with Asia but has a lot to do with winning audiences.
When people want Oriental wisdom and freedom from pain and sorrow and trouble they will become curious how there can be communion and communication with or without words between people who are far part on account of age, sex, language or anything else and yet can commune and communicate.
Without any signposts this person picked up a number of old acquaintances—the methods are in the real Oriental wisdom but positively against “The Book of Charm” and thus the non-secrets become secrets because “The book of Charm” says they are secrets. And my meeting again a beautiful young girl will be misconstrued because it is not on that level. But today everything is called “Yoga” excepting the real Yogas and they have become so esoteric, so secret that no Indian (excepting the gurus, swamis and teachers who use The Book of Charm) could recognize them.
Love is joy, love is healing, love is mutual recognition, love is union and communion—but this has so little to do with “Asian Studies” and yoga and “higher truths” that only children can understand it.
Chapter III—The Book of Knowledge
Well the year ended with Sam getting a bawl-out in public. That is nothing; Sam has had a lot of bawls-out in public and in private. In fact he is bawled out so much nobody calls on him. But this time it was at the meetings of the top scientists of the country, very curious follows, for they bawled him out for keeping quiet. They said he had the questions and answers they wanted and the pressure because so great, especially when the big shorts were arguing with each other that this Ugly American arose and spoke and was applauded.
And now all the stuff that he tried in vain to get before the so-called American Academy of Asian Studies, and the churches and cults and metaphysicians and social scientists, all of whom turned him away, now all that tuff has been requested by those silly-asses the scientists.
Besides as Sam travels he meets more and more people who have been to real Asia and also they are turned down by the “experts” as above, the Charm Boys and the Social Scientists and the press and the State Department, and as with the Ugly Americans above, there are an awful lot of us.
There are not only an awful lot of us, but a lot of us Awfuls and we are going to do something, all to “experts” and Charm-boys notwithstanding.
For instance there will be soon an exhibition of Japanese Art such as never has been seen, and it will be shown first in L.A. and then here. By this time one knows better so he avoids all the “experts” on Asia and goes to the business men and materialists and by gosh they actually believe you when you talk about real places in real Asia—such a contrast to the press and State Department and “experts” and Charm Boys.
And then the professor of Indian Art. We could talk, we could commune. We know that we are fighting in Vietnam because the State Department and press and “experts” and Charm Boys would have nothing of us. It is costly but we are afraid there will be more wars—not the imaginary World War III which the editors who have never been there predict, but the actually fighting among actual people with whom we have lived and moved and had our being, which makes us Ugly Americans, the modern version the Squaw Man.
All of this may not intrigue or interest you, Thea. After years and years I have finally gotten some of my closest friends to accept teachings in “The Science of Breath.”
But in the Universities! Why Thea, they believe Sam and they listen to Sam and they accept in the class room reports of his experiences and he is getting school credits too for his real life adventures and experiences. So why bother?
And thus to return to the theme—why try to make Thea run? Nothing is hidden. There are no walls before the inner Eye. No amount of lies can cover truth. Sam has no more psychic powers than a rat but when the ego is crossed, wham! And now this is also true when he sees other’s egos crossed. I don’t think Thea ever lied but sometimes the state of consciousness not being the same as it should be one is not so impressed. But truth is truth and what you have said is true and the greatest source of super-psychic power is nothing but honesty.
As I do not have your phone, I write, but you have mine.
Love,
S. A. M.
1541-51 S. Escondido Blvd, Escondido, Calif 92025.
February 16, 1966
Mr. Samuel L. Lewis,
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
Dear Mr. Lewis,
With great pleasure I received your letter of Febr. 10th. A copy of Sahara Challenge has been dispatched according to your instructions. Thank you!
I’m sure you’ll be glad to hear that Mr. Baker will arrive in this country on March 4th 1966. Probably on the 7th and/or 8th he will be in San Francisco and Sacramento, where you should be able to meet him. Maybe you could arrange a lecture for him for as prominent an audience as possible? Or a television appearance? (He wants a fee, though, from television to help cover his costs.) This would be much appreciated.
Mr. Baker most likely will be able to give some highlights on the future of the Sahara Reclamation, its importance for lasting peace and for fighting hunger. He has prepared the following lecture:
“How the Redwoods were saved”
“How six million found Fresh Hope in Forestry.”
“Hope for millions in the Sahara.”
“America’s greatest challenge—The Dustbowl.”
Hoping to hear from you again, I am
Sincerely yours,
Knut H. Scharnhorst, Ph.D.
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
February 18, 1966
My Dear Shamcher:
The rapid number of events prompts today some diary entries and I am writing to you as an excuse. The number of accidents to those near and dear to one, followed by certain events including outbreaks of influenza show the efficacy of Pir-o-Murshid’s system of Occultism. Although this was used prior to the establishment of the movement in Europe, it has neither been published nor incorporated in the literature published so far.
This does not detract from its efficacy nor prevent one from using it. For test cases I have made predictions to and with a fellow “Ugly American” who works close by. His percentages of being rejected by his fellows is almost perfect. Although he lived is Laos and Cambodia with occasionally trips to Thailand and Vietnam, he has not convinced a single other American and nobody pays any attention to his letters.
Sarkhan, the sequel to The Ugly American has been published and for the two of us it is too close to comfort. It strikes at the roots of a very strange American trait, “Fiction yes, fact no,” or as I have been very successful in sarcasm by saying the real struggle is between Reality and Realism. And on the night I returned I frightened an audience to champion a still other “Ugly American,” a lady who had lived and worked in Vietnam. In all these cases Doves and Hawks join forces against those who have seen the events of the day first hand. Fortunately I have a Congressman who listens and his staff listens, thus being better off than my follow “Ugly Americans.”
As I have been closeted with the head of the Mekong Development and the former CIA Chief in that region, it gives one a picture of events which will be incorporated in history but not news. All of this redounds to the better use of Pir-o-Murshid’s Occultism. And as we rejectees grow in numbers and strength you are liable to see some strange events—for Truth always wins out.
Last night I completed a “Bo Yin Ra” manuscript. It was delightful and funny. It was delightful in that verbally it gives a picture of the Grand Cosmos and man’s processes toward enlightenment as well as anything else in words. But the final conclusion that it had no connection with Sufism is utterly ridiculous. At this point it runs 100% contrary to The Sufis by Idries Shah. The latter writer introduces both real evidence and pseudo-evidence, the last being easy because the “experts” reject the real evidence.
I understand this manuscript once belonged to Gavin. He either did not understand it or under-evaluated it. But then Sufism and Mysticism are always under valuated by the cultists.
While Pir Zade was mixed with the cultists this person had some unusual social experiences. The deeper he goes into real-scientific-real-research the more he finds himself in the midst of those already deep in mysticism or anxious to be there.
Pir Zade was surrounded by the dialectical cultists who are trying to get money from the public by organizations purporting to unite scientists, mystics, occultist, etc. The scientists do not attend. The scientists have their own organizations, three of which I am aware, to unite scientific studies and the purport of God-consciousness. They are all serious and none is based on personality. I have not heard from one of them to whom a check was sent; nor also from a local editor who has already published Sufi articles.
But I have heard from the groups rising out of the AAAS meeting, and one’s acceptance by the top scientists interested in religious pursuits contrasts to one’s almost equal rejection from and by all the cultists and metaphysicians. In the meanwhile one finds oneself a charter-member of a world organization uniting scientists, occultists and alchemists with some valid reports. I had already previously gotten a very involved manuscript from Paul Reps attesting to alchemical transformations coming from scientists. This all arose out of Desert Reclamation work.
This Desert Reclamation work goes ahead and here again one has the full cooperation from the scientists and the total lack of it from the cults. But this is as Pir-o-Murshid wanted. PoM wanted one series of values and nearly all his followers wanted other sets, mostly based on personalisms and personalities, not on knowledge or wisdom, human or divine.
One found some publications of 1925 with my name on variously lists. Seniority is not a value, no matter who speaks on values. Seniority is effective in books and in lectures but it has no standing in life. When ego wishes to excuse ego excuses. Then the moral law, the karma, the principle of retribution steps in. Wise people therefore do not argue, they look and when they look they see and they have to keep quite because the unwise look only at the personality, not at the contents.
With so many accidents, so many ill one looks at the now abandoned Healing Service. This is based on Hierarchy. But here again is a split between those how experience Hierarchy and those who “believe” about what they have not experienced. Idries Shah has been taken to task for his overvaluations of Hierarchy. But neither omission nor overvaluation presents any facts. And those of us who have the direct experience, the direct facts have to be very, very patient. Patient, now cautious.
Individuals connected with Universities have requested portions of my autobiography. With the opening of the new session and meeting with two more teachers, this has been so. One teacher in Anthropology wants all the tales told me and this will be one way to get Sufi reports over despite all and sundry who have refused to accept. Actually they have already been accepted by colleagues of this Anthropologist. The same is even more true of the teacher in Japanese culture.
The class is a peculiar class. It consists for the most part people like myself who have been to the Orient and now want credit for their experiences. The result is the tremendous line between all of us “Ugly Americans” and the dominant “experts” and personalities to whom the public and press look.
I had the class in hysterics when previously I said, “Lafcadio Hearn was the original Ugly American.” His very ugliness led to almost unanimous rejection of him as a personality. In Japan he was accepted, lived and succeed and died, to become a hero. I did not know at the time that the class was filled with students who have been to Japan, studied, traveled and been rejected because their findings were contrary to those of the “experts.”
In any event the teacher has now called for a big portion of my autobiography and this will begin with Nara experiences and teachings. So one can look back with dismay at all those “open-minded” rejecters who are always champions of “free speech” and you shut up. This touches at the heart of American folly.
The whole free speech movement was connected with a “revolt of the masses” against expertise. The students one meets—and one goes from campus to campus—want to know facts and now personalisms. When the top scientists met they had as speakers some men who did not have even college educations and today I find outside the “experts” complete open minds and open heats. They accept human experience while those who write on democracy do not.
Anyhow the doors are opening all over and one can only wonder that after over forty years, what Pir-o-Murshid told me comes true, it will come true, it can not help but come true and the Divine Wisdom which can be expressed in all names and forms will manifest.
This will also be true in the paper I write on Nara Buddhism to show that these teachings and contemporary science-electron doctrines, Planck teachings, etc. coincide and coalesce with many ancient philosophies.
This is enhanced also by the exclusion of women from the platform on which Pir Zade spoke some weeks back. The self-centered metaphysicians exclude women and scientists and were obviously afraid of the mystic. I made several friends with women simply because they were excluded and found they had more knowledge of those principles common to science and mysticism than the panel experts have or had.
Everything however leads one back to the Healing Service and Pir-o-Murshid’s Occultism. We may believe cause-effect but we do not trace cause-effect. Also the relation to the establishment of World Peace. We have the words; we do not have the meaning nor the realizations.
Later in the year I may come north to trace the solution of certain problems outside my fields but within yours where channels of communication have been blocked. There are no problems, Shamcher, there is not a problem on earth. There is just ego-intervention and the denial by all but the scientists themselves, that “Whatsoever ye do to the least of these my creatures, ye do it unto me.” This statement has been accepted in turn by Physicists, Spectra-Analysts, Soil Scientists … and on to Anthropologists, but not by Social Scientists, Philosophers and demagogues. It is one of the funniest and most serious of situations.
The accent on the Universal Worship by Pir Zade leaves open the question of “How about the Inner teachings?” My own statement is that the only “merit” of a spiritual teacher has been in the advance and success of his pupils. I have been amazed at reports both here and especially from Pakistan at the raising of the Veils from those few who have accepted this one’s Bayat. There must be some validity if it happens. And now some people have come back into my life and wish to hear the outer experiences. This is honesty. One has gone through whole series of episodes where the outer experiences have been rejected but this is the common experience of all us Ugly Americans. But the others as a rule do not have the inner experiences.
It is only when the cards have to be placed on the table that one delivers. The statement about “mysteries of the pathway that leads to the Goal” has been left untouched. Now another group of Sufis is sending for material. It will be that way.
When we enter the classroom of an Anthropologist, a Mathematician, a Chemist we accept his teaching and not his personality. Among the cults it is the opposite. The whole bizarre history of contemporary India so full of sadhus and sannyasins and gurus and Sadgurus and Swamis and Mahatmas who teach that God is all and that the others who teach the same thing are not worthy of respect—stands in opposition to Sufis who teach that God is all and that everybody who teaches that should be respected is an open prophecy one makes. Not those that teach the “highest truth” will win but those who show respect for their colleagues, and thus especially establish spiritual brotherhood.
I hope this may help spur you on. I can see pretty well where you greatest efforts can be made and be successful. Martyrs like Jerry Voorhuis, yourself and others will not long remain martyrs as the rising Nations look for solutions to their problems. I have written at length to have Asians represented at the next conference on “Asia.” The day of the dialectician, the expert, the self-imposing authority must come to an end in social events as in the sciences and in “the heart of God.” Religion without God, Mysticism without God, truth without God mean little.
God bless you,
Samuel L. Lewis
S. A. M.
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
February 18, 1966
Dear Gavin:
I am enclosing copy of a long report to Bryn. He has been most unfortunate in so many things. In several respect he is a great man and the only thing that seems to stand in his way is that his intuitive faculty does not keep up with his logical and other abilities.
We once made a pact which he has forgotten and I have not. From my point of view this pact was based on his own publication which he seems to have forgotten and which I feel is full of “values” not fully touched.
Patience is the greatest faculty one can have and today the whole intellectual outlook is different and this will in time affect the social life. One can do and say almost anything around the universities if one has knowledge and ability. This is especially true in the class-room. So one after another of earlier efforts have been reversed because the teacher cannot turn down a term paper based on experience.
The big surprise was to find myself inside a huge international organization uniting scientists, occultists and alchemists. It may lead to some strange geographical ventures, once my own slate is cleared. Scientists have been delving into alchemy whereas the late Dr. Jung only speculated and many of his speculations were quite wrong.
One learns in time where to speak and where to keep silence. Only today the meeting of any ever growing circle of “Ugly Americans” may widen both the social and other adventures. We are fighting a war and we are going to fight more wars because the press and State Department refuses to honor direct reports of citizens, no matter how easily substantiated.
Ralph Silver has been here, a very capable young man but suffering from the disease of civilization. I have not recommended Edward Carpenter to him but will if his health flags.
Faithfully,
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
February 22, 1966
My dear Lloyd:
This is rather a diary entry than a letter concerning the events of yesterday. On the surface I went to the University of California to prepare the way for the visits for St. Barbe Baker and Vocha Fiske. From beginning to end there was total satisfaction and a good deal of detail is being written not only because that is the way things happened but also because it may give Oliver Reiser news on the one hand and ideas on the other.
So far as Vocha is concerned the final details cannot be determined until I hear from Gump’s but everybody is delighted with the ideas of her exhibition and I am not to write to her directly anyhow until April 11.
St. Barbe Baker is regarded as a sort of hero in Great Britain. I first heard about him at Kew in London but was unable then to take on any more assignments. He was to Trees as Johnny Appleseed is the Apples. I did not hear much about him for years when a letter from Julie Medlock mentioned him and three days later I was given his chief manuscript by Daniel Hoffman of Burlingame. I have not heard from the latter since but things have been humming all over.
The vast difference between the Integrational and Differential methods come out at every point. This includes the resignation of the top men at USD. This University has done marvelous top level research and has gotten bottom level publicity. I think nothing illustrates my private frustrations more than the history of this institution which has done so much. One cannot take cudgels for everybody but in my theoretical “How California Can Help Asia” this was stressed. And in my letter, as yet unanswered, to President Clark Kerr I had already stated that every problem of real Asia that I have ever heard of has been answered on one or other of the campus of the University of California, and one reason for the growing response to campus visits is that more and more people are recognizing that they too are overlooked and there is no way to integrate the efforts by various research workers. If I were to write to UCSD now the fat would really be in the fire and I cannot undertake anything more. But today we have “experts” who are analysts all over the place and the bobbing back and forth between Aristotle and Hegel is spreading confusions, all of which could easily be answered by International approaches.
The first thing and the last thing noticeable about Integrational methods is that they are not egocentric, that they involve groups or teams and that the methods of operation are very similar to the “psychologists” or organic reactions and phenomena.
To further St. Barbe Baker I had to call in turn on the USDA, the coordinator of Agriculture, the top Entomologist, a civil engineering office and an Anthropologist.
The first brought up the new Integrational as against Differential sciences, the logistics of which easily follow “Fluxions” or Calculus but very few are about to think that way and in a sense the major portion of “Science and Sanity” is being overlooked.
The program for Turkey will be on an Integrational-Ecological basis and the value of the meeting with Dr. Cornelius is that for practical purposes it is official. But while Cornelius may meet St. Barbe Baker he will depart about the 1st February so will not see OR. Nevertheless we shall be seeing Project: Prometheus in operation and later in the year I should be getting a full report thereon. Details will be omitted here. We are passing from super analysis and specialization into Project: Prometheus.
Much of the following hours are spent with the Forestry Department, and the road was blocked owing to the absence of those with final decision. I had already met Prof. Ready and had a fictional appointment with him. But he has gone to Australia on another Project: Prometheus corresponding to the Cornelius mission.
I had another long session with my chief contact at Berkeley and we came to the conclusion that not only must research be on the Prometheus basis but there is danger that there will not be this. We also discussed the campus-cooperation, and note that the scientists and particularly the Agriculturalists are now working this line.
The meeting with Entomologist J.W. Allen was even more to the point. Our inane public and not so public discussion on “Silent Spring” brought out on the one hand the total absence of Kaiser’s “rigorous thinking” and the selection of “experts,” individuals many of whom had done no scientific research at all. To have been a professional spray operator was to be an outcaste and one had to listen variously to “experts” who did not know what they were talking about.
The major factor for India’s present low harvest were the previous depravations of Locusts, kept out of the paper because editors do not know how to evaluate or prevent the spreading of these pests. My own being in the midst of these depravations did not mean that it was accepted and one gets sick and tired of listening or reading of “experts” who determine the future of the world from editorial sanctums.
Believe me, Lloyd, I was not only “there” in the midst of Locust invasions, the matter had been discussed previously with top Entomologists and later on here with John Wingate. And I had taken this up in detail with Prof. Allen giving a self-warning that any tree planting program should include protective measures.
The disciples of St. Barbe Baker and Prof. Orr, heading the Mekong River projects disdained the point but now one reads in St. Barbe Baker himself that the pest problem of South Africa was the greatest of all, and we, entangled with racial and political matters will not look at it.
Anyhow I placed before Prof. Allen a complete program for world research into Insects, their control, etc., which he accepted, and the next step was easy, Project: Prometheus. Lloyd, there is nothing easier than to converse with scientists, and nothing so difficult as to converse with “experts,” i.e. specialists who verbalize analysis.
In the case of my Engineering colleague. We have already discussed Project: Prometheus. Not only is he away but one had to report to his colleagues the success of the Prometheus approach. I shall find out from his wife when he will return. But I did not have to report to the Department of African Studies the various work of these colleagues who would probably greet the Prometheus approach, and it is very badly needed.
Another thing discussed and rather in detail, who the need of semanticizing President Johnson. I know today of three rather independent movements in the fields around the word “semantics.” One leans toward Language Arts and another is called “Linguistics” and the third is the G.S. movement but all alike refrain from examining the words of VIPS; none of them have the guts to go over political speeches and the result is that we are using “medicines” arbitrarily and causing more ruination than benefit, and all rise from the simple fact that there is a vast gap between proclamation that words are not things and applying them in the daily life.
A tremendous undercurrent of opposition to President Johnson today is that recognition by serious people that in any event Presidential proclamations are based on words that are not things, but even are not thoughts but protective devices. As this will probably not be faced, we are going to have to choose between chaos and integrative projects. For in the Integrational worlds—and this can be seen directly from the Calculus—“individuals” play quite a different role in Differentiation and Integration, and in the latter their foibles are unimportant and their functions are all important.
There is nothing more obvious today than the insurmountable gap between the term “scientist” used by so many writers, and the scientists themselves. I am extremely indebted to Bartlett White. (I regret nothing but ill is occurring to him. After advising Vocha of intent to separate, an explosion took place at the air field killing his former roommate to whom he had already legally turned over certain possessions.)
In practice one finds an equality between factual observational, low-order and high-order abstractions with the final decision being only too often determined by personalities and not by events. The legal system tries to coordinate these levels and especially in law-courts direct experience is evaluated. In research on the Prometheus levels also direct experience is what is desired and then there is some suggestion between induction and integration.
When my father died I was toying with the idea of going to UCLA. I had a long conference with the late Prof. Von Reichenbach and the wanted me as his student. It was his untimely death that sent me to the Orient, etc. But the problems we discussed still remain and there is need not only of more direct acceptance of OR’s teaching but of examination of it in operation of which quasi-examples are given above.
There can be no value in presenting “Integration” as another of the various forms of Analytical and Dialectic teachings with plague the world. The logics of Analysis, Differentiation and Integration are quite different but related and relatable. But I have found about three so-called “integrational” movements in this country which are just as self-centered, just as analytical as anything else excepting they are confusing pictures still more by vocabulary stealing.
I have failed utterly to convince Type Leland Stewart that Integration transcends Analysis and including what are excluded by analysis. The groups here in San Francisco called “Integral Culture” and “Integral Arts” are, if anything, more analytical, more self-centered than others. The World University Type is indeterminate.
But the graduate schools at UCLA and UCB show a welcome for both Projects: Prometheus and Krishna beyond my abilities to follow up. All I can say there is that there is as much harmony and coordination in meeting these people as there is not in trying to meet the “public.”
I think Oliver knows enough so he can avoid confusing “Integration” with another analytical term on the same level as general analytical terms. I did have one difficulty with Type Rubin, one of the Mathematics teachers at Berkeley who is leader in the protest parades. He had no idea of Mathematical philosophy. He had not even read Mathematica Principa so there was a road-block. As far as Spengler is concerned, he is as yet off limits so the world must have impasses rather than clarification. I believe OR’s teachings will bring this clarification.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
S.A.M.
cc: Oliver Reiser
February 26, 1966
My dear Vocha:
The Straightening of Karmic Accounts.
What has happened in the last few days is so beautiful, so wonderful, so favorable that it is being recorded in detail for my diary records. The books that I purchased from Harry have been demanded in such in way that they shall be sold at the end of the term and when I come South, when in April or May, I shall have to replenish or purchase. This was only Prajna but it seemed to be the sign of much more.
There used to be in this area influential-affluential people who were intensely interested in Oriental art. One after one they died. When the American Academy of Asian Studies started I offered my services to get funds from them and was rudely turned down. Not only that but “He” started rumors that were accepted that I was not born in this area and was using their campaigns to get prestige for myself. That institution and Playboy Zen never touched the social people here. But there was enough money among the rich to start a phony society for the study of Oriental Art to compete with the Playboys. That failed too, for the wealthy are circumspect about gold-diggers.
During these years I had three staunch friends. One was an American who hides his Zen interests but guides people to Japan regularly and I think he has stimulated many to follow in the lines of studying and collecting. The other two also have clients, one Japanese (Shibata) and the other Chinese (Ching Wah Lee). Martin R. knows them both well, so all our eggs are in one basket.
I had received a favorable letter from Gumps and presume you have copies. Otherwise will send to you. I then went to Ching Wah Lee and both he and his friends are most interested. Up to that point I have reported.
Now I am asked to host a VIP Tree man and in seeking engagements for him I have to go geographically where I should for the Ubukata collection, so I did not go out of my way in the errands reported.
Shibata is the last living Japanese friend of Sensei. He used to have a tremendous art-store here but the Hearstites got in at the beginning of the war. He has maintained his integrity and built up a fine clientele. He was very happy to see me and some of the time was spent teaching a young protégé the Zen method of art appreciation, and Dhyana-Prajna at the same time. For practical purposes we are One, which is a long story. I left two of the notices there—his clients also interested.
Then I went to class yesterday and that revolution has taken place which was bound to come karmically. The class is now dominated by my female counterparts. They have taken over and did such a wonderful job. They have all lived in Japan, associated with the people and have wonderful slides and photos. It is hard to believe after all the unfavorable stories of the past. The teacher has become always their slave and she is “sold” on your coming. The next thing is to approach Playboy Zen, and as they have money and prestige and social decors it is a natural to cultivate them.
The class will probably support the idea that Sakya Muni and neither Dogen nor Shinran Shonin is the Buddha. In other words I see no sense to go to the temples. They are seeking converts and haven’t much money. But I have gone to the Consulate and fortunate the Cultural Attaché and I have already met many times. He is a friend of Rudolph Schaeffer. I did not talk to Rudolph because last time I went there it was for him, to do him a favor and I did not mix errands. But now he is under obligations, in a certain sense, and I can ask whether he can show your things. He did a similar favor for the Vietnamese. He is the only one here who has done anything for the real Vietnamese. Everybody else consults their own private thoughts; nobody else has hosted the real human beings.
On account of the flu, etc. I was not always successful in meeting whom I knew on either errand but this proved to be in my favor.
Charles Lindstrom lectures on Oriental Art at the De Young Museum. He was resting—lots of flu around. So the Museum staff got me in touch with those in charge of the Brundage collection. I hardly said a word when they showed immediate interest and enthusiasm and I have a date for next Wednesday afternoon.
So, Mother Divine, between those in the Japan studies—which meets Thursday A.M. and those at the Museum and those contacted I have had favorable reactions, and we shall be having the real cultural exchange. I have not followed up yet my Zen-American friends elsewhere, but they do work at the Japanese Tea Gardens and at least a courtesy invitation will be in order. I have not written much to Mr. Schutz, Renee’s quondam superior, but am taking up other matters with him. Yet he too should be notified.
Should see Rudolph by Tuesday afternoon next weekend and will let you know more about that possibility. But you will have to evaluate all these things—and every one came easily and naturally.
Love and best wishes,
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
February 27, 1966
Beloved One of God;
Spiritual Development Through Music.
This is not an essay; it is part of a biography. This biography will show the difference between sham and pretense on one side and integrity and honesty on the other.
Recently I had to receive what looks like blows, two different attacks from two parts of the world by two people who are angry because I did at bring them disciples or forms of help that I could not, and it also meant the breaking of a tie with a god-daughter, for one does not interfere in marriages or families. But before one could recover from what might have been shocks, Heaven took a hand both bringing me unexpected moneys and the return into my life of another god-daughter, whose coming in and going out were also connected with marriages. But this would not be mentioned excepting that it is closely allied with the above subject.
It has been my experience that what are known as “Delphic women,” women who either have or reflect the God-consciousness, are tied up in some way with some aspect of music. This has been true all over the world and with women of different races, religion, everything. On the other side are the cultists who will not accept this at all. Each cult tries to narrow everything and everybody to its own small outlook and will not accept anything that does not fit into it.
One of these cult-movements—and you have been inveigled into you, though I do not know whether you have accepted it, is the effort to organize combined studies of science and religion. Cultists organize these movements and they do not attract the scientists so they say that the scientists are not interested in religion. Scientists are more interested in religion than cultists are but they do not wish to be led by ignorant people. They want the learned people. And this person is now in two such grand movements to study science and religion and one is directed also be a lady with the grand outlook, who is scientist and mystic both. One has met many such people all over the world but in this State the universities accept that and the cults do not. The cults all reject each other even when they have similar philosophies.
The most important person in this field has been Ruth St. Denis, and she has the faculty of drawing music and dances right out of the cosmos, out of the heart-of-God. Not only that, she has either found similar people or has taught them. Not many people can do that but with the “coming race” more come into incarnation. They have a hard time because the people who say they believe in reincarnation and the “coming race,” wish to teach, they do not wish to learn from the advanced souls and the advanced souls, being advanced, have more to teach and less to learn than the cult-leaders.
On my next trip South I am to see, God willing, Ruth St. Denis, to present to her the “Dance of Universal Peace.” This has been accepted by world leaders of religion and been rejected by cult-leaders so who want to lead whether they have wisdom or knowledge. As Miss Ruth and I commune, it is not necessary to say much. She wanted to tell me her philosophy and I said, “All tight, you speak and I’ll dance.” That made her very happy.
But there are some other things going on in Los Angeles which again the spiritual leaders accept and the cult-leaders reject. One is quite in an occult sense and the other is private in a scientific sense. On the occult side my first god-daughter has returned and after three marriages she has not found what she was seeking and it will be possible now to commune and communicate with her. Nobody stands in the way. Pain and sorrow and dissatisfaction have brought her to the place where God-seeking is all important. And we can begin with her own faculties for she was an Initiate in former lives and perhaps in this one too, and has about three sets of faculties—dancing, instrument playing and singing. And they are all wonderful. In her psychic self she has the mysticism of the Zunis, Welsh and Maoris and thus she has what Samuel never had in this life so we can each teach the other.
Also one went to the Department of Ethnomusicology at UCLA to discuss the recording of certain Musics used for spiritual development. One does not know whether any Westerners have taken this music seriously but as one has been in holy places—which are never recognized by cultists who have never been there—instead of arguing one will make arrangements to record such musics. There is nothing like them anywhere, and they are also very effective in spiritual awakening.
Cultists, of course, have to deny that one has been there but universities which work on honesty and integrity accept as soon as there is evidence. So one finds that the scientists and savants are much more interested in the meaning of God in human life than many cults who are so organized and which disregard each other. Also here the Society for Eastern Arts has accepted one’s geography, and this will bring the opportunity to present more than one’s geography. Besides one is always meeting on university campuses fellow travelers (in the tourist sense) and there is always sympathy and cooperation and exchange of knowledges. In the cults you can’t exchange knowledge. They teach with closed ears, and having closed ears they cannot hear “The Music of the Spheres”
As soon as this occurred a lot more occurred. One was kindly helped by somebody who taught the Cobra-posture (Asana). But the posture is a very small part of Yoga. There are 84 postures in Patanjali-Yoga and all combined make only one aspect of his Eight-fold Path. The other seven-eighths are ignored, especially the highest phases.
Posture is one part of Yoga. Such aspects as Dhyana, Dharani and Samadhi are not generally taught because the people who wish to be teaching do not know them. And besides God brought us into this “race” that should have different postures. But one need not condemn posture, one can use it and also use non-posture.
Having been blessed with the Asana of the Cobra one appreciates the teachers, but one did not stop here. One practiced the Dhyana, the Dharani and the Samadhi, and also the Pranayama, of which so little is known here. In the last part of “Zen Flesh, Zen Bones” Paul Reps translated the deeper aspects of Pranayama and I found nobody here knew them, and what is more, did not want that them taught to the public. And as soon as we tried the whole Cobra Yoga, all eight aspects of it, it began working and I was not prepared for it at all. One did not realize that the objectivity of the spiritual discipline would come soon, but it came. I shall not tell you how it came excepting here so far as it relates to the spiritual development through music.
The universities accept and the cults reject. Pure Yoga demands an honesty and integrity which ego-centric people cannot and do not have. The Musical Yoga comes out basically in four forms that one has practiced and in one form that one has not practiced. The latter is the Zen-spiritual music which you can be assured the “experts” on Zen shun.
There is the Flute-of-Krishna and the Vina-of-Saraswati in the Yoga systems of India; and the Flute-of-Rumi and the Singing of the Khawwalis in Sufism. And it seems in the last month one recovered some manuscripts that were destroyed in fire or by seizure and also that one fond some books on another type of Sufi music. While the cults will reject all this, the universities will accept it though it takes time. And also there is an important man here descended from the family of great spiritual musicians who accepts all that is demonstrated—other people will not permit the demonstrations and thus “prove” their points by not permitting demonstration.
This does not deprive one of wisdom or knowledge; it just deprives one of audiences. Only now with the Cobra-concentration suddenly people began coming and inquiring as they have not before. They do not find the spiritual liberation, they find lots of lectures and lecturers but of inner awakening they do not find. So since the Cobra-concentration was started they come. And one does not care because also one meets with all sorts of women who have some spiritual development and are ignored by the cult-leaders who wish to lead and to find without seeking.
This all shows that people really do not believe in karma. They too often think that the little annoyances they give others do not matter because the annoyed ones are unimportant. This means attachment to the very Samsara they try to get rid of.
Theosophy verbalizes six planes and the Empyrean just as all religions basically do. But in general they have not musicalized this, and until these planes have been musicalized people will not know the spiritual awakening through music. The instrument is good only to a certain point. The piano has breadth but it does not have depth; the Vina and the human voice have depth but they do not have breadth, unless these are cultivated. (That Inca lady [Yama Sumac—Ed] had both but this was an exception.)
The real Indian cosmic metaphysics taught naraka, preta, tirthaga-yoni, raksha, yaksha, asura before the human stage; and peri (pitra), gandharva, and deva, each with many subdivisions above the human stage, and finally Prajapati where oneness is achieved. Nobody teaches those things here and everybody is afraid somebody might. Yet these (and other) stages of cosmic evolution can be recognized through sound, best through the human voice and then through certain instruments and then through other instruments and the dance.
As God has no limits, neither is there any limitation to the divine expression. Let me tell you an incident of last week:
The rise of the cult and cult-hero has made it most difficult to present the Wisdom of the Orient to the American public. They judge by externals and there are all kinds of pretenders. I joined a class on Japanese culture and found there were a number of elderly women in the class. They had all been to Japan and had studied the Japanese culture and wanted college credit for it. But socially we associate the Oriental Wisdom with personalities, even though Lord Buddha disclaimed this above all. So we call all sorts of things “Zen” and “Buddhism” that have no connection whatsoever with the divine teachings.
The text books quote a lot from our “big names” of ignorant people that have become famous. These ladies went to the Orient and found that these big names did not have knowledge or wisdom to the degree claimed for them socially. So they staged a revolt and took over the class. As the teacher depends on them for financial support she let them. So I have heard the best lecture of my life on the early temples (Buddhist) of Japan, given by “ordinary” ladies who are tired of pretense and want to be heard. Besides they had something to say and give. They have no shining personalities, they have no glamour, they may not have wit but they have honesty, sincerity, integrity and what is more and what hurts … money.
This is a new day in the presentation of Oriental wisdom to the West when those that know are heard and appreciated and outer circumstance and social amenities mean little. And with the acceptance of real communication in “spirituality through art” it is in harmony now to present also “spirituality through music.”
You may get some suggestions from this.
God bless you,
Samuel L. Lewis
March 6
Beloved One of Allah [Shams-ed-din—Ed]:
As-Salaam Aleikhum. This letter is largely for Brother Engineer and is based in part on the reports you have made of his karamat.
At the moment, and perhaps always, there are those experiences which can be ascribed to Reciprocity and those ascribed to Grace. In the first line, if all details were told, it would appear that one is subject to injustice and needless pain, but if one takes the long view it is not so at all. He teaches: “Surrender to Allah in times of adversity and Praise Him incessantly in times of property.”
There are no persons harder to face that the self-righteous who ascribe all sorts of virtues to themselves and all sorts of faults to others. Shams-i-Tabriz taught that Hypocrisy was the only sin, and while one does not present a life of anything near to perfection, all efforts are made never to be guilty of Hypocrisy.
Both in America and Pakistan one has been subject to criticism, and yet if one took the long view, he would see it is impossible to “convert” everybody to the points of view held by each critical person. The self-righteous expect others to accept their teachings. They respect neither age nor wisdom, and beyond that do not surrender to Allah.
As your Murshid was under the Grace he knew the end of World War II before it began. And besides other things there are writings preserved despite the destruction of 90% of his efforts in 1949. And one cannot deal with the disrespectful who are full of egocentricity.
Knowing what would happen long before it happened this person saw how Allah and under Allah the spiritual Hierarchy were working to preserve the world in the Right Path even when all material and psychical forces seem to point otherwise. But if there was any wisdom in experience it is almost impossible to communicate it to self-centered persons.
One may refer here to one’s youthful periods of Khilvat. In the first one had Hafiz’ teachings for study and like the great poet of Shiraz, one was visited by Khwaja Khizr. The world has not accepted this person’s poetry but it is forced to fact that longevity and élan which are nothing but Grace.
The next Khilvat was spent with the teachings of Grand Sheikha Suhrawardi (L’Awarifu-l-Ma’arif) and the third with “Gulshan-i-Raz” of Shabistari which is the central theme for writing now.
Both in this region and in Pakistan there are many ignorant people who regard their birth in Islamic families as a virtue and not all the signs of Grace can counterbalance this. Mention Grace and they accuse you of being beguiled by Iblis. But the fact remains that through all the darkness from 1936 to 1945 this person was under the Guidance and never doubted the result. Besides he was directed by Ghaus-i-Azam without always knowing who it was.
One cannot compromise with those who admit the existence of any other Power than Allah. And beside all the disciplines in Tasawwuf one sat before many Sheikhs in Cairo and received instructions, and one cannot find Pakistanis who readily accept that, excepting in the Sufi Circles. So the complex of Kashmir goes on and the real complex comes out of assuming that there is a power other than Allah.
If one notices and Laws of Reciprocity and Justice, one can see what is happening in and to India, which is most unfortunate. But surrender means giving up ego-assertiveness and Pakistanis will not give up ego-assertiveness and so they do not attain to Kashmir. Hazrat Inayat Khan says: “What you do not gain by power, earn through surrender.” But Pakistanis do not yet comprehend the many facets of the Arabic word, Islam.
Because one remains here contrary to one’s will, one surrenders to Allah knowing there is no Power but in Allah. And because there is Kashf one can accept this living Guidance. This has led one to make studies in Anthropology and thus Folk Lore. And in pursuit thereon one has purchased Discourses of Rumi by Arthur Arberry.
Now this man has not only refused to accept you Murshid as representing the Brotherhoods, he has given us a version of Holy Qur’an which translates, “Maliki Yaum-ed-din” as “Master of the Day of Doom” and yet in the translations of Rumi he takes the opposite view that everything is under Rahmat. His translations from Arabic contradict his translations from Persian. We must remember, “The Merciful leans to the side of Mercy”—something a tremendous number of so-called “Muslims” do not accept. Of course non-Muslims accept it even less.
Beginning on Page 55, Arberry quotes Rumi:
“Take the famous utterance, ‘I am God.’ Some men reckon it as a great pretension; but “I am God” is in fact a great humility. The man who says “I am a servant of God,” asserts that two exist, one himself and the other God. But he who says, “I am God,” has naughted himself and cast himself to the winds. He says, “I am God”; that is, “I am not, he is all, nothing has existence but God, I am pure non-entity, I am nothing.” In this the humility is greater.
It is this that ordinary men do not understand….”
It is unfortunate that there is so much mistrust in the name of religion. Our Brother Engineer, asserting what you have reported, would be beset. And yet he is following in the footsteps of the great saints. The world condemned Mansur al-Hallaj. But the same persons would be afraid to condemn Shabistari and Rumi and Ibn l’Arabi and so are guilty of hypocrisy. Besides they do not study at all, they merely assert.
Although it is said, “There is no compulsion in Islam” and “Allah loves His creation better than a mother loves her child” one constantly meets the ignorant and foolish who do not assent. It is only that today we are coming to an age of knowledge if not of wisdom and this knowledge encourages honesty. The man who adds to scientific knowledge is accepted for his accumulation of knowledge. The wise-in-Islam therefore accept any accretion to Hikmat regardless of the person.
Reading further in Rumi one finds that the Mongols destroyed first the Khwarizm Shahs and then the Caliphate. How could that be? How could Allah permit destruction to “Muslims?” This is what happened and yet we do not consider it. This means the acceptance of a power other than Allah. If we look deeper we find that all that has happened in history is for the cause and sake of a greater justice than is observable on the surface. When Omar was Khalif he accumulated nothing for himself and so was Master of the World. But after a while Imams and Khalifs and rulers accumulated for themselves and sometimes had victory, sometimes had defeat.
To surrender to Allah in adversity and praise Him in prosperity means, in the end, the Great Victory. It brings Patience and Sobriety and in the end before them all fall.
Very slowly young men are coming to your Murshid. The teachers, the leaders, the religious people of all sorts are self-centered. They had a great conference on religion in 1965 before the United Nations and one saw the leaders were nothing but hypocrites and knew conditions would get worse. It has been the Russians, not the UN not the Americans who at least had Ayub and Sastri meet. Both were attacked by the ignorant of their own lands.
Once we were studying Rumi in class and Hazrat Inayat Khan appeared and said to me, “Be a flute.” I was amazed. He said, “Be a flute?” I answered, “How can I be a Flute?” “Well, I tell you one way not to be a Flute and that is by arguing.” Then your Murshid found out how to be a Flute and he has been a Flute. And here and elsewhere the descendents of Maulana Roum accept it but so many ignorant people—non-Muslims are worse than Muslims—will not accept it. Yet as on studies more in Discourses of Rumi one finds oneself at home.
In 1930 your Murshid found Acts of the Adepts written in French by one Efleki, a Turkish disciple of the Mevlevis. He found that his experiences were of the same nature. But there was nobody to go to. In all this wide land nobody he could go to excepting a single Albanian. People do not know how lonely it can be in a sense. And yet when he went to Ajmir in 1956 everybody knew be was coming and he was given a grand welcome. So your Murshid can be a Flute and he asks, inshallah, when he returns to Pakistan, to permit this Heart-Flute to chant and sing and even dance before and with Mr. Engineer.
This may be continued. When something is right with Allah, one can always remember “The Spider.”
Love and blessings,
Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti
772, Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
March 14, 1966
Rev. Leland Stewart,
c/o East-West Center
2983 West Ninth St.
Los Angeles 5, Calif.
Religion, Science and Truth
I am writing this with a funny feeling, which does not necessarily mean intuition. It is almost forty years ago when I had to take on a whole Baha’i convention in regard to “The Brotherhood of Man.” Oh, they were all for that and we had no philosophical disputes, but everything had to be done under their leadership. Truth is asserted, everybody wants Truth but everybody rejects the biblical injunction, “The lamb and lion shall lie down together and a little child shall lead them.” Nothing doing, we must do the leading and as there are lots of “us” the brotherhood does not follow, the wisdom does not follow and the erudition is at loose ends.
My Sufi teacher prayed, “Thy light is in all forms, they love is in all beings.” Science has demonstrated, is demonstrating the former. It is used in my own profession. It is not the scientists with whom any difficulties are faced concerning Divine Light, it is the non-scientists who want to lead. Each has his own way, which might be pure in itself, but each does not recognize others.
The scientists want me to discuss religion in Berkeley. They did something which theologians and philosophers and metaphysicians do not do. They had a theologian and philosopher on the platform to criticize each and every part of the program. Could God be reached through science? The scientists not only spoke, they gave their critics and opponents equal time. They did not sermonize about “justice,” they gave their critics all the time they wanted. They agreed on methodologies.
People who know about God through experience, people who know the scriptures of the world, people who know what great religious organizations are accomplishing were welcomed. Opinions Had No Place. Scientists are not interested in opinions, but they are open-minded and open-hearted about learning from others. At none of the sessions of the American Association for the Advancement of Science was it necessary for the speakers to be PhDs. It was not man’s recognition of man which brought truth; it was man’s recognition of truth which brought man. And the upshot is that the scientists have their organization for the study of religion.
Now I am involved in facing world food-supplies and in this have found that the laws of Nature harmonize with the deeper aspects of religion. With the externals there is no harmony, with the internals there is no difference. But religion is controlled by externalists. If you believe God because you have experienced Him, you are excluded. Lots of “leaders” have to say that those who have experienced God are to be followed but they don’t follow, they just talk and they don’t recognize each other.
It is years since I found that the deeper processes of nature as uncovered by botanists and plant physiologists were the same as the deep processes of Nature as presented first in the Upanishads and then in the Sufi teachings and then elsewhere. But I found “no takers.” In the Orient yes, but here we divine humanity. Even if we call ourselves “Advaitins” we divide humanity. And here is where the scientists and non-scientists differ:
When you go to the scientists and explain: “This truth which has been uncovered in the laboratory is the same as the truth of a particular scripture. The scientists are accepting that, the religious people only and the cult people not at all. They posit “light” which is a thought-of-light. But they do not study the behavior of light.
I suddenly found myself inducted into a “Lotus Society” which has combined the research methods of the mystics, alchemists and scientists. It is all based on experience. The experiences of mankind are not excluded. Experience is experience. The other night during debate on Flying saucers, the Astronomer who is an Astronomer (and a PhD) lectured on “hallucinations” and the psychologist who is another PhD. Accepted the Astronomer’s view of unidentified flying rejects but infuriated the Astronomer by refusing to accept the latter’s views of “hallucinations.” And when we come to extra-physical experiences there is the tendency on the part of philosophers and cultists to call others experiences “hallucinations.” People want to be accepted with the right to reject others, they object to rejecting but they want to reject.
Therefore today we find the scientists having organizations which include everybody and non-scientists have organizations which will accept money from everybody but not ideas and hearts. And whether it is a “Brotherhood of Man” as proposed by many—and then they exclude each other—or an effort to unite the study of religion and science, we come to the “egocentric predicament.”
For instance, this person who has been to India and who has lectured to many there and associated with many saints—the scientists accepting this and the non-scientists rejecting it—finds that our present PhDeism would permit Arthur Koestler to talk and Frederick Spiegelberg to talk, but not permit him to appear on platforms. This is the usual custom among the no-scientists. Koestler and Spiegelberg have both taught at Stanford. Spiegelberg gave degrees in Oriental Philosophy to those who saw in Anandamayee a “divine incarnation” and Koestler gives credits in whatsoever he teaches to those who see in Anandamayee a deluded fraud. Both in the same place. The scientists object to such procedures. What has intellect to do with the super-intellectual?
Yesterday I want to a gathering of people interested in the Arts of the Far East. It is one of the few places where Occidentals and Orientals meet on mutual terms.
I met an Indian of nature age who is working for some higher degree in Psychology and also teaching in a college. He told me he was trying to get all the Indians together to discuss Indian Philosophies.
I said, “you have a very tough assignment. How are you going to get them together? They all teach non-dualism and they all reject each other. You can hardly get two “gurus” in the same room.” “That is exactly what we are going to try to do. We are working first to get Indian teachers to recognize each other, for so long as they do not, Indian philosophy cannot prosper.”
Indeed the superiority of Sufism over Indian philosophy is not in the theory but you get Sufi teachers together and they will pray together and recognize each other. You get Indian leaders together and each wants to lead. The teachings are wonderful; the persons form read-blocks.
This Indian said he had inquiries from his follows who were scientists who wanted to study Yoga scientifically and not personally. I said, “That is very interesting. I know about thirteen systems of Yoga by which I mean the Yoga-of-experience and not the Yoga-of-lectures.”
So it may become possible to study Yoga “scientifically,” that is under a teacher who has had the experiences of the Yoga, and not just speech-making who knows the techniques, their values and their limitations, and who had pupils who have experienced in various degrees the light of the God. This is not a matter of promotional campaigning.
Whether this person is called on or not makes little differences. But the demand for demonstration, proof from experience and integrity mounts a great deal.
One does not know how well you know Teddi Schleicher but her presence is a living testimonial to some knowledge of some Yoga through experience in, let us say, “Divine Union.”
Right now the scientists accepted my “The Saint in Modern Society and Modern Culture.” The scientists whom some call “skeptics,” accept this. I do not know a single group outside the scientists who have. All bas been based on human experience and after a while one tires from those who welcome one’s money and support to accept the conclusions of others who in turn do not reciprocate.
Another thing arose yesterday among the Society for Eastern Arts and that is the proposal not of “Spiritual Training Through Music,” but Music Through Spiritual Training.” Hazrat Inayat Khan, Father of Pir Zade, brought the teaching of “Spiritual Training Through Music,” but he also initiated the writer in “Music Through Spiritual Training.” After years of going though all sorts of people I have found acceptance of the latter and again in has been with the scientific people.
There is no conclusion here, there are open ends. One wishes open ends and not leadership, but Hazrat Inayat Khan said, “Leader is he who is leader of himself, ruler is he who is ruler of himself.
God bless you,
Samuel L. Lewis
March 19, 1966
Dear Ram:
Theoretically Theosophy teaches that there is no religion higher than Truth. But in practice today nearly all of us decide not on the truth of assertion, nor the truth of experience but on the personality. Instead of judgment by Truth, it is judgment by personality. So there is no peace, there is confusion and contention. And perhaps just as well, because the world likes it that way.
Last Sunday Sam went to the Society for Far Eastern Arts, one of the few organizations where Americans learn directly from Orientals. The fact that they are willing to learn from Orientals is itself wonderful because mostly we are willing to learn from socially accepted people, but we are not willing to learn from Orientals.
And it seems that the real spirituality of the Orientals has made a mark on some of them. You do not see this often. To talk about Samadhi raises approval, to experience Samadhi raises disapproval. But at the same time those who have had the real spiritual experience will reveal it in their eyes, there is a certain magnetism in their eyes. You do not see it elsewhere. You cannot pretend it either.
This was the first wonder.
The second wonder was in meeting an Indian professor. He said he was trying to organize a society for Indian culture. He was not running around trying to raise funds for such an organization—there are plenty of fund-raisers. He said he was getting the Indians together and they were not worrying about funds, they were worrying about organization.
Sam said: “You have a number of people here who call themselves spiritual teachers. They nearly all teach the same thing and they despise each other. How are you going to get them to respect each other? And if they will not respect each other, how are you going to have a society for the study of Indian culture?” “That is the first thing we are demanding. We insist that our people respect each other.”
A few days later Sam met Mr. Bhar, the new cultural attaché at the Indian Consulate. Now Sam can talk to and with the cultural representatives of India or the spiritual teachers but he cannot speak with any of the men here who call themselves “spiritual teachers” and disrespect each other. Sam says: “The guru says everything is Brahm, Brahm is in all of us, but when that fellow says it, he is a liar.” Indian teachers do not respect each other.
India is full of starvation, and Avatars. Everybody has his own Avatar, and instead of trying to solve problems, you try to guess who is Avatar and that is called “spirituality.” The starvation continues.
But the reason for writing is different. Finding that there are Americans with marked spiritual development Sam said: “I should like to discuss with you, not “Spiritual Development Through Music,” but “Music Through Spiritual Development.” That was admired; these people want to hear “Music through Spiritual Development.” Sam has waited for years—here—to find any audience.
In India it was easy. One could go to the temples and chant. One could also go and dance. Here where everybody says that “there is no religion higher than Truth,” one cannot do it. We say one thing and follow a person, not Truth, and so we have no idea of the teachings of the Upanishads and other scriptures. People go to teachers and after years there is no experience of Samadhi.
It is just like in Lord Buddha’s day. Everybody argued over the teacher and none had the liberation. Now one can present the Spiritual Music, only it will be free from commercialism. It is wonderful to find spiritual seekers; it is more wonderful to find the spiritually attained.
God bless you,
Samuel L. Lewis
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
March 27, 1966
Charles Denton,
S. F. Examiner,
San Francisco 5, Calif.
Dear Mr. Denton:
This letter is written in an apartment once occupied by Gavin Arthur and one has the luxury of “sleeping under the stars” without having to go outside.
One does not know whether to take your article in a serious or flippant manner. I was not here during in 1960 election being out of the country. But I can positively vouch that the remarks did come from Gavin “that the stars told him the next President would die in office.” He said it over and over in my presence and therefore must have said it also in the presence of others.
As to an Astrologer being in the White House, there are astrologers in high places in many Asian lands and in Thailand, in particular, one receives them officially. In the other lands they are accepted socially, but more seriously than we would have it.
I was in India during the period (1962) when so many planets seemed to be near a conjunction and when mobs were supposed to be going through the streets causing untoward acts and must say this always took place elsewhere. I did not find Indians very different in this respect form Gavin in regard to his own craft.
You say you are a disbeliever in all forms of occultism, spiritualism and superstition. I hope you believe that Dr. Radhakrishnan is President of India and Dr. Hussein is Vice-President of India. The fact that they are both devotees in mysticism should not abolish their existence and I don’t think it does.
I hope you believe that Marshal Ayub Khan is Prime Minister of Pakistan. He believes very strenuously and strongly in the very “occultism, spiritualism and superstition” which you disregard.
All right, my friend, the newspaper of 1880 were adamantly against the transmutation of metals, the flying machine and a lot of others things which sane people can now accept. And today Congressman Ford came out for their possible acceptance. And oh yes, Ohio has a mother and son as representatives in the House. Before you praise them for them wonderful records (most of the press does) let me inform you that they are both serious devotees of Astrology and perhaps occultism. Should they be impeached?
Samuel L. Lewis
March 27, 1966
Dear Gavin:
One is now thanking you for the party the other night. It was full of pleasantries, far less noisy than other parties and if this one person liked it it is not to suggest that your future functions be like this one and different from others.
One does not know how much the calming influence of Ellen had to do with it. She played the part of a perfect hostess and made everybody feel at ease.
I did have a task, and that is to report in details to a class in Social Anthropology on behavior patterns and there was not a chance to forget it. For right off the bat I was sitting with some folks who had been to the Orient and especially to Lahore and was conversing on a high level when we were interrupted and this gave one the opportunity to see the differences between Asian and American social mores.
In “normal” mores, which do not exist, people are not supposed to interrupt conversations. In our society women, and especially single women have the privilege of interrupting any conversation to introduce, or intrude their personalities. It is not that this is rude or wrong, or pleasant or right, it is that this is an American custom. Women have here social privileges over men, and the young over the old, the opposite of in most parts of Asia.
And in the Orient it would not be the height of rudeness, it simply could not happen that young women could interrupt old men on any occasion from any motive. But this time in addition it has been almost the first time that one as able to speak about Lahore, which in some respects is my Shangri-la and in other respects my scene of transformation as in the stories of Talbot Mundy, Marion Crawford, Rudyard Kipling and others.
The fact that I am reporting in Social Anthropology is even more awkward because as this culture stands there is a vast abyss between those whom one may love, or whom one loves, and friendship. Emerson says, “He is my friend, in whose presence I may think aloud.” And in my private or not so private life as one has the choice between being with those whom one loves or who love one; and those in whose presence one may think aloud, this is not a very happy situation. It is complicated today when there are expected calls from two women in whose presence on may think aloud and one whom one loves. And here one has to make the very unhappy and uncomforting choice of those in whose presence one may think aloud.
The next thing observable in your party is the large number of young shy men who are not fully alive or awake and who are called, willy-nilly, “homos.” This is a very bad term. Here I am going neither into Western or Asian psychoanalysis. As to Asian Psychoanalysis, it is the easiest thing in the world. A few days before one had a long session with the next cultural attaché from India. In his presence one could think aloud and did. This was made easier because there is an underground movement to establish a real Indian Cultural Center, by Indians, and for very objective purposes, not to make this or that person famous or opulent, but to study real cultures of real people.
I was able to get a few words in with Joel on real Asian culture and the movements which are active, and will be active in this region. They will be as impersonal, objective and based on human experience as any scientific movements are.
It is not always easy to find the proper “stage” position at parties.
There is nothing at the moment so much as the marked contrast between one’s position at the University and with the public and one is not trying too hard to change it. As I told a young lady taking a job: “Remember, Europeans are people, Asians are thought forms.” “Oh, I have found that out already.” This is a terrible blow at our mores and ethos.
It is so terrible I am now afraid of a “Sicilian Vespers” in Vietnam, which can spread. The “Peace Parade” is fruitless. It has nothing to do with Vietnam. When I told the collectors that I was a Buddhist they kept away from me. There is no proof that any moneys collected at these gatherings are going anywhere in particular. A Buddhist is as welcome at a so-called “Peace Rally” as a KKK in a synagogue. Indeed anybody speaking on Vietnam is as out of place as one discussing heaven problems before a dowager.
The saddest note was your constant mentioning Jack and being entirely correct. He has had one cursory examination and will have another soon. Something is radically wrong.
At least so far as I am concerned he is now giving serious attention to those factors which keep this particular body well, strong and vigorous while coming close to the proverbial “three-score-and-ten.” One’s worst critics have to admit this corpus is more delicate and delicate and some day some people may be curious enough to find out how and why. One or two people are interested in the Science of Breath and others in what may be called “esoteric sciences” of which by-and-large we haven’t the slightest idea. We have the words and that is all.
That is why I hope to end family matters soon and leave the country. People abroad are no better, perhaps worse, and weather is worse and conditions are not luxurious. But in their presence one may think aloud.
The next morning the question was asked in class, how could this person meet a thousand women in Purdah. This is a hard fact and there is a strong reason and some have accepted the reason and reasoning. There is the happy factor that teachers admit that something may have happened to a person nearly 70 which may not have happened to a person not 30. This is a good springboard. Then they listen to reports; one is permitted to say what has happened to him. One cannot do this socially, the press won’t accept it but in the classroom one will. And this adds glow and vivacity.
Years ago in this very chair I said: “Robert, you and I are mere nobodies. Neither of us can get an audience, both have been rejected by the press and State Department but I doubt if there is a King, Prime Minister, Cabinet Member, Holy Man, saint, professor, or even peasant from one end of Asia to the other whom either you or I or perhaps both of us can meet if we haven’t met them already but who will believe it?” “Very true, Samuel, very true.” Now my friend is dead. We are having the Vietnam war because he wasn’t believed and already monuments are going up in his name all over Southeast Asia!
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
My dear Gavin:
Lord Snow’s dictum that we have two cultures has been well illustrated. Among the scientists and mostly in the law-courts the eye-witness is sometimes called upon to testify. In the social circles the little person is impeached and being impeached is not permitted to testify.
This insignificant person has long since tried to reach those who verbalize free speech, who verbalize justice, who verbalize humanity and if only they can verbalize enough that justifies anything especially the torts of the little people who are never permitted to testify.
On the contrary plagiarism is a virtue, giving the “right” people the privilege of plagiarizing to no end from the little people, but leaving just enough room to blame the little people for anything that has gone wrong.
This person has long given up writing articles for the press, magazines etc. and cannot help it if the recipient of a private letter has “ins” with the papers and publishes these private letters. As this person no doubt uses some oriental terms and uses also the names of rather big Asians whom society refuses to accept that he knows, he is not responsible for the mistakes of stenographers, copyists, linotype men and others who get hold of his letters.
I am not sure here whether you object to the contracts coming from this person whom you have never invited to speak on real Asia, or that you feel he should he blamed for any mistakes of anybody down the line.
One is now writing in his memories about his fellow Ugly-American, Robert Clifton who got even worse deals and because the “right” people would not listen to him, much less accept him we are righting a war in Vietnam, the funniest of all wars because all the “proper” people refuse to accept any real information about Vietnamese Buddhism and Vietnamese Buddhists.
It is rather awkward to be called not only Teacher and Murshid by Asians but now Master and Roshi. Some Asians still reserve some right to select those whom they think are adepts in their culture. No doubt they are misled and confused but Asians are Asians and the saddest thing about them is that they know so little of “Asian Philosophy,” that grand compendium of Western writers whom you admire and whose books are on sale at the stores.
If you wish to continue to contemn me for mistakes made by copyists do so, but somehow or other in the universe of karma some day, somehow you are going to be asked, “When did you hear his side?”
March 30, 1966
My Dear Della:
It has taken considerable meditation and consideration to write this. One would have preferred saying for in saying there are nuances of tone which convey emotion and also convey deeper feelings that are speechless or unspeakable.
Yesterday I turned in a paper on the Party giving attention to these habits which distinguish East from West, not that “East” and that “West” which was imposed at the Academy, but by actually mingling with actual people. Where the real East and real West differ there can be no standard of “right” and “wrong” but as we get our Scriptures from some or other portions of Asia and our development from Europe and America there are disagreements. Some of the problems of the day come out of these disagreements.
One of the first “mistakes” I have here was the readiness to go into the kitchen. One cooked meals in several places at the Academy, for the departure of a teacher, and on other occasions and this indelibly marked one with the “kitchen” label. One does not mind being marked with the “kitchen” label, but in this “democracy” I was “labeled” and this made me off limits for discussions on spiritual and metaphysical subjects.
This is in contrast with the East and in particular with the Pathans with whom I have lived, that as soon as one turned from human affairs, where the servant is a servant, to divine affairs, there was no longer any servant. All were equal before God. And so one enjoyed the spiritual democracy among these people but here, marked with the “kitchen” the people who were served would send money to go to lectures of this one or that one or the other, but they would not even listen freely to me.
This is all the more marked because this one has been accepted by the real people of real Asia and not a single mentor you have had excepting Sensei has any reputation and some of them are downright loathed by the real people of real Asia. And Sensei is honored only by his own particular school. (There is nothing wrong in that, at least he is accepted but by a tiny group when all Asia is considered.)
Now one nears 70 and he has to put his cards on the table so he is looking for tables. And from the beginning there is a huge abyss because this one adheres to Prajna and you to Dhyana. This person uses the Dhyana for the Prajna as the Sixth Patriarch taught. But around here there are thousands practicing some sort of Dhyana or other, and no Prajna is in evidence.
Many of us carry folk-themes. Even Jung elaborates on them but here the Professor is permitted to speak on Jung and the non-professor not on folk-themes even if his life is an illustration. Fortunately this applied to just one part of our culture, called the “literary-humanist” by Lord Snow. When one turns to the scientists it is different. And among other things the scientists are not dependent on personalisms or personalities, they accept facts.
Lord Buddha also was all for facts and absolutely, not relatively but absolutely against personalisms and personalities. Only this country, dominated by the literary-humanist view has accepted all kinds of things known as “Buddhism” and most are dominated by this view. Of course last year you heard Richard Robinson but he has been sent out of the country. We want enlightenment and we want self, and we cannot have both together.
One had given up hope of establishing sound friendships with women in this part of the world. A crisis came but within a few hours one received a letter from a lady who, when young, was my god-daughter. One could tell—and one knew this anyhow, that she was a genuine spiritual seeker. There are stories of her early life which demonstrate this but of course, they could not happen to any American in a country where Asian teachings were dominated either by Englishmen and Europeans on the one hand, or “brand names” on the other. She did not fit in either group and had become very lonely spiritually.
Besides in that period she was what in Europe was known as a “Mascotte.” A Mascotte is considerably more than a Mascot, bringing good-luck for she also has occult powers. And since she returned to my life there has been considerable good-luck.
Then Ted Reich was given a free trip around the world and he asked me to look after his lady friend. One did this rather unwillingly because both Thea and you had seemingly returned to my social life. But what happened when I called on her was so different from anything around here that it has determined my going in another direction, a direction of some kind of fulfillment.
In the first place she let me talk on the Orient. This is a European habit, and of course Asia, that the women permits the man to be the center of conversation. It may be to trap him but she underplays and lets him build up his ego. Excepting at the moment when you entered Gavin’s, this one had not been granted any opportunity to speak, excepting under dramatic conditions. One is now writing and fighting to get some recognition more for the knowledge acquired than for the personality. But socially everybody sees the personality and ignores the knowledge acquired.
Then we found areas of common interest and then she placed one of her problems in one’s hands. This also may involve ego that the female, like Ellen, plays second fiddle whether she is better or not. American women wish to play first-fiddle whether they are better or not.
Then I explained that there are what we call Yoga methods to solve her immediate problem. We talked about her, we did not talk about me or the world; but we talked about her and how my putative knowledge my help her. Thus we both had satisfaction.
I know most American women. They like to parade their problems to men whom they will not permit to deal with them. They like to lay their shoulder so to speak on them but if the man has any wisdom, that is different.
I am not seeking women friends, much less followers, but when one is willing to listen, listens, accepts advice and then benefits therefrom this becomes a revolution and revelation here. In parts of Asia it is normal. But here we have the folk-hero for spiritual mentor. We have all sorts of “teachers” in all sorts of “Yoga” who have no good words for each other, and one hardly knows anybody that has benefited.
There is a big article on Kapleau which I have been lending to friends. Samuel Lewis has certain experiences; it could not be, so it is not. David Kapleau has experiences—how wonderful! Sam says something and is rejected because the one who has the experience never talks about it (our myth, we love it). But a stranger, that is different….
At my age it demanded harsh or radical measures. “God” so to speak is with me. And last week one proclaimed oneself as a spiritual teacher which one is, but which egocentric people will not accept. When proofs were requested, they were given immediately and the young people were impressed. I am not going to follow that.
Yesterday the revolution came in another class. One brought certain books and presented them to the teacher. He was amazed and took down the name of the books and the author. It may cause a stir in time. I won’t go into details excepting it will radically affect some of our findings in Anthropology which one knows the scientists Anthropologists will accept and ultimately in Occultism which one knows our ignorant, egocentric so-called “occultists” won’t accept.
This also is one place where East and West differ.
Today one goes to School to present more of one’s potion in the spiritual ranks of the real East (not that figment taught by popular teachers and lecturers who themselves are rejected by the Universities whose leader is Richard Robinson.
And tomorrow one will present his place in real Zen, following One Mind which is all inclusive but which your particular group has the most unusual, “Exclusive Zen,” something which could not possibly happen in Asia, even in Japan.
As one nears seventy one refuses to accept any more rejections and one is willing to accept the role of a hermit, but not of a rejectee when one has the knowledge. One has the Kshanti Paramita which nobody can deprive one of and perhaps other Paramitas. Master Seo accepted that. Master Seo, like considerable numbers of real spiritual teachers in real Asia either has accepted this person or ordained him. Now it comes out gradually.
And if my fellow students in the university class-room accept the spiritual knowledge accumulated by him then it is not only fair but necessary that time and attention be given to them.
Yesterday one received a surprise letter. The Poet Laureate of California had gained merit by writing a verse ending, “Where is God?” This one wrote him he had the answer. The Poet wrote back that this was the very answer he was seeking. My so-called friends have never permitted met to recite poetry. This especially by those who themselves called poetry evenings. One was only invited to listen. So it is, but so it need not be.
Compassion is not dualistic and every person is a Bodhisattva. But at the same time some realize this and some do not.
Della, as I have written, you are a child, a beautiful, loveable child. Now I am finding those with whom I can be free or as Emerson said, “He is my friend in whose presence I can think aloud.”
God bless you,
April 2, 1966
Dear Bette and Hazel:
This morning I feel like a hypocrite and the worst part is that I am a compounded hypocrite i.e. I enjoy it. To-wit I have accepted an invitation to Muir Woods tomorrow and the weather is gloriously glorious. And hereon hangs a story.
My best friend Ted Reich, has received a free trip around the world and he left his lady friend, Gerta, in my care. Now ordinarily I do not care for this sort of thing. My affairs with les femmes have not been particularly spectacular commanded that I am not looking for romance all over. Or, in another sense one is a Vanderdecken, limited to one romance every seven years.
I don’t know whether Gerta is sincere or clever. But she permits me to do something that too many women who have passed in and out of my life have never even permitted. They look upon poetry or genius as a sort of rival. But Gerta listened and I may trot out both some of my spiritual poetry and “Marvelous Marin,” I don’t know how good it is because I have never had an audience, excepting my critic who lives in San Rafael.
Lest night I went to a reception as a holy man which offended one of the ladies who used to lay a big part daily in my life (limited by her marriage). She was offended by my so appearing and the Pakistanis who were giving the party were delighted. American ladies want personal attention and Pakistani men like conversations about their homeland and their culture and their poetry. So one did just that knowing that if one kowtowed to the ladies it would mean nothing anyhow.
By breaking all the rules laid down by exerts and diplomats one can get along fine with Asians.
This is supported by a picnic in the paper this morning of another fellow Ugly American, this one being accepted by the Japanese and rejected by the Americans. His name is Sam Newsom and he lives in Mill Valley and while this Sam was having “my day” with the Pakistanis, he was having his “my day” with the Japanese at Golden Gate Park.
You see neither is socially accepted because we have never accepted that “that experts on Asia are European professors and American newsmen and never never may be American professors and European newsmen.”
Besides being half a holy man. I remain half a hypocrite be enjoying the food and honors very much.
Thursday we had some beautiful films and slides on Nara and Kyoto. Tuesday I caused a revolution by bringing evidence that Grimm and Max Mueller did not contribute all the things that they are given honors for and as the teacher was anti-Grimm and anti-Mueller to begin with he accepted the evidence. Pourquoi non? Wednesday we discussed the Pathans and that gave me a field day.
Outside spiritual philosophy as such I know nothing as wonderful and profound as Chinese Painting; or, I know no spiritual philosophy as wonderful as Chinese Painting.
I am very happy that you have been able to get the type of food you enjoy. I think I was more horrified by the starch cum starch with starch which is the basis of Southern cooking than with their politics. In the meanwhile I am learning to cook better dishes myself.
Well, LBJ has called for “economy.” They aren’t going to let all the Congressmen go to Vietnam. I wrote an article about the Marines landing in Saigon and being held up for obstructing the traffic—interviewed with the VIPs, and the press and the movie actors all over the place. As it is now, “the war must go on,” yes, “on the films.”
I am still yelping for the Vietnamese Buddhists. It does no good. The military accepted as per arrangements by your good self. But the press? TV? CIA? etc.? Now the Vietnamese have proven they are people and not thought-forms. Very inconsiderate of them.
Betty, Betty wants a mold,
Be in it plastic, clay or gold,
The present ones are much too old.
Betty, Betty wants to paint,
She used to think it rather quaint,
But now she find it certainly ain’t.
Betty has her China shop,
She thought her efforts would be a flop,
This masochism has got to stop.
Well have a good trip to Florida. I expect to go to LA next week but am not sure which days.
Happy Easter,
April 12, 1966
Dear Betty and Hazel:
Thank you, it was a Happy Easter. Met my first god-daughter, Marion, again, after 27 years. I have always called her my “Mascotte,” which was a type of woman who had all the faculties of a genius and also could bring good-luck.
We have a strange relation, just as it was. I feel she is my daughter and grand-mother in one. I felt that way before. Can you imagine that? She has been married three times and found she would not have happiness. But she does have economic contentment and a devoted husband. But he is only interested in his professor and little else. He never goes out nights but lets her go without him and her days are free.
She has run back and forth from being a specialist on children’s stories and kindergarten work—and the arts, more or less around sculpture. She has developed the most beautiful fairy-like music. So I took her to Ruth St. Denis and we had a field day.
Tsil-Tsil (the name she prefers) played some of her tape-recorded music, chiefly a “Hymn of St. Francis.” It captivated Ruth no end and we had a field day. They are to meet often. Ruth has been looking for a successor and I was grooming a lady here whose husband since denounced me. You see how the law of retribution works.
Ruth also wants some of my poetry, etc.
I introduced Tsil-Tsil to Mrs. Berrenberg who has been like an elder sister to me for many, many years and is house-ridden. Tsil-Tsil has promised to take her out twice a week.
We went to a meeting on Easter; very poor sermon by the minister. There was a lady, a Mrs. Hagood with whom there was mutual attractions and we went out with her that afternoon. What happened thenceforth is “impossible” in the Western world. We found that we could commune and communicate with, or without words (we had never met before.)
She took us to a new home she is buying on Los Feliz Blvd. She says she wants it for a spiritual center and then right out of the blue asked me if I could take care of the studies. I insisted on travel fare, but before long found she is quite wealthy indeed, and more so.
She has gone to all the “famous” speakers on the Orient in and around Los Angeles and has nothing but disappointments. All words, or intellect or emotion—no vitality, no stimulation. Of course that is what they go for there. She was most disappointed in Aldous Huxley but has the same feeling toward most of them.
I shall not delve into negatives and we made some tentative arrangements for further trips especially if she moves. This may be “the” opportunity.
Tsil-Tsil was born in New Zealand of Welsh parents and has lived among the Indians of Arizona. She has the three cultures blended in her art, music and anthropological studies. She is going to send me some things. She sculpts but has no kiln.
Came home tired but excited.
Love,
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
April 17, 1966
My dear Margaret:
Months go by and one is not able to come to Marin County and one loses account of those who, in a sense, are nearest and dearest. Only on rare occasions does one contact the Ingrams. And I have not had a Sunday off to call on my god-son who now lives in San Rafael. So at the most there are vague rumors about you, and on the two occasions I visited SR there was no answer to your phone. So one does not even know whether you are around.
At the same time in a certain sense our common interests increase, but before going on one must mention the ridiculous situation which dominates our land demonstrating in every respect the teachings of Lord Snow that we have two cultures. It is almost as incomprehensible as ridiculous.
All the material that has in previous years been presented to the press, radio-TV, social and political scientists (?) has been accepted by graduate research schools and now Anthropologists. I am taking some courses in Anthropology and enjoy them as much as those in Horticulture, excepting it is not so easy to become accustomed to endless series of being accepted (not always correctly) as to being rejected willy-nilly.
I am forever in a half agony seated where once my friend sat who died of a broken heart. He lived in every land of S.F. East, visited this country twice and was totally ignored until it was found he was a distant relative of Senator Fulbright and then all the doors opened. He would not do it. If whom he knew was important and what he knew was unimportant he would have no more of America. Yet the fact is, before that God Whom we no longer recognize, that the trouble in Vietnam started from communist infiltration. And so one finds himself caught between two warring groups in this country, neither of whom seem to have much use for Asians, fighting in the streets, in the campuses and everywhere, barring alike the eye-witnesses who know what it is all about.
At the other end one finds oneself accepted today by specialists on Asian matters and was the comfortable receptor of a big ball-out by some of our top savants for keeping quiet when one had the knowledge. And when one did speak he was received on the campus with quite a bit of applause on the very subject for which he had received an endless number of a priori rejections—he was not even permitted to present a paper. But he did not protest because he had several friends, all of whom had been to Asia and none of them ever had appears accepted by those who received huge sums for “Asian Research.” And today in the class-room he is regarded as a sort of important authority on Asia by the students and teachers—it is ridiculous to be shunned or adulated instead of being treated as a democratic human being.
Recently one attended an Asian function as a holy man and the situation was embellished by open hostility from the American ladies. The Asians do not wait on women not of their family. But they did wait on this person, respecting his age, his knowledge and his wisdom, something which is of no account here, yet.
My next immediate undertaking is to editor a letter to “Science,” the house organ of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. While they are accepting my small contribution they did not knows of the American organizations at work, what they have accomplished or anything else so I have to fill in some gaps for our uninformed and sometimes misinformed leaders. The point is that the scientists have almost without exception either accepted articles or granted one the floor during a period where one receives no replies from the President, Vice-President, State Department or press. So one does as one writes to Art Hoppe: “If you can’t lick ‘em, laugh at ‘em.”
Remembering now that I do have a sweet breath at the moment. One organization would not let me read a letter from Dr. Radhakrishnan, President of India. At another one the “expert” was furious because I merely showed a picture of Her Serene Highness, President Pool Diskul, with His Holiness, Pope Paul.
After twenty-seven years separation I met my first god-daughter in Los Angeles. She was always what I call my “mascotte” and I have seen no signs contrary to the traditions of a “mascotte.” The “good luck” broke almost immediately. I felt it was time to take her to my “fairy-godmother,” Miss Ruth St. Dennis who is looking for women who have some faculties similar to her own.
It was one of those occasions which would have put prickles into our so-called “occultists,” “mental telepathists” etc. who want super human phenomena without heart. I won’t go into details except to say that Saturday I brought Ruth’s picture to be framed, after which it will be photographed and copies will be sent all over the world to a lot of highly placed persons which our culture has refused to accept one oven knows. But the purpose is to promote world peace, and if you want direct cloak-and-dagger material I have a lot, in my memoir.
My memoir are being typed for publication—in Asia of course, but I shall try, when completed, an American firm specializing on Asian subjects. The last situation came when the Grand Master of Korea visited this land to select a representative and this “miserable one” was ordained by him.
Well I placed my poetry to Miss Ruth and she wants it for her dance work. There are two classes of people here—one which will not permit me to read and the other which keeps the stuff. I shall try to get it back, although I doubt success, but there still remains the tremendous “source of poetry”—that is, the atmosphere itself. For my poetry and Ruth’s dancing come in the same way, although each can and does function in the other’s field.
The origins of this methodology was a French occultist named Fabre D’Olivet. After 150 years rejection he was uncovered by an Anthropologist, named Sapir who has become world famous by following in this man’s footsteps.
As all the called “Occult groups” of the region refused to recognize one’s accumulations of this sort of knowledge and as they all lay down totally artificial formulae about secrecy, I have done what was done previously, put the material directly in the hands of scientists who are very open.
The other day I brought to school parts of a voluminous work by one of the teacher’s of Fabre D’Olivet, a Frenchman named Court de Gébelin. In our classes we retain something of the struggle between Max Mueller and Andrew Lang and the sympathy is for Lang. And when one brought to the teacher a tome showing that much of the work with which we accredit Mueller and the Grimm Brothers before him had been done by Court de Gébelin that was accepted at once. Court de Gébelin being an “occultist” we are supposed to be silent about him; and the others being “scientists” we are supposed to discuss. Thus dieth a legend.
The day of joyous meeting with Ruth and my god-daughter showed an immediate after-effect when one was cross-questioned by some affluent people in Hollywood about Asian philosophies. I remember, just before leaving India last I was put on the block by a Pundit, who was also the Pundit of the Late Pundit Nehru. Nehru is not supposed to have a Pundit, so that’s that—here fortunately one has a lot of corroborating witnesses, but none of us have been effective socially. This man asked me to give a dissertation on the Bhagavad Gita. This was done immediately to his satisfaction and one had the repetition of something that happens all over the East, of being embraced or embracing people who do not demonstrate before Westerners.
The wisdom of the Orient is largely closed because on the one hand we have false secrecy and on the other hand it is presented by Western promotional methods. When Princess Poon Diskul came her I gained a hot of enemies, There was a large reception line for her and when she saw this member of the “ignorant mass” (“only in America”; where we preach democracy could this happen), Her Serene Highness forgot her serenity, forgot her dignity, forgot the proceedings by greeting one like a sister would greet a brother.
So one has to wait patiently until some people would accept the real wisdom of the real Orient who could present it without any flimflam or build-up or anything of the kind. And fortunately today there are others who know some elements of Asian wisdom by direct experience without any of the phony build-ups.
All of this keeps one very busy, very occupied and even though a half-hermit (outside the universities) very very much alive. As to the universities, by keeping away from those into whose hands one unfortunately fell previously one can walk across campuses today as if they were flower-gardens.
So I am going ever my poetry—whatever I have on hand, and under new impetus will create more verses for Ruth St. Denis which will be given to the world. Also I have been asked to join her inner circle and barring time (because of university courses) intend to join.
I may try to come to Marin County next weekend. I can’t the following because of functions here in San Francisco.
Even my god-daughter is a grandmother today. One expects that.
What I have to do in the poetical field is to get the inspirations down to small pieces. At times one feels like Benny Bufano and his massifs. We understand each other which is something. And one gets snatches of beautiful lines which by themselves might even be an American counterpart of the Haiku. I have not thought of writing them down, looking for subjects and connectives.
But as I said of Ruth St. Denis, the universe speaks to us, speaks in a basic art-form from which each of the separative arts are derived.
You have my prayers and best wishes,
Samuel L. Lewis
April 25, 1966
My dear Willie:
I am writing rather than telephoning. I suppose I was born for drama, have wished it and what is inimical to me is uncertainty, moroseness, gloom and futility more that oppositions to which by this time one becomes inured.
Recently my Uncle was here and we spent some time with my attorney. Elliott is continuing to lie and the cost of a content will fall on his shoulders, the amount being greater than anything I would be glad to settle form. And he is going around saying that I will not listen to reason when the truth is that at no time under any condition has he ever listened to anything coming from me. And the awkward thing is that now we may be able to impeach him, find him guilty of lying, etc. which would only increase his expenses without giving me much.
In any case any sort of settlement may mean departure from this country to go abroad to be engaged in somewhat vaster missions that in the past.
I am enclosing a letter to Howard Matson whom I like personally but like the majority of Americans he still must lean to personalisms and social amenities rather than to truth. And the awkward thing—which is referred to, is that as soon as one sent a paper to the scientists, it was accepted without question and I am told will be published in “Science,” the organ of our top scientists.
Not that there is anything new. I was called down for not speaking by our leading scientists just as I have been reproached for even attempting to speak. But this is characteristic of our culture at the present moment. And to be busily engaged in writing memoir for Asians does not reflect on our people.
Recently I had to go to Los Angeles to meet my first god-daughter, whom I had to “adopt” to protect before she married my than best friend. This marriage did not turn out and to avoid complexities I stayed away. We were brought together and our father-daughter relationship was not only renewed socially but we both found we were kindred spirits—in everything.
I took her immediately to Ruth St. Denis who has been looking for women to whom she might bestow her mantle and it was, in a sense, over before it started. Ruth wishes me to join her poetry and other groups. This is enhanced by a new friendship: one with Charles Garragus, the new poet-laureate of the State of California. We have both drunk from the same “wells of wisdom.” Ruth wants my poetry for her dance-patterns, and this is both wonderful and will require a lot of extra typing. There is more in this than meets the eye and I shall not go into it here.
A proposition was made to me which would require establishing a home in Hollywood as well as here, “commuting” this being paid. It is too soon to make any conclusion. Only so long as there are legal complexities one cannot readily leave the country.
The proposition is based on my knowledge being valid—and it is certainly valid in Asia. No doubt there was some animosity shown me by more local women when I became the guest of honor at an Asian celebration and the men crowded round me, waited on me, considered it an honor to be approached by me and none of them, following the Asian mores, paid any attention to these local American ladies. But the dowager in Hollywood is so disgusted with this play-game we must put on and she has made a counter proposal.
I am helped no doubt, by the social mores that the ideals of most of our American women have been certain affable men who wear the right clothes and make the right statements before audiences. These fronts are not only false, but they exclude other ladies who believe they have knowledge—and generally have it—who are also excluded.
In University classes it is exactly the opposite. Anybody with knowledge is permitted to present it and the rather “open forums” in the classes stand in utter contradiction to the publicized meetings which are labeled but never deal with real foreign problems. So you find in the class rooms expressions which you never encounter at public gatherings and these are the solace of one’s life.
Fortunately it will be an easy matter to use Ruth St. Denis’s picture to send it to all parts of the world to all kinds of big and not so big people whom I have met and with whom there are most cordial relations.
My god-daughter wishes to take me to Escondido sometime and I may telephone asking for Virginia’s address because we must might pass by on such a trip. I do not wish to interfere with whatever Virginia is doing.
The completion of my first memories will be followed immediately by recopying it for an American publisher and then another and so on. I feel that sooner or later “truth crushed to earth will rise again.” But I also feel I am following the footsteps of Jefferson, Emerson and Whitman as against the present trends of whomsoever.
Love,
April 28, 1966
My dear Aramdarya,
It is night and this is like a story or a series of stories. It is very hard to impress on people that only God exists and that we can listen to His Voice which comes constantly from within. Prayer may be the first step but actualization is needed before one reaches the goal, and there is an almost impenetrable barrier between those who pray and those who realize.
Last week I mentioned a book to my teacher is Japanese culture and she said “It would be wonderful, if only you could get in.” It was not on the catalogue at the library but the Voice of God is the Voice of God and not all the egos can stop it. I was led to the book. That was the first step. Then during the week I received through the mail some other books and in those books there was a summary and commentary on the other book. This shows that one has been and maybe is under the blessing of Divine Guidance.
Last night I took somebody to hear Musheraff and one of his mureeds spoke, a long dull intellectual ramble and most of the people did not come back. I was rather surprised tonight to find a large audience, quite different. Then I heard somebody ask, “Isn’t that Marion Boufait?” And I turned around and asked the same question and there was Marion, the same old Marion but older. And there were at least two women who had the Bayat from Rabia Martin which surprised me because I thought they had accepted Baba.
I brought with me the copy of Pir-o-Murshid’s first lecture, a lecture which has never been republished and the contents of which are not acceptable to those mureeds who have not had the deep mystical experience. There is no sense of arguing over this and understanding is understanding and mysticism is mysticism and not all the intellectual connivings of the wills of men will change this.
Tonight the Pir-o-Murshid spoke, a fine, loving talk and in it he mentioned several places where I have been but which the audience did not know. This played right into my hands and I told him about them. I did not called him Pir-o-Murshid but “Chacha” which means Uncle in Urdu. I called his wife, “Begum.” I gave her the lecture and she then introduced me around. After a while the Pir-o-Murshid and I had a short conversation and a very warm Sufi embrace.
Actually I look on him as an ancient child who needs love and tenderness and veneration who needs it rather than can give it. He is hardly the one to argue with or bring in any differences. But I would differ on his making distinctions between scientist and mystics. Why pick on the scientists? The greatest Murshid of Egypt is a scientist and engineer, something we seldom find in a woman and never before in a Murshida. This means the abandonment of the intellects and tomorrow I take another step forward to speaking before the intellectuals at the university. All that Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan told or advised or requested is coming to pass.
Musheraff has love and Vilayat has vitality. Musheraff appeals to the aged, those who seek refuge, not those who battle with life. Vilayat, however, was surrounded by the “wrong people” and his Uncle was not no unfortunate. There will probably be larger audiences at Manly Hall’s but whatever you may say or think Bob and Jelila are good material.
I did not see any good material here, for the persons who have vitality are either more concerned with Buddhism or some special path. There is the danger of confusing Divine Wisdom with books. But I doubt whether many Americans would understand some of the volumes without a teacher who has had the experiences involved. I am sorry for the bookstore which has invested so much money in Pir-o-Murshid’s books. They attract the metaphysical people. All the spiritual people of all schools get their books from another bookstore whose owner has the Divine Realizations.
In the meanwhile there is an increase of young people coming here and they have found that the methods used help them. Besides the secret is that God is the teacher and when pupils come it is easy to efface the ego and let the Divine speak through one. Besides I am very careful to follow exactly Pir-o-Murshid’s instructions for his teachers. “I am the Vine and ye are the branches thereof.” One takes every burden from every mureed and also the applicants and they respond warmly. Indeed I have to be very careful about organization. If I work independently I shall not use the term “Sufi.” But what causes others not to recognize this person? It becomes silly when you place it by what causes others to recognize this person? I was taught years ago how to measure the spirituality of everybody up to the grade I am in. It is very easy with practice.
At this point I was interrupted and is was late. So now it is morning and there is the sign to write to somebody else and enclose a copy.
Love and Blessing,
April 29, 1966
My dear Gavin:
Perhaps I should thank you for one series of events that has come into this life. One does not know how far he helps Ralph Silver or how far other factors entered into it but he has expressed appreciation in more ways than one and now it has become necessary to hold open house for inquirers in Sufism and practical meditation.
It is silly to waste time over one’s merits or abilities because while those who have never really investigated Oriental wisdoms have their opinions these are not the opinions of the Orientals themselves and there is increased exchange between real Asians and the writer on many levels.
No doubt the most important are the autobiographies covering events that even those close to me have shunned. But recently two persons have looked beyond the “veil”—there is nothing secret there, just an unwillingness to look. These are Jack Betts and Thea McInroe.
It was necessary to do something one has held off for years, to have some friend or near-friend share one’s pain. She had it and maybe she had to have it, to know in actuality the difference between pretense and knowledge, sham and reality.
If one had been unfortunate in running into University of California professors who turned one down cold, one can only say that these men have many enemies and when one turned from the social so-called “sciences” to the actual sciences, the results have been totally different. Now a number of departments of the University, several campuses, recognize one as an international errand boy, which he is.
Fritzi Armstrong tried to “show up” the writer by inviting the brother of Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan here. He is a nice lovable old man who belongs to the category of fine Neptunians whom the Western world regards as saints. They are not saints. Real saints have to go through terrific disciplines and hardships and then they manifest as they will manifest, regardless of public appreciation or disgust.
Even if Americans had accepted this man or anybody else as a standard Sufi, it is certain that the Persians, Turks, Pakistanis, Hindus and Arabs accept the writer.
The other thing which has happened is the completion of spiritual understanding between Ruth St. Denis and the writer. This covers a long series of episodes over many years. One goes to dedicate her picture to Lord Buddha Sunday, after which copies will be made and sent all over the world as a gesture toward and one hopes, to World Peace.
Faithfully,
May 7, 1966
My dear Tsil-Tsil:
Sometimes one awakens as if the Spirit of the University were speaking to one and when it does it is full of Wisdom and empty of self-conceit. It is not easy to learn that certain types of human beings neither include nor exclude excellences of kindness, wisdom, beauty, or any virtue. And you now have a problem, and it has been before, that elderly ladies are not necessarily better or worse than any other class. True, Vocha and Mrs. Berrenberg are the very best of friends I have in this country but this is independent of their new being elderly woman and the spirit that manifests in each of them is independent of ego, body or any particular thing.
A very hard lesson to learn is the identity of Joy and Pain at a certain level. I have mentioned my “young sister” who is Teddi Schleicher, Lake St. Altadena whose beauty is independent of externals but connected with the spirit of wisdom. And I wrote but did not mail Onelove and Twolove.
This itself was stimulated by going over Nyogen’s last lecture. Which is the basis of his bequest. The strange obtaining of the writings of Sokei-an Sasaki and Nyogen Senzaki within a few days of each other also awakened something more than memory. This is called Ala Ya in Mahayana Buddhism (it is functional in Sufism but not so named or else called “Occultism”). Whatever has been is one’s past and present and perhaps future, too, becomes clear before one. If you want to call it the “Looking Glass World,” do so. It is timeless and spaceless yet also with a time and space.
A tremendous amount of goodness is vanity and if one were to chide you it is because you have faced the same situations in the past and not learned the lesson. It is very hard to overcome that kindness, friendship, beauty, and all virtues do not belong to any particular class or group or are excluded from any particular class or group.
At the easiest level Nyogen’s last lecture was on “Breathing with the Poet” and this was the basis for my lesson last night. It is very important for it contains the nexus of “my” program for the little ones, sick or well, and can be elucidated at length and also can be pin-pointed.
When Sam was snubbed by true various Buddhists here he was glad to get out to use the needed time. Now he is called in because they cannot deliberate the Law of Karma. This has made one feels very dualistic about all churches, sects, priests and what not, again confirmed by Senzaki’s last lesson.
It is easy to wish to obtain God-consciousness or Salvation or Bliss, and to declare one can or must do it independently. But this is not the law of the universe. It is well to become free from dependences but it may be impossible to become free from interdependence. This is what is meant by “Sangha” in Buddha’s teachings.
In class the other day the teacher supported one’s contention that Buddhism does not necessarily have any connection with Lord Buddha at all. The Christian teacher urged we learn from Buddha but believes Christians have nothing to learn from “Buddhism” which he did not teach anyhow.
I am an inheritor today of many spiritual treasures by default. The treasure of Shaku Soyen became mine because nobody else picked it up. Mrs. Ruth Sasaki and Nyogen Senzaki independently urged to Four Vows above all else. Sam was put on the Four Vows years ago by his Sufi Teacher after the Sufi Teacher accepted them from Nyogen Senzaki. The impossible becomes the Norm and the Norm becomes the impossible. This is the meaning of Dharma.
Besides those treasures by default there have been direct treasures. The Twolove people reject this person. As to the Onelove people, they do not see destinations and differences and the Onelove people are today fighting against the Twolove. You have had to suffer in and from the Twolove people. You have this experience before but it is too deep ingrained in us to abandon it. The Twolove brings something we call “love” but does not bring joy, peace or release. And we cannot have them because we are them. The verb of the Twolove people is “have” and the verb of the Onelove people is “be.” These are our two most common verbs and we do not realize their import.
It has taken some time to rewrite is letter for one changes or is changed as one writes.
The greatest external “victory” besides the “breathe with the feet” is the paper on “Ten Stages of Consciousness.” This also has been rejected by everybody but one Buddhist. That is enough. Today slowly more young people come to one so there is little time to face the Twolove people who are just everybody anyhow. The end of “The Light of Asia” is “The dewdrop melts into the shiny sea.” This is the Onelove.
A so-called great teacher once asked, “Sam, can you feel my pain?” A “Yes” startled him and he never challenged again. But could one ask him, “Do feel my pain?” No. Declaring himself the deliverer he wanted others to share his burdens. The Bodhisattva is the burden-sharer. You have had to “Kwan Yin” the hard way. I shall be able to “Kwan Yin” a lot of ways this coming week after the picture is ready.
To have five types of claustrophobia in one afternoon is a terrible experience and one type is that it comes from the “good”—a lesson you had before, a very hard lesson.
The other day I had a wonderful time with a cripple getting into the lip of a single Cymbidium. The next day I conversed with two students at another college and we all realized the wisdom of “The Flower in the Crannied Wall.” I then said to them, “You have learned more Zen in a few moments then in all the books you have read. They understand the Onelove. A lot of young people understand the Onelove, most elders only understand the Twolove. It is wonderful we are moving to an age of Onelove.
Love and blessing,
S.A.M.
May 7, 1966
Dear Art:
L. S. D.
For long years I thought this referred to the British financial system but I understand that the British are going duodecimal or technological or electronic—in other words, Queen Victoria is dead.
I have just received acknowledgement that my money has been accepted so I can attend this conference. I used to pay moneys to attend conferences and the money would be returned. This was particularly true of all conferences on “Asia,” that grand sublime area of subjective formulation, or the magnification of Swift’s “Laputa,” easily reached in this space age.
Accumulating funds because people returned my checks I buddy-buddied with the top of a graduate school at Berkeley who told me that the egoist was one who would not listen and not the one who boasts. Well after a while the top scientists came to Berkeley and I kept my mouth shut. Whereupon this top and his associates gave me a mauling, thrashing, switching and call-down for keeping quiet. So we decided so long as we would get a call-down anyhow we might as well open our big mouths.
But I am writing for a different reason. Do you want the low-down?
In India I am a top Yogi.
In the Far East I am a Zen Master.
In the Near East I am a Sufi Dervish.
Here I am a low-down kike!
But … so is Alan Ginsberg who is going to be one of the teachers. And considering the price of entertainment it is worth it.
The idea of permitting someone to talk on real Asia philosophy because he knows them and is not an “expert” may be new. However I don’t know which side I am on, excepting I do not believe that our doctors, legislators and traditionalists know what they are talking about.
Thus, you can get the low-down without paying for admission or wasting your valuable time. (To be continued, no doubt.)
Samuel L. Lewis
May 7, 1966
My dear Gavin:
I am enclosing copy of a letter to Art Hoppe which is a long, round-about way of a forthcoming confrontation between Allen G. and myself but a confrontation does not mean an argument or debate.
My basic position was based on the teaching of Sokei-an Sasaki especially on his “Ten Stages of Consciousness” and from that one went on to understand the different ranges of Indian teaching.
There is an incident or rather it refers to a series of incidents on the Berkeley campus where certain worthies hold that not he who boasts is the egotist but he that refused to listen to others. We have had centuries of people claiming to follow Galileo who act like members of the Inquisition.
Because of refusals to take my checks in former years, it has been necessary to take long round-about routes, gaining first the ears and then the friendships of some of the big men not in the science departments. In the scientific departments one has never encountered ego-road-blocks.
Last week Sam received his legacy from Nyogen Senzaki which included, among other things, that monk’s views on “Ten Stages of Consciousness.” LSD may raise one one step, one doubts if it be more. The power-structure is afraid of any freedom which removes humanity from its control.
This time—and even it has required a lot of patience, one can bring in his own experiences or contacts and one does not have to be concerned any more with refusals to let one speak. This does not mean that one’s point of view will predominate. That does not matter. What matters is that one’s materials will be give consideration. I don’t know whether you intend to attend these sessions or not. If not I shall be glad to keep you informed.
May 11, 1966
My dear Thea:
I am sorry but sometimes it is necessary to get tough. I am not too sure of my dead-lines at all. Even if I make them it is at the cost of my manuscripts and so of my income.
Getting Nyogen Senzaki’s papers both made it harder and confirmed a behavior pattern. In this country we do not show respect for age or wisdom which would not so had, but we have respect for the words “respect for wisdom” which makes it worse. If we had out and out disrespect it would not be so bad.
My present revolution came when my friend trained in Tibetan Buddhism came here and was given the brush-off. This was absolutely contrary to Buddhist scriptures—but who reads the scriptures? Religion is a matter of social respect, prestige and self-righteousness and you can go from one to another and it is not much different.
The whole presentation of Shaku Soyen has come into my hands, mostly by default. Now in a Zen sense I am taking a stick and going to whack those who think they respect the use of the stick but if you use the stick and particularly if you are an American they are shocked.
Sunday night, which was occupied by need of others, compelled me to use disrespect and I regret to say it was successful. One lady whom I have known a long, long time has suddenly veered when I called her off. One of the “Zen Masters” who has shown nothing but disrespect for both the Tibetan Buddhist and myself became suddenly warm when he found I did not even greet him. I greeted everybody else. Why could I greet him? I had a Dharma-transmission from his teacher’s teacher and do you think any of our dear friends, and I mean dear friends here without sarcasm, have any respect for one who was “initiated” by their teacher’s teacher?
No doubt this is the inheritance from Alan Watts but why pick on one man? Right out under their noses I was selected by the Grand Master of Korea almost as #1 man and the Buddhist as #2 man. Did this change anything?
Senzaki sometimes cleaned his Zendos of everybody. He kicked everybody out. A few of us knew what this was.
For the first time also I got respect from an elderly lady and my sin is that she knew me from my “teens.” This can never be atoned for.
I go to class soon. In the classes they do not have long sermons on morality, spirituality and human behavior. They let a person report, and their respect and response is growing because Puck who says he has all the answers (but no questions) has been found to have a lot of answers.
I am down to the wire in one project with no assurance of success at all. Only hard work. I have to do some heavy study in a second one. In a third one the intuition has been so operative I am safe. But not for long for as I told you two of my closest men-friends are coming here.
This afternoon I have to pick up the pictures of Ruth St. Denis but I am going to be a whole month behind in distributing them. And when I do that I am going to bawl hell out of Haridas.
I have to prepare for Bill’s coming and this is a must in my heart. Then for Dr. Oliver Reiser and I am going to face a hostile audience which has refused to let me speak. But this morning and in school there are most favorable audiences when I can speak whenever there is anything to say. A person who has been to a holy mountain in Japan and to the Imperial Gardens is tired of being shoved aside by people who cannot even fathom how this was done.
Then next month the LSD conference and it is no game. It is a most serious undertaking and while you read this you may not appreciate not only dead-lines and examination but the completion of materials for class.
You have been very appreciative and you can do me a favor so easy it is absolutely nothing and yet it is a great favor—go to the Far East cafe with me Saturday for lunch. On the surface it looks like a spree, but underneath it is one of the most deadly battles you can imagine. That is why, unless you telephone to the contrary, I would like to see you Friday night after class—this might be any time after 9, but probably around ten. And if you cannot see me late Friday night or go with me on Saturday please let me know. The reason for seeing you is to pull the lid off of what looks a mystery—it is not, but too long to write about here. There are some very “nice” people here who are doing more to prevent international understanding than we can imagine. And the pictures of Ruth St. Denis are going to cause them to lose face, and how! You will see Puck in action and no nonsense.
Love,
May 15, 1966
My dear Aramdarya:
I am purposely sending a copy of this to Marion. It is written in the hope it will give you hope. And when we quote St. Paul: “Now abideth, Faith, Hope and Love, these three” we come into another world, a world whose values cannot be very well expressed by words. Or rather a world for which our heritage does not supply words.
There is a sort of revolution going on privately and it may even be that this private revolution becomes united with one or more of the public revolutions. All these revolutions spring out of a theme something like Jesus Christ’s, “Ye must be born again.” The power structures, whatever they be, whomsoever they represent are very much afraid of a great awakening of Life itself.
There is a gross misunderstanding, and it is deliberate, of what is going on at the University of California in Berkeley. To begin with while Astrologers have been predicting the coming of the Aquarians, their Piscean egos revolt as much against the manifestation of the Aquarians as anybody. The young simply do not and cannot act as their elders.
The greatest examples of it comes when you get close to those people. They are heart-hungry and the world has no way of helping that heart-hunger. Pir-o-Murshid has said that we must balance power with beauty. The devil comes along and repeats these words and so people who have neither power nor beauty are misled, using the empty-shell words. But it was only a little bit with Marion that the revolution of Jemaliyat (Beauty) came into manifestation. Only it is much harder to verbalize the experiences in Beauty (Jemal) than in power (Jelal) because we are a Power-civilization, not a Beauty-civilization.
The best revolutionaries I know are in Beauty-structures. Some ignore the Power-structures and some fight them. This last week, led by intuition, I went on an errand to an Art-school. Verbally it was unnecessary because the Teacher is also a Wise (in the oriental sense) man, that is a Beauty-man covered with Power and so in balance.
I had hoped then to bring copies of the picture of Ruth St. Denis, as enclosed, and it went well. For I found myself in the midst of real spiritual seekers and students far, far younger than self in years who had had the same aesthetic awakening. At this school there are spiritual strivers, in the silence-sense. The heart rapport was astonishingly great and objectified both what Marion and Hazel said to Samuel when last in Hollywood. It is certain that one finds more and more such people. They have no outlet.
There is a different sort of revolt going on it is also among the aesthetes only they have been noisy and they are anti-social. They are anti-social in entirely different ways than the Marxists for they are strongly individualistic and read and shout but in their own ways.
I have watched both the Beatnik and Beatle revolutions with tolerance because I had been a reject. The difference is that the Beatniks took refuge in going backward, the Beatles in going forward, but in either case the direction is unknown.
These people are organizing the LSD conference next month, but the organizers are friends of mine and being friends, this one will not be shut out. One was preparing a paper on “The Ten Stages of Consciousness” and after writing on it to the university one received copy of Nyogen Senzaki’s paper on the same thing. This makes it “official.” But nearly everybody is afraid of the “The Stages of Consciousness” or anything or anybody that brings rebirth in any direction.
I feel very awkward today after the visit of Vilayat and Musheraff, that instead of their being union and communion everybody wants to lead. The difference is that Samuel was publicly ordained as a Murshid, and otherwise, and instructed to lead by men who have God-consciousness and the relatives, no matter how noble, received neither their inspirations or ordinations “from God.” They are self-imposing like others.
We may read the scriptures about the “fruits of spirit” such as Joy, Love, Healing power, communality, etc. The Pisceans like to read and the Aquarians like to experience. As the Pisceans, pretending, do not have the Knowledge, or Wisdom, the young go off in directionless direction. If one can give them direction it is different.
The Greyhound strike confirmed a certain intuition but if I come south soon it will be by air anyhow. It is impossible to select a date now. There are examinations and they are supported by some necessary research. A whole lot of Pir-o-Murshid’s material is going into this research along with other items. And one has already written, for submission, a paper on “The Ten Stages of Consciousness.”
Pir-o-Murshid used to say of one Murshida, “She knows the teachings intellectuality” and of another, “She is the Message.” Unfortunately this did not come into manifestation. Everybody is the Message if we believe in our prayers. Most people do not. And I am prodding Leland because he has dared to accept a position in the Sufi Movement for which, as you saw, he is not qualified. There is not humility, no curiosity, and this is compounded because neither is there any great moral fault. Only he cannot become as a little child and the world has to learn that we have to become like children to enter the Kingdom of heaven.
The communication by joy dominates the efforts with the young and they are successful. I have abandoned all persons who wish to follow Musheraff or Vilayat just as I have abandoned practically all the Buddhists. As to Yoga-systems this is done by illustration and my bluffs, if you wish to call them that, are based on fact and experience. The question is how to transfer the facts and experiences to others. Again this is through love, through attunement, through listening to the Divine Voice which constantly comes from within. People do not listen and to be saved all they have to do is listen. It is pretty hard to communicate this in words; it is so easy to communicate it by love-joy.
Love and blessing,
May 15, 1966
Dear Gavin and Ellen:
You will find enclosed coy of picture of my “fairy-Godmother.” Directly or indirectly she is responsible, in a sense for my whole “Libra” existence, as against my Virgo career.
She it was who brought the Sufi teachers to this land and at the same time she did so much for poetry and has the complete understanding of what in other days belonged to the “mysteries.”
This picture is being sent to many in the hope of promoting world peace and understanding.
God has preserved her years in order to enable her to bring a certain “Message” so to speak, that love and beauty and wisdom are inherent in the universe itself.
Faithfully,
May 24, 1966
Dear Gavin:
Enclosed is copy of one of my reports for a class on Folk-Lore. “We have to turn in a hundred reports and these can cover anything from sex humor to rituals to superstitions, to games, to dances, etc.
I do not agree to many of the statements made in the text-books and while going over the chapter on Astrology which is considered as Superstition, turned in the report which concerns yourself. This report will go ultimately to a supervising board which collects Folk-Lore from all over the world.
Expect to have to face examination today, but have turned in about 150 reports, thus well over the presumed minimum. Hope you accept these remarks.
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
May 28, 1966
Bodhisattva:
On Monday evening, May 30, there will be an informal opening or rather re-opening of the Mentorgarten at this address. It will be a combination of open house, lecture explanation, meditation and instruction.
The immediate subject will be the explanation of the “Psychologies of the Devas” as presented in the “Chhandogya Upanishad.” This is one of a number of informal talks with meditation and instruction being offered to a few. This arose because of the growing number of young people encountered who feel that there is more than the immediate consciousness and who have either been disgruntled or dissatisfied with what has been offered to them to date.
The Mentorgarten was an institution started in San Francisco by Sagaku Shaku and Nyogen Senzaki, disciples of Shaku Soyen. This recognized teacher was the first to introduce Zen Buddhism into the country. His methods, his philosophy and his writings have since been discarded and those that have been substituted have not always resulted in the experiences of Joy, Inner Awakening or Wisdom.
This age is one of Science which means that knowledge is to be built on human experience. Human experience is required by scientists and scientists respect one another. In the field of potential consciousness it is very different: humane experience is not respected or accepted by different religionists and metaphysicians. Thus they divide the world and increase confusion.
Thus human respect is a potential in the sciences and it is accepted as a Moral. But in other aspects of life it is regarded as an idea to be praised but not practiced. Therefore many are lead into confusion because if they have new or strange experiences in the universe of consciousness they are regarded as abnormal. And the next step is that even with the overthrow of Puritanism there has not been the proper increment or realization of Joy.
The present controversy of Psychedelics, LSD, and other subjects has produced an ever increasing confusion because to begin with there are no clear definitions.
Man is resorting to artificial rather than natural means of extending his consciousness and his experience of Joy.
There is no clear distinction between “artificial” and “natural.”
People of today are all analysts and those who have self-realization have not been given equal opportunity to explain the Universe from the standpoint of experience.
There is great misunderstanding of “higher wisdom” which is based on freedom, and there is a great deal of confusion between “discipline” and freedom especially from those who have not submitted to disciplines—which are very different from their explanations by the dominant ignorant.
Walt Whitman declared: “The efflux of the soul is happiness.” The previous generations, charmed by words, regarded this as a proverb or aphorism. The rising generations—or if you will, the Aquarians, demand, and it is their right, some experience, not some explanation.
Moses came to deliver from the House of Bondage and has been respected only historically. Jesus began with the Beatitudes which are recipes for Joy. Buddha illuminated people by their mere coming into his presence. But Buddhists have substituted the wish-fulfillment of prayer for the experience of ever-expanding delight.
The Mentorgarten will not be a competitor of existing groups. Those who wish to have long meditations may go elsewhere. To those who are ignorant of Zen, and most of us are, there are Five-Minute Zen and One-Minute Zen, the latter being most difficult and seldom practicable excepting to those who are able to sustain Two-Hour Zen.
Zen Masters touch the value of every moment, and that this can be done without interfering with daily life, even sleep, and is demonstrable.
The Mentorgarten will offer instructions in all religions, in particular those portions know as “mystical” and “occult.” It will not offer much Esotericism for this is reserved for disciples only. Those who wish to become disciples will be welcomed but this is not a school for Discipleship, it is a school like the opening of the ancient Egyptian Mysteries, into the “Entrance of Joy.”
There will be a meeting on Monday June 6, and another only on June 20, but none during the week of June 13-18 when the session on “Psychedelics” takes place on the campus of the University of California.
Doctrines unsupported by human experience will not be discussed. Doctrines supported by human experience will be discussed. The present presentation of materials from the Upanishads is incidental to the subject of greater realization of Joy.
Questions will not be limited to any range of occultism or mysticism, not in any direction.
There is a current underlying theme from the last lecture of the late Nyogen Senzaki, “How to Breathe with Your Feet.” The writer studied Dharma with Nyogen Senzaki intermittently only but the results will appear in forthcoming autobiographical sketches.
The inability for Buddhists of the present day to comprehend non-age, the lack of mutual respect in other schools of presumable and purported inner teachings impel one to this effort. In an age of science words should be accompanied by exemplification.
This is neither an alternative to nor a substitute for Psychedelics. Although many schools teach in theory the existence of many planes of existence and although they are posited by all the Great Religions, they are not part of religion and have not been for some time.
The writer has as his goal the explanation of “The Ten Stages of Consciousness” which was first taught verbally by Sokei-an Sasaki. It was followed by a conscious realization of most of these stages of consciousness and was accepted and respected by the later Phra Sumangalo. It was his suggestion years ago to restore the Mentorgarten that this step is now being undertaken.
Every attempt will be made to avoid the tyranny-of-words and to some extent the tyrannies-of-ego-thoughts. But no attempt will be made to restrict anybody to any form of Dharma-transmission, Zen or otherwise. The increased capacity for Joy and the increased realization of Joy give increased potentiality for self-expression, in other words we move toward Spiritual Liberty.
While everybody is invited, especial attention is being given to the young who are confused and in revolt, their confusion being based mostly on inner intuition. The Zen schools operating at the present time have underscored Prajna which is only badly translated as “Wisdom” or “Insight.” We have no term to cover experiences restricted to a few.
But even Prajna without Love, Joy and Self-Fulfillment is not enough. Those who wish to follow Zen studies will be directed to the Zen school and those who wish to follow other Buddhistic studies will be directed to the Buddhist schools.
Those who may become interested in Sufism or in one of many types of Yoga may receive instructions here. By Yoga is meant Union-with-God and not unsubtle (as distinguished from “subtle”) means.
There is no substitute for realization but realization itself.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
S. A. M.
Superstition (?)
Gavin Arthur
(Chester Arthur III,)
Born about 1906,
Colorado Springs, Colorado
“We may look for the deaths of Presidents elected every twenty years. This happened to Harrison, Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Harding and F.D. Roosevelt and will happen to Jack Kennedy.” Told first even before 1960 and repeated in 1962 after my return from abroad.
Gavin Arthur is an astrologer and follower of Karl Jung. His grandfather was President of the United States after the assassination of Garfield. He first foretold this in 1960 when he predicted that whosoever was selected in that year would not fulfill his term of office.
He repeated the prediction at least ten times in my presence and certainly stated it to others. He had received some fame for other endeavors (history, writing, general knowledge).
He has visited the White House or Presidents or members of their families on numerous occasions and has been consulted by them as to their horoscopes. The percentages of correct prediction are far, far higher than those of Meteorologists in regard to the weather. He believes Astrology is science and supports it by the high efficiency of his predictions.
Samuel L. Lewis
772 Clementina St
San Francisco 3, Calif.
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
May 30, 1966
My dear Sharab:
So many times letters have been started, never completed, and now away from home a sort of selective outline is written not for the sake of self but to show that there is a Divine Message and that its principles operate, even inexorably, and personality has nothing to do with it. The Great American Drama (drama as opposed to “Tragedy”) was Hawthorne’s “Great Stone Face” which reveals the American habit of looking always to outside personality to determine affairs by outside personality and although using the word “liberty,” “democracy,” “justice” and “truth” paying little attention to the substance thereof.
In going over the Gathas there was the story of Balder and this illustrates what I mean: the handsome, Teutonic figure who is almost without blemish but who in the end is murdered. The combination of Balder, Siegfried, Galahad and other folk-heroes does not only not solve any problems but as we are so fixated with this Archetype we are losing not only our integrity but even going to our downfall.
Most of the outbreaks on the university campus are protects against this. It has been observed that what the young people want is honesty and integrity. As no newspaper can possibly adhere to this the reports on the campus doings, especially at Berkeley, have been so utterly falsified. There is a new generation which will not decide on externals, which does not like our shibboleths, does not see any substance in maxims or aphorisms and who are seldom interviewed individually or collectively. They have no relation to any communist movement because they want more and more freedom and know that they will not get it under any government control. But “we” believe the press, “we” believe the commentators, “we” believe the news and one Christ or a thousand Christs may attack the Scribes and Pharisees and the Scribes and Pharisees will join in the attack, in anything so long as they can remain in control.
Last week for the first time a clergyman said he was willing to give an interview. I wrote that I was going to write once more on “The Farewell of Another Lafcadio Hearn.” Hearn was a newspapers man, a real ugly ugly American, who could not even hold a job because of his complete lack of social niceties. In the end he fled to Japan, married a native, became a Buddhist and Japanese citizen and wrote some of the most delightful and most honest material that ever came from that land. And he has illustrated in full what I have indicated. But since April I so many things have happened one can only outline.
On the surface I am taking a trip in part to get material for a family lawsuit. There is no need to go into details but when settled one will pick up stakes and leave this country for a long, long time. Like Hearn this person is admired abroad and perhaps more than admired, and a lot of people who are admired here because they are supposed to have some understanding of “Oriental Wisdom” have not only no standing in the Orient but are loathed. The Chinese communists invaded Vietnam by infiltration to “save” the Buddhists from American-Beatnik-Buddhism led by people who are socially acceptable and presentable though they know next to nothing of the Orient.
The protestations of my late friend, Robert Clifton, who was a real Buddhist admired by the real Buddhists of real Asia, found little acceptance here. He was an Ugly American, not a nice, presentable social character. We are fighting an endless war because as a Nation we ignored this Lafcadio Hearn and we are going to have more wars because we will continue to ignore the Lafcadio Hearns and accept the Siegfrieds. We are so bound with ignorance and superstition it is pitiable.
Through the years I have been collecting Ugly Americans as friends. Prof. Burdick who wrote the book with this title has refused to meet any of us. The fiction of presentable people always dominates the facts of people not so presentable; but God is now taking over.
Early in the year this person was attacked in public by somebody in the “name of the Masters of the Far East.” Then came a regular presentation of real Masters of the real Far East. Several are still around; others are travelling in the country. As a gesture to the real people of real Vietnam we have restored the pilgrimage to the Buddha in Golden Gate Park. None of the “experts” were present, but somebody in the State Department has discovered the real purpose, to show our friendship with the real people of real Vietnam.
You can be sure with all the debates on people’s dreams which they call “Vietnam” no Vietnamese has been called to the platform by anybody. On the one hand the politicians of the State Department, and on the other hand the anti-politicians who want to destroy the “establishment.” Anything will do for a basis of argument. Nobody among them cares a whoop for the real people of real Southeast Asia.
But there are a lot of Ugly Americans and I shall see some on the university campuses to be visited. In April this person went with heavy heart to the conference of American Professors of Asian Studies. The chair was late. When he walked in: “Hello Dick!” “Hello Sam.” Then the program was turned over to Prof. Robinson of Wisconsin, the leading disciple of the Robert Clifton mentioned above, and the university is having a summer school on the real philosophies of the real Orient. And I can assure you that Prof. Robinson is a most outstanding critic of all the nice Englishmen, Frenchmen and Germans who have been going around the country telling us about the “Orient.” That day is over.
In August there will be a real conference on real Buddhism. In September there will be a conference on the world’s faiths and this person will be one of the speakers on Sufic doctrine. And in June we shall again have the prayers of All Nations. They will be useless—so long as we pray to God instead of with God we cannot have the peace. The Healing Service has the key to a real peace, but we separate ourselves from God and from each other and this is the deterrent to Peace.
On the same day my mother died and I was recalled to Asia. There will be a contest over my mother’s will—I’ll not go into that. But there is a justice in the universe, there is both the operation of karma and Grace, and this person is being recalled to Asia to be looked after by a very wonderful, noble, beautiful and spiritual god-daughter who has also been financially and socially very successful, praise to God.
The publication of Pir-o-Murshid’s writings have lead to a movement to use these as the basis of a sort of “scientific study of Sufism” which may be included in university curriculum and I have been recalled as a sort of professor-murshid therefore. One thing has been noticed, that there is a great deal of difference between the professional Murshids and this one and it is same as above. The professional Murshids are often very “nice,” socially presentable people with large followings. They do have a lot of wisdom and interior knowledge but they lack the forms of “magnetism” explained in the book on this subject. This person has never taken magnetism from anybody and tries to give it, and this has been noticed abroad if not here. And so one has to follow the career of Lafcadio Hearn.
But this is not a tragedy. After attending the early sessions of the professors of Asian Studies, this person was present at a discussion of Indian literature. A Prof. Singer of Chicago, a top Orientalist, asked a complex question. Nobody on the panel could answer the question. The chair turned to the audience and in the midst of our top Orientalists this person answered to the entire satisfaction of some of our elite scholars. Present also was Consul-General Menon of India. He had been present in January when the Deputy Leader of the Congress Party came to San Francisco and pointed this person out as the man he had come 5000 miles to meet. It was so, though I knew the audience would never accept it. So Samuel has been invited to visit the University of Chicago, which will be done, inshallah, after his legal problems are settled.
In the meanwhile the New World University of Delhi, headed by the aforesaid Deputy, Shri Surendra Ghose, has progressed and it has for its purpose exactly what Pir-o-Murshid wanted for his Universal Brotherhood. It is interesting to see how people, judging by niceties and externals, reject, and in the end they reject nothing for as Pir-o-Murshid said, “The Message is in the sphere.” Some in Europe still adhere to personality, but this is of no accord. “The stone which is rejected is become the corner-stone.”
So one stands as elder brother and champion of a lot of people who have lived and booked in South and S.F. Asia, all admired by Asians, all rejected by society, but as we have the knowledge, if not the wisdom, step by step “we” control the universities if not the press and government and the Message of God will spread far and wide but not necessarily by those who think they hold the reins. Nobody holds any reins. God alone is.
The same is true of research. My family rejected, and that has been about the end of the rejection. There is no need to go into any detail. There is a new type of man, for which you can find the key in the “Story of Lot” in “The Unity of Religious Ideals.” They do not operate as the generality, and there is no time to go into detail. One cannot compel people to study the Message or to withdraw from external niceties. Only the karma comes therefrom. The government has taken the place of God to fight other governments which have taken the place of God and each calls each other diabolic. So we are in Orwell’s 1984, and the karma is reflected in internal tragedies in both China and America and will increase, and it is easy to see more tragedies are upon us because “we” presume to control the affairs of the world and the destinies of God’s children.
If we would read the fine print even in the early writings of Pir-o-Murshid we could understand things much better. The long struggle for integration in the South has overlooked an equal struggle for spiritual and intellectual integration with Orientals. The Vietnamese have not been permitted to speak on their country by the same audiences who did not let any Chinese speak on China. Communists and anti-communists wish to get at each other’s throats. Excitement and drama are more important than truth and this will continue until our financial and personal losses mount and mount.
I feel almost like going to the UN meetings as a Sufi with a painted placard: “Keep on praying for peace and arming men. Why doesn’t God answer?” or “The prayers of the other faiths are of no avail.”
I have been writing on the difference between the angel-man and the saint. This will not be popular. The angel-man is always appealing, seemingly considerate, charming and outwardly magnetic and does not accomplish much. The typical Galahad has appeared in our times in Krishnamurti who has been successful in convincing metaphysical people that mystical experiences are unimportant or impossible. He is coming more and more under fire in India and has lost his position in California. Which does not mean there will not be more and more Krishnamurtis in the future.
Christ selected several men, none of whom, excepting possibly John, has the angelic virtues but all had the saintly experience. In the Gathas in the second series, I believe on Symbology (am not sure), Pir-o-Murshid brings out the idea of fruitfulness and explains in his own way the saying of Jesus, “By their fruits ye shall know them.” The paper was sent to India where there are so many “Avatars,” each mutually exclusive. Copy was sent to the Vedanta Mission in Hollywood where I should be visiting shortly.
The teachings of Pir-o-Murshid are everywhere for accomplishments and for society everywhere for “nice characters.” Diplomacy leads us deeper and deeper into war and uncertainties. Peace-makers are not wanted, just writers who can emotionalize in this subject. In order to help one’s country toward peace it is necessary to accost foreign signatories and then they write the State Department. There will be more of that this coming month. But in all things, especially the three basic principles of the Sufi Movement, one sees the objectification today. God moves through whom He will and where He will and as He will. He has His representatives on earth who do not draw their behavior-patterns from the generality. One can be in the midst of saints and not know it; one can be beguiled or a host can be beguiled and history does not record the names of the beguilers.
After September I hope to lay down a schedule. Tentatively it seems a crossing of the U.S., then to England, the Near East and South Asia. One lives because there is the Divine Impetus to live. One “sees” because Insight is the norm of the Sufi. One knows and by knowing greets others who know in brotherhood. The last words of the Korean Sage at the Buddha Celebration were “Christ and Buddha are One.” The sage and this person are close. The other Sages are closed. The spiritual leaders of all faiths quickly agree. The followers do not.
Nothing is particular secret or sacred here. The other stories can be told later.
Love and blessings,
Samuel L. Lewis
June 6, 1966
My dear Gavin:
Within this month the stars will come down in this apartment. It may be symbolic that this will be the end of the night. What steps are taken will be by what is called Prajna in Mahayana literature. I do not expect others to understand Prajna but expect myself to follow it.
Last week the Mentorgarten was reestablished. This was the first institution in America to offer Zen, Universal Buddhism and Universal Religion. After Nyogen Senzaki left here his disciples asked me to re-establish it, and there was a long complex, which I shall relate below, and now it is being re-established.
I have found, to my surprise, that the executor of Nyogen Senzaki’s will said that he left some objects and lessons for the Mentorgarten and now automatically they will come into these hands. I myself have offered some of Senzaki’s materials. I did give them to one person who repaid me by denying the fact. This is silly and shows how little some people respect karma and in the end there will be a karmic payment for them.
The immediate reason for restoring Mentorgarten was the present conflict over Psychedelic drugs. There are two themes which will be offered: “Joy without Drugs” and “The Ten States of Consciousness.” These themes arose cut of the problems placed before me by those who have resorted to drugs, LSD and otherwise, and found limited Joy, and restricted Joy.
It is with these people I propose to work and not with older people who think they have studied religion (which they have not) and been devotees (which they have). It is far more important to be a devotee but in this scientific age it is important also to know what one is taking about. In general the scientific students of religion accept and the non-scientific “experts” reject, which is all right.
I am seeking only the young and if too many old people come I shall discontinue or discipline them. No attempts are made to discipline the young; they are seekers.
The immediate problem is, of course, the use or non-use of drugs and I am not attacking the latter per se. I have not used drugs. I do attack the drug addicts on one ground—they wish recognition for themselves for their experiences and they deny this to others who have attained “visions” by other methods. So long as there is any rejection one has the right to reject and one expects some rejections from the drug-users. But if they are really open, then one will come out and present the “Ten States of Consciousness” as above. This was learned originally from Sokei-an Sasaki long, long ago. Till now it was generally rejected by those who were not there. But after thirty five years one can report that the First Zen Institute in New York accepts that one sat with Sokei-an and learned from him and the lessons he gave are now in the outer consciousness anyhow. That is why one wants the young, they will accept facts. The old are too full of opinions for facts.
While it is a curious fact that some people refuse to accept that this person sat at the feet, so to speak, of Nyogen Senzaki and Sokei-an Sasaki, a more complex situation comes out of my relation with the late Phra Sumangalo, Robert Clifton. He and I spent long hours in discussion in this room and recently I had the chairs repainted. Now these are going to be called “sacred chairs” some day and they will be left to some Buddhist teacher or sangha here in San Francisco.
The basic problem discussed with Robert was the South Vietnam complex. We are fighting a long and exhausting war because each of us has been rejected by our own culture and accepted by other cultures. It is impossible to exaggerate this but he had more rejections than myself and died essentially of a broken heart. If I were to get personal, his life was snuffed out by people whom you hate and you would recognize this at once. But this does not clarify the situation that our culture has refused and refused adamantly to recognize the Buddhism of Vietnam or those people whom Eugene Burdick described in Sarkhan. There is almost nothing in Sarkhan that did not occur in the joint lives of Robert Clifton and Sam Lewis.
Robert was soft and died and Sam was tough and lived. But the same ironical theme continues and 200 years from now we shall know that the Vietnam complex arose out of our being rejected by our culture. This was the theme of Dr. Malalasekera and is and he is now being called on more and more to speak by people who are seeking actual peace and not feathery, extenuated armistices labeled “peace.”
I was at Lloyd’s recently and when a friend attacked the Humanist position I arose and said it was a pity that they denied the existence of Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, who is very much alive and who has participated in two peace events which we like to underplay because he brought about peace by methods we disdain to examine.
As I have sat in Dr. Radhakrishnan’s home in the deep meditation which we do not know how to practice, I had, the right—from the scientific point of view, to so speak. It was not out of imagination or mind but out of an event which took place. And when I presented my peace proposals to Dr. Radhakrishnan he accepted.
Actually the long complex history of 1956 has all sorts of elements which will come out some day. The students in classes at the University have accepted the fact that I have been a guest of honor at the Imperials Grounds in Japan. That hard fact is going to stand out like a sore thumb for generations. It is also closely linked with the careers of Robert Clifton, Princess Poon and Dr. Radhakrishnan. It is closely linked with the re-opening of the Mentorgarten. It was accepted fully by Nyogen Senzaki and his executor.
So the time for the Stars to fade out and the Sun to rise will occur in this apartment. Despite the current trend I do not believe that some people are more equal than others. We are paying a terrible price.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
June 6, 1966
I wish to thank you for inviting me to the meeting last night. Yes, one picked up all kinds of vibrations and the very idea of playing an accompaniment to the Prajna-Paramita Sutra was wonderful in itself. After the meeting we listened to a record of a rendition of the same Sutra chanted by another group of Buddhists in quite a different way from the Zen renditions.
It is peculiar that in The Tiger’s Cave I found a translation and explanation which is identical with my own. I had an extra copy of this book which I gave to a friend. Sooner or later I shall give an open explanation of this Sutra as explained by a Soto Zen Master but I am not ready to give Nyogen Senzaki’s explanation.
The principle reason is not secrecy. The principle reason is out complete neglect of the higher stages of consciousness. If we are compelled to study the Sutra intellectually we are very limited.
I was present at the final lecture of Nyogen Senzaki before he went South years ago. It was on this Sutra with his explanation. This explanation will be given in “Dharma Transmission” one of my autobiographical sketches. This is the one requested by Master Seo. My life is very direct—continual acceptance by the real Masters of the real Orient, and until the appearance of this Aquarian type, pretty generally rejection by the oldsters.
In 1957 I saw Nyogen Senzaki for the last time and he accepted my reports, exactly the opposite of others. And along with him his old friends. In the case of Lottie she directly saw by clairvoyance what had happened.
Dr. Warwick was present at both my initiation and ordination as Zen teacher. One has to pass innumerable tests but this person has had such tests before. There is a curious tradition by theosophists that the original Sangha met inside a cave and you had to enter that cave by astral projection and Ananda could not. This is not entirely untrue. Indeed I had a test something like that when in the Himalayas, and it is reflected in my personal card. The Universal of Islamabad is to teach what we call the esoteric sciences, and give them to people scholastically. It will no longer do to say: “Those that know do not speak and those that speak do not know.” This is utter drivel. You do not find it in the scriptures.
Agnes was a little miffed that I am not inviting people to my own version of Mentorgarten. I am seeking neither money nor following. I am willing to help young people who are curious to experience levels of Joy, Bliss and Understanding from within their own selves. I have been successful therein, elsewhere, of course; and now with some young here. But I am not establishing any rival Ashram and when I explain Yoga systems it will be to show how they can be experienced, not to show how much erudition I have collected.
Again thanking you for a lovely evening,
June 8, 1966
My dear Gavin:
School is out and ends a most enjoyable period. The University is so different for if anybody has experience it is at least reportable if not accepted. There is no shutting down of barriers against anybody who has had any venture into life and this freedom alone enhances joy.
The Mentorgarten has been restored and this also is a source of Joy. There are galaxies of Joy covered by Oriental wisdoms and when these are faced on the range of Joy they can be electrical. This has nothing whatsoever to do with intellectual derivatives, especially by “outsiders.” By outsiders I mean those that have not entered into the “higher” phases of Understanding, Joy, Love and Unification as expressed in the Indian cosmogony.
I am not going to argue over these things. I near 70 and it is time, hell or high water, to display my wares. The young come, out of curiosity, or sincerity, it does not matter. But they come.
Next week will be spent at the Psychedelic Conference. One has two “swords.” One is “Joy without Drugs,” the other is “The Ten Stages of Consciousness.” This was imparted by Sokei-an Sasaki. My relations with Sokei-an have been written into my first autobiographical work. This has now been accepted by the First Zen Institute of New York. It may be a long time but it is accepted. They realize “I was dere, Sharlie” and it does not matter about others, especially those who were not there.
Science demands honesty and integrity, society does not. One goes to the Psychedelic Conference armed with this honesty and integrity. Sooner or later some will accept the living ventures of a person into realms they talk about but have not experienced.
The next venture after the Psychedelic Conference will be the welcoming of a real Zen Master, Yasutani Roshi. For the moment he is known as the spiritual teacher of Phillip Kapleau. The real world has had to accept Kapleau. It is the end of fantasies.
I met Corinne today. She is very happy in her marriage and she was glad to know that Yasutani is coming. He will appear in Mill Valley next month some time. I feel that the young who are sincere will be drawn to him. The young, the Aquarians, want direct participation in knowledge, not borrowed or pre-masticated versions of anything.
Allen Ginsberg has been removed from the panel. I don’t know why and this may mean he is not coming.
Zen Philosophy is based on Oneness and All-inclusiveness. It is beyond symbols and can use anything and everything as symbols.
The teachings of Shaku Soyen, Nyogen Senzaki and Sokei-an will be used here, fused with other teaching. It will be the Zen of no-Zen which was the last Zen of Nyogen Senzaki. The ceiling will therefore be shorn of symbols to represent the Oneness.
Sincerely,
June 10, 1966
Beloved One of God,
The amount of work and duties that pile up on one make it very difficult to maintain strict interest in each person, no matter how great the love. During the period when I was preparing for my final examinations here two of my closest friends from different parts of the country came unannounced and then my uncle arrives also off schedule. It has meant that there has been no planning, each day had to be lived itself, and the type of meditations that might be used to benefit others had to be laid aside.
Two quite different motives have lead to a peculiar circumstance and it shows very plainly that very few people make it a practice to accept the God ideal—in words, yes, but in actions, no. I reported to you about the visit of Musheraff and saw no reason to take any stand. In the meanwhile I had been doing things intuitively which were in line with the last wishes of Nyogen Senzaki and stage by stage I have found myself a legatee and now am in possession of the bulk of his writings.
First some of the victims of LSD drugs and then students at the University have become interested in spiritual training and especially in the theme, “Joy without Drugs.” I have been very careful not to use the term “Sufi” so as not to confuse people.
Then I received a scurrilous letter from Ivy Duce accusing me of trying to break up Musheraff Khan’s meetings. The first person I met the next day made the same charges against Ivy as she had against me—showing the moral law. But within a few hours there were two strong attacks on Meher Bade, one by a university official and the next day I received a surprise postal card from a person often in public limelight attacking Baba and by indirection proclaiming me. I had nothing to do with these criticisms of Baba. I never mention him at all.
Today I received a most beautiful letter from Holland, full of love and tenderness. I have answered accordingly. I do not know what is in Musheraff’s mind. I do knew that both he and Vilayat seem to be emphasizing the Universal worship far more than spiritual training and this leaves me pretty free. Indeed I have already started two kinds of spiritual training, one for mureeds and one for non-mureeds. But if the present trends continue the non-mureeds who come here will be receiving considerably more esotericism than is given by the various teachers who function in California.
In a sense Hazel predicted I might be drawing the young and it is certain that as the classes closed there was more love and good-will than I have every encountered in the Western world. This went right up to the teachers themselves.
The theme is to increase awareness through the sense of greater happiness. Meditation, breath-practices and other means are used, but attunement is even more evident. The difference between real Sufism and other schools is the unification of teacher-and-pupil.
I am discouraging people who attend meetings of other teachers and prefer the young. Next week I shall extend myself at the LSD conference but do not wish at the moment to have more than twelve people receiving instruction, or practicing meditation. I feel the work must be effective with persons and not yet the building of any organization. I shall, however, take any suggestions from Musheraff.
In the meanwhile although my autobiographical work slowed down it is wonderful to know that the leader of the First Zen Institute in New York now realizes how much I learned from their founder, Sokei-an Sasaki. This has taken years but it is so. And one former member of that institute now attends my classes. This is in part due to my being rejected by the Soto Zen leader here. It is very funny because his teacher’s teacher accepted what corresponds to at test-examination, writing a Gatha. I have since written Gathas which have been accepted by other Zen masters.
The general view encountered on the university grounds is that it is not the one who boasts who is an egotist as much as those that reject, especially those who reject blindly. All great scientists seem to have gone through a period of social rejection and this makes some scientists friendly toward social rejectees. But Murshid but it that the Wise are always judged by the public.
For that reason I am not interested in the social people. Musheraff drew the social people and this sets him in opposition to Ivy Duce. I am having no bind prayers or meditations but each meeting is conducted to increase the awareness, even the Joy in each person present. For the moment efforts are made to awaken the consciousness but after the LSD conference I shall start teaching sciences of breathing, all kinds, and shall put meanings into In an Eastern Rose Garden. One takes it out of theory, and this pleases the students of sciences.
I am unable to tell what will be coming these next ten days and beg your patience.
Love,
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
June 11, 1966
My dear Gavin:
I wish to thank you very much for your invitation to attend a lecture, or reception for Gina Ceminara. I always like to listen to her; also to meet her socially.
It just happens that the whole of the week will be taken up with the psychedelic conference which is to be held on the Haight & Laguna Campus of the University of California Extension Division. This will go on day and night for six days.
If the Wednesday night session is uninteresting I may skip it. Otherwise the only recourse is to come after it is over.
One finds the present life much more interesting than that of the past. The university people, both students and teachers are open-minded, if not to say, open-hearted.
I am now giving instructions to a small number of people who seek joy without drugs and soon I hope to open up all sorts of teachings which are not so much esoteric as kept from the world by those seeking power rather than wisdom. There is no objection to that but as so many are seeking Joy by the use of drugs it would only be fair to have somebody present Joy without drugs.
This is almost impossible in social circles. Besides this is the Aquarian age where people want knowledge based on experience, not on opinions. So it also becomes a source of happiness and joy. These things can be electric to the seekers.
Faithfully,
June 11, 1966
Dear Murshida:
Joy to the World! Next week one goes to the Psychedelic Conference with the theme, “Joy without Drugs.” One has already prevented this theme to the young and they are accepting it. The old, the power-hungry people, the samskara-collectors are different. They will not accept “In Joy we live and move and have our being!” In the eternity the samskara-collectors are nothing. They wish to condemn, to criticize, that is, all little people. They do not condemn, they dare not condemn the monsters who rule many Nations and who mass murder innocent peasants under the guise that they are saving them from the other monsters who make similar claims. The samskara-collectors have no time for that.
Sufis and Gita-devotees teach to be equal-minded in pleasure and pain. But samskara-collectors have no time for that. They decry what they call “evils.” Although Mohammed said “Allah is Master of the Day of Judgment” and Christ said, “Judge not,” one cannot convince the samskara-collectors. Let them collect.
A brother of Hazrat Inayat Khan came here claiming to be a Sufi teacher. A disciple of Hazrat Inayat Khan who had been corresponding with him, came to meet him. He had no plans but trusted in Divine Guidance. The behavior patterns of mystics are misunderstood so mystics are condemned; that is easy. They do not belong to any power-structure and they do not go around collecting wealth and followers and the nonsense of this world. They seek Grace, Glory, Wisdom, Joy and Peace and they try to share Grace, Glory, Wisdom, Joy and Peace as Allah wills. (Evidently Allah wills otherwise than samskara-collectors.)
The two met in loving embrace in the Sufi fashion. The brother had met very few who understood that embrace and he has been away from his homeland most of the time. The disciple has associated with the Sufis and has had many experiences of that embrace.
There was an exchange of gifts as well as of love and now the Mureed has received a most beautiful letter from the brother. It does not matter. The samskara-collectors don’t care for that; evidence is of no value under the new systems of justice that have come with the rise of dialectics, Marxist and anti-Marxist. Human beings do not count. But before Allah everybody counts. Read Edna St. Vincent Millet, read Carpenter, read Whitman. To them everybody counted showing that God dose act through man even today.
The scientists demonstrate today that everything is made of the Divine Light. They do not divide. They leave that to the religious leaders and samskara-ists. One can only pray for them. In the Divine Light there is no darkness, “in a botanist’s garden there are no weeds” and the chemists are discovering what the self-centered will not examine. The one group in the light, the other group in the darkness.
“Lead us from darkness into light.”
God bless you,
Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti
Samuel L. Lewis
June 16, 1966
My dear Lloyd;
One writes this with a certain amount of apologetics. On my return from the Orient, full of zeal and élan, a single person here of consequence accepted without question the experiences of a person who had been there i.e. Dr. Robert Miller of the Academy of Sciences and he sponsored me into the American Association for the Advancement of Science, with whose editors there is considerable harmony. They did accept one paper from me which had eight previous rejections.
So it is awkward to sit in an audience hearing attacks on “scientists” without referents when those people pretty generally accepted factual evidence by a living person and their critics have not, most certainly not. It has taken years even to be permitted to present evidence and I went all the way in the “test tube” assumed to be valid or in what Einstein called a “field of reference.” But while I stick to my facts, advice there are at least three explanations for them. Only it is pretty nauseating for such facts to be rejected by the crowd that is always hammering against “scientists.”
I say three explanations—there may more, because while I shall insist that facts are facts I do not insist on any particular explanations of and for them.
I have been studying with anthropologists—whom one must assume to be scientists. I have been able to convince scientists, but not “occultists” of a large number of personal experiences. At the same time I find in the real study of real people a lot of them long established reincarnation at all sorts of levels and the constant scapegoatism shows the ignorance by enthusiastic of accumulated human knowledge.
While I did give the evidence of the validity of a man willing to himself for another life, and it being accepted with a whimper in Burma, it is to try to get people to be more universal. We cannot build-up a “science” on the private experience of a few and especially when these few are more adept at negations themselves and refuse to accept each other.
The first remarks thrown at Gina were not that what she said was wrong, but that when Sam Lewis tried to say the same things, all her co-workers refused even to examine testimony and a priori rejected. It is very difficult to reconcile the absolute a priori rejection of Prof. Rhine with the almost magical acceptance by teachers and fellow students in Anthropology based on the simple argument that “I was there,” and this acceptance in classes and by teachers by those even least convinced stands in extreme contrast that it has taken years for either Gavin or Gina to listen. Even the Cayce Foundation would have none of us—and the Anthropologists would have all of it.
So my objections to the criticisms of scientists are based on a very dramatic career especially of the last years.
My “Snowism” is based on the almost 100% acceptance of my scientific reports by scientists and the geographical rejections by some non-scientists. One thing I did was crude, perhaps, but Grandma Sasaki accepted in toto and Papa Alan Watts rejected in toto the same experiences and generally the non-scientists accept Watts—who was not there. And I had to go into the Buddhist experience especially as I find A. Comte pretty generally right in his theology-metaphysics-science matrix. In fact I have not found him wrong yet.
If I had any suggestion for the Humanists it would be to invite some Anthropologists (not Sam Lewis) to their meetings so we can get a better view of the real humanity—not that conglomerate, metaphorical term used in popular parlance.
I have already found extreme Spirituality in science—Mme. Curie, Moseley, contemporary Soil Analysis and to a much lesser extent Einstein, for they exclude nobody and nothing. And even my present “Buddhistic” philosophy—not taught by any “Buddhists” in this country, is on almost the same principles. But it is Comtian Buddhism, reaching the scientific phase, not the theological (cum clergy) or metaphysical (speculators) aspect.
I have been forced to conclude by expedience as against predilection, that there is far more in many aspects of post-Freudianism than in post-Jungianism. My biggest teacher critic was Freudian and I was able to give him so much substantiation for the views and methods that he began to see into my bizarre ways.
For instance he was exposed to Max Muller and the Grimm Brothers. The teacher of the teacher of the teacher of the man who wrote the book on Initiation which charmed Gavin had done researches into the fields of race and language. Owing to the Inquisition this was “esoteric.” So all the pseudo-occultists have kept it “esoteric” and I brought this to the surface so that this teacher can make valid studies into fields which “occultists” have so covered with hyperbolic awe that no one dare approach it. And I find this over and over. The “esotericists” forget the Inquisition. Indeed they have often become an Inquisitor themselves.
I have joined the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, which is a branch of the AAAS. They berated me for silence when I should have spoken. After that I that I was received with perhaps too much good-will because of being able to fill a vacuum. At least they all accepted my geography. It has taken years for some people to accept this geography.
At the Psychedelic Conference I have already had to introduce the President and Vice-resident of India, as I did in your home. I have not been able, indeed often not permitted, to introduce their names into a number of local circles and I got kicked out of a local organization for even trying to bring in a letter from Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. I can assure you this was not a scientific group.
Please bear in mind I know at least three explanations of the phenomena reported. There may not be an easy way out.
Cordially,
Samuel L. Lewis
June 23, 1966
My dear Gavin:
I am taking advantage of the return of a letter written to you to relate some news which shows nothing but Karma in operation and all our private moods have nothing to do with the prevention of Karmic adjustments or retributions.
Once I had to type to whole Sepher Ha-Zohar and this is one of those innumerable hard facts accepted by scientists and rejected by non-scientists especially those non-scientists who are not Jewish and have missed the points all the way through. There are four stages of interpretation of Kabbalah only two of which need concern us here, the symbolic and the esoteric. These are constantly confused by ignorant people. Symbols are not experiences of mankind although they appear in dreams.
The symbolic interpretation of the Kabbalah or history of Jews is outside my line. For in addition to the problems of food and peace there is now one of those who have indulged in what are called “drugs,” a word which itself condemns them from the very beginning. But some of these people seeking surcease come to these doors.
The “scientists” whom you are always condemning permitted me to present a paper on various stages of consciousness in the last semester and I have followed it up by speaking on “The Ten Stages of Consciousness,” something learned from Sokei-an Sasaki. Here again your friends have rejected my relations with Sokei-an.
When the Grand Master of Korea who is over all the Masters in his country looked over the American people, and especially the Buddhists, he concluded that this one was the most advanced—a condition which your friends and yourself reject and you are free to reject it. But now the followers of Sokei-an have accepted that this person did study under him. And the explanation of this knowledge is being accepted by the scientists and by many who attended the Psychedelic Conference, especially the psychiatrists and psychologists with whom I have had little traffic before. Indeed relations with this class of people were the very best.
This in turn was followed by my being asked my life story which I refused. Between the world sufferings and the confusion being caused by our total ignorance of the different stages of consciousness I have no time for ego-foolishness. But when I asked the reporter who he was and learned he is one of the managing editors of “The Daily Californian” I not only apologized but gave him an offer and if this offer is accepted it will entirely change my social life. And indeed it as my great fortune—call it Good Karma, call it Grace, to have met two of the top (department heads) on the campus the other day when I went on totally different errands.
Having the knowledge of the Stages of Consciousness both by book and dharma-transmission, as well as by conscious experience, one is in a much better position to deal with problems (much exaggerated) from the taking of drugs. And I think we fear far more the “soil-independence” that arises from “taking a trip” than any deleterious effects on the body.
Each week there is an increase of persons who have sought this mousetrap inventor’s door. Many of them are friends of Ralph Silver but not all of these have had horoscopes cast.
There were several things which came out of the Psychedelic Conference.
a. The close relation with Allen Ginsberg—this works both ways and I laugh about each.
b. The agreement of all the participants to accept Dr. Huston Smith as the wisest. This man is a real initiated into mysticism. He has lived in the real Orient and learned from real Masters. And it is notable and noticeable that in consciousness we were on the same plane and I could think his answers to exact words.
This is something beyond the stage reached by drugs and certainly beyond the stage of most popular lecturers.
c. I was not only permitted to speak—something disdained by cultists and metaphysicians, but every point was accepted.
This leads to the next step, if there is to be a next step—the conscious awakening of awareness without any resort to anything artificial.
At the same time in my real scientific research I have gone ahead some in the search for “Soma” and “Amrita,” a point now accepted by Dr. Lal, the science editor of the Hearst papers.
The theme, “Joy without Drugs” will catch on sooner or later, whether I personally am involved or not. It was conferred by Papa Ramdas whose spirit I had received long before he came on the scene. At the moment I am beginning to look like a Pied Piper, rather than a Messiah and perhaps this is better so. It fits in with some of my missions.
The karmic law, the principles of justice, retribution and balance are certainly coming into operation. I am preparing to appear as a Sufi in “good society” because of some events on the horizon.
So far as Jewish backgrounds are concerned, I was offered a PhD at Berkeley on themes that nobody at the so-called “American Academy of Asian Studies” would even let me present and that means the whole rigmarole from the beginning to end. It seems to be, in all fairness, you should consult an accepted “authority.”
Your themes are basically correct and there is a vast area untouched. But lectures on “Kabbalah” deal with not more than 5% of the contents and I have yet to meet anybody who has written who has had the esoteric experiences. Yes, I have met some who have but they were even more rejected than I have been. That day, is over, Gavin. The world is getting ready to experience more and more of “higher” stages of consciousness, without drugs, without alcohol and by traditional methods which have never failed.
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3. Calif.
June 24, 1966
Rev. Harold Priebe,
P. O. Box 1079
Ojai, Calif.
Bodhisattva:
There are stories and for the moment I have that of Hakuin in mind which illustrates to the universal balancing of accounts and no man can break the trend toward cosmic harmony which is at the base of the universe itself.
There have been a series of alterations which are seemingly separate but all of which happened so simultaneously that they can hardly be separated. Appearing as isolated events they are certainly connected.
There has been a slackening of my writing “Dharma Transmission” but this slackening in writing has been accompanied by a rash of events that will sooner or later add to great to stimulation.
First Zen Institute of New York. I sent them copy of the chapter “Roshi” which deals with Sokei-an and this cross trailed their sending “Cat’s Yawn” It is utterly foolish for Buddhists to declare they believe in an-atta when every aspect of the lives of most them in this country evidence they do not.
Fortunately they now realize this person had a Dharma transmission from Sokei-an.
At the Psychedelic Conference which took place here recently Prof. Huston Smith reported the meeting of Joe Blofeld and Ruth Sasaki in which the latter told the former: “One satori does not mean illumination.” The meetings respectively of this man, of Swami Kriyananda and myself with the illustrious lady show three levels of meeting into which one does not wish to go.
Mentorgarten was the first Zen study group in this country and was started by two disciples of Shaku Soyen. It has been revived by me and we hold here the “official” lectures of Nyogen Senzaki and the picture of Shaku Soyen which was left here by him. The Mentorgarten is a Universal School toward enlightenment. Enlightenment is certainly not promised. The Meditation method of Shaku Soyen has been modified by the last lecture of Nyogen Senzaki. People that wish to go deeper into the Meditative method alone will be sent elsewhere. If one wants to call this a Buddhist Center it is a Kegan Center. I am not going into this. I have been one of the few Americans received by the Kegon Roshi at Nara.
Shaku Soyen. The reception of “Cat’s Yawn” was followed immediately by the recollection into consciousness of the first lectures of Sokei-an which have again come into consciousness. This follows exactly the teachings of the Yogacara School which nobody here seems to knew, or at least nobody else.
The remarks of Ruth and the “Cat’s Yawn” brought back the memory of the first satori. This satori did not seem so important but I now realize it took place at the exact spot where Shaku Soyen walked years ago when he was in the city. The Frenchman Grousset has given us In the Footsteps of to Buddha and he received a satori by actually walking where Tathagata had walked.
Now this person has succeeded in restoring the pilgrimage to the Diabutsu in Golden Gate Park and in now ready to re-walk where Shaku Soyen walked and make this an occasional pilgrimage. He cannot promise any satori, of course, nor is it necessary, for
Roshi Yasutani is coming and this may mean the establishment or reestablishment of Rinzai-shu here. If so Mentorgarten will give way to it or cooperate with it. The first reaction was against cooperating. But this shows lack of knowledge of real (as against our ersatz) Buddhism.
a. an-atta. There is no such person as Sam Lewis. There is a collection of karmic and akarmic (or nishkarmic) accumulations around a personality. If this person makes himself different from the Roshi he denies the Dharma-transmission. When Master Soyen came here we met by what Dr. Jung calls “synchronicity,” a phenomenon that has occurred again and again.
b. samskaras. This is also another teaching of Lord Buddha by-passed by the majority of so-called “Buddhists.” Any reaction in any way, especially any egocentric movement destroys the essentially spiritual side of sangha-outlook. We verbalize the Triratna—sometimes—often we ignore it. But we don’t obtain the sangha-consciousness. And it is silly for the Zen-tramp who has felt the Ekayana over an over again to repudiate it now. So every effort will be made to cooperate in full with Roshi after one takes a trip to Los Angeles-Hollywood
The writer has been preparing to give a talk on “The Buddhism of Vietnam.” He has had 30 rejections and every one of them means the sowing of karma by the rejecters. He has just started a plan in the opposite direction when he had been sought out by some very powerful and importance people to speak on this subject. If so it will put a crack in this dove-hawk dualism. Besides the writer’s ideas are fully approved by two of the Big Three of World Buddhism and include the outlook of the Third (i.e. Mahamudra Meditation). As this meditation has been performed in the home of President Radhakrishnan himself, it will sooner or later be accepted by selfless people.
The selfless meditative methods have now been instituted here. They will be secondary to the more involved methods either the Rinzai or Soto Schools.
The Psychedelic Convention took six full days and then on the Sunday we had a five hour session.
I had been there before and crossing the stream found myself in full possession of psychic faculties on one side and without them on the other side. Prof, Durrani, although a Sufi was and is an advanced seer. As soon as he crossed, he took one look and aid, “Yes, certainly.”
In studying Sri-Aurobindo one decided to “melt” rather than analyze and it has had the glorious result of awakening Vedic Wisdom. This was used in an effort to healing Mrs. Berrenberg and today for a lady in this city who has been caught in cross-currents called “Zen” but has had single satori in fifteen years! What kind of “Zen” is that?
That there are centers of Baraka is undoubtedly true. One’s very first satori took place exactly where the great Shaku Soyen walked along the seashore here in San Francisco. It was only last year one realized that one had been walking in the very footsteps of a master when this happened. The two were not associated before. So you can imagine the currents where the great Rishis had walked!
When Usman was Kaliph he would get up in the pulpit and look at the audience back and forth (tawajjeh) and than said, “Those who want a book Imam should hire a book Imam and those who want reality may have reality (from Rumi). Sri Aurobindo did the same with Darshan, and of course Buddha was perfect in it. Paul Brunton has described this is his “The Way of the Oversoul” (I think). [Ed—Actual title probably The Quest of the Overself or Wisdom of the Overself.]
I guess you have already been among the Munis and know they are above the distinction beyond religions.
The very first teaching in Kabbalah is the sound of the letter A ,and the very first teaching in real esoteric Buddhists (Shingon) is the same, exactly the same. And the doctrines of Japanese Flower Arrangement and table setting—Heaven , Earth, Man are exactly the same as both Hebraic and traditional European occultism (called Rosicrucian or “a rose” by any other name).
While living at Fairfax I had an initiation from Moin-ed-din Chisti on this point—think I still have the record. It was rejected, of course, but at Ajmir it was not rejected, it was confirmed and on and on.
My geography is slightly uncertain. Bill Hathaway introduced me back to Ojai. One has refused to administer to those why accept Krishnamurti. One accepts Hierarchy. One person was initiated into Hierarchy and I told her she would have to accept either her own experiences or the social pattern. She has been in great pain and made the choice. What will come therefrom one does not know but it means one has a home in Ojai, and indirectly in Santa Barbara. There is lots to do in Santa Barbara and we may have to do this jointly—it concerns all the world affairs and the solution of problems.
All this correspondence has not been in vain. Yesterday wrote a letter of commendation to Senator Kuchel. He is 100% back of salt-water conversion and other measures. Some people wish to wail and others wish to face and solve problems. He is one of them. Do you wish information?
Personally I believe all problems have been solved. It is a question of egotism and communication and communication is in the hands of egotists.
Love and Blessings,
P.S. Later. Copy of this has been made for Pir Zade. I hope that someday he will turn in the direction his father wanted.
Your whole letter reechoes the last Suresnes sermons, emphasizing the Message. Even this person does not like to use the term “Sufi” although it appeared in the second draft made by Pir-o-Murshid on the initiations. This was entirely changed before 1923.
Actually the “Message” was most emphasized by Mohammed. What we call “Islam” is the result of the efforts of Mani who also followed Aristotle and emphasized dualism. Dualism has been abhorred by Jesus and after him by St. Augustine, but it got in anyhow. It is all over. There can be no each thing as dualistic “Islam” but “Islam” is used as a dualistic term.
This one carries a duty, so to speak, from “incarnation through incarnation.” One sees two “Days of Judgment.” The one will be when Pir-o-Murshid gathers all his followers and ascertains why they did or did not, and there will be very few “surrenders.” God is alive all over and I am now faced with the semantics of “God is breath.” This also appears in the Christian Scriptures and is wrongly translated. That is why one emphasizes breath and breathing more and more.
Do you know Judith Hollister? She is picking up “The Message” and I have heard her Voice and it is a spiritual voice, a beautiful balance between Wisdom and Power.
June 25, 1966
Beloved One of God:
There are sometimes things like miracles which happen and recently this person has had some events like them. For instance, after twenty-seven years one’s American god-daughter came into his life again after the husband of his local god-daughter denounced him and caused a separation. And one knew it was going to be the beginning of a new cycle. And more recently also one’s long lost address book was found and your name among them so one writes.
There is no greater mistake than judging by the externals. Not so long ago there was a diplomatic reception in this City. There were many American ladies there and they all objected to this one appearing in Sufi guise, which means he wore a robe of sackcloth. And the first thing the Asians did which they did not like was to honor him on account of age; he was much older than any of them. American women no longer consider age and they wanted to be waited on. And in nearly all countries of Asia it is wrong for a man to wait on any women to whom he is not related in some way. So they all waited on this person.
Then they wait on holy man and the Asian men regarded this person as a holy man and the American ladies regarded him merely as another male, not to be given any consideration. They were further angered because while they had to wait on themselves everybody waited on the elderly men in the Sufi robe.
They noticed that this one who is a Chisti met another Sufi who was a Kadari and they talked like brothers, they greeted each other from heart-to-heart. So all the Asians were satisfied that this person was a sage and all the American ladies went away angry.
This, of course, is not a single incident in one’s life. Last month a lady who was a member of the House of Lords in her own right died. And when this person came to London the lady recognized him and embraced him in public. It was a strange thing to be embraced in public by a Peeress. But she recognized him instantly. This shows that externals have little to do with the state of the soul.
When one was in Pittsburgh one noticed three cultures and these three cultures had to be integrated and by their being integrated you have a great city—they are the Rubber, Steel and Aluminum cultures. They are all different but they must harmonize and by harmonizing they produce a great city.
There are many who talk about the difference between science and religion. A noticeable difference is that scientists recognize each other and religionists do not. When a scientist adds to human knowledge the other scientists applaud and when a religionist adds to human wisdom the other religionists keep silent.
Now Pittsburgh has three great cultures and they integrate. So one studies Anthropology and one finds that all the cultures are like the Rubber and Steel and Aluminum; each is great in its own way and you cannot compare them and it is rude to contrast them.
One studies the sciences. This last year it has been Anthropology which considers the cultures of all peoples, none are left out. There are no Mississippians in the sciences. Besides if one goes deeply one finds that all the things of the world are made of Light, the steel and aluminum and even the rubber, ultimately all are of light. This is what the sciences of Physics and Chemistry teach.
And when one turns to Anthropology one learns that all people are God’s children. It is not like religion or politics or philosophy where the superior teach the inferior that all people are God’s children but somehow the superior are superior and inferior are inferior. It is like Pittsburgh, Steel is Steel and Aluminum is Aluminum and each serves a purpose. So one comes to universality, no matter whet science one studies one comes to universality. And thus one finds ways to God which do not belong to tradition and they are real ways to the real God.
We recently had the Psychedelic Conference here. The papers did not like it. They are afraid that there may be things one can eat and by eating have greater vision. Then they can see through all the shams and falsehoods and this may even come by eating certain herbs.
Many people taught that and they even found such herbs. In Marie Corelli’s novels somebody always drank a liquid and they had cosmic vision. The scientists have found all over the Americas are people who are not intellectually advanced who found herbs which God had made and by eaten them they had greater vision. That is what the powerful people do not want, greater vision. They are more afraid of that than anything else.
This person came saying, “A mystic is anybody that does not attend this conference.” But it did not end that way. A real mystic spoke and he was also a scientist and everybody recognized him. His name is Prof. Huston Smith. And also the Sufi and he recognized each other, and this day when people judge by externals is coming to end. As Pir-o-Murshid said, “Heart speaks to heart and soul to soul.”
One does not know whether you have met either Vilayat or Musheraff Khan. When Vilayat came he got in with the wrong people. They programmed him all over, they used his name, they drew crowds and then got up and spoke and he was not given much opportunity to speak. It was those who claimed they were his friends who prevented him. So he was not so successful as he might have been.
Then Musheraff came and he did not meet crowds. It was mostly older people. It was reported that this person came and broke up the meetings. This person did not either say anything or ask any questions. He just greeted those whom he knew. This was very disconcerting to people who want to organize “Sufi Centers” who have no knowledge of Divine Wisdom.
As this one did not know what to do he depended on heart-facilities. He went and embraced Musheraff and gave him copy of Hazrat Inayat Khan’s first lecture. He did not ask, he gave. This made Musheraff very happy and now he has asked a favor which he will get.
On the second day of the Psychedelic conference a physician from Belleview Hospital New York said that the majority of his patients claimed to be “Zen Buddhists.” This one arose and held his Master’s stick in the air: “This is a credential of a real disciple of real Zen. How do you know that drugs caused the mental upset? Are not many of these people disciples of Salinger and Kerouac? Were not these men both judged us psychotics? Why do you blame drugs? Why don’t you blame the phony Zen that has contaminated this country? Can you prove your point?” He could not and lost the audience.
Later Timothy Leary spoke. In his first speech he demonstrated five stages of consciousness. In his final speech he told of his discipleship with the late Lama Anagarika Govinda. Nobody could dispute him. Only he has learned to reach these stages both by Tibetan and “drug” methods, though the last is a false term. You had to take certain vegetables products in most of the “mysteries” and this was supposed to be followed by dreams and visions.
There are, of course, higher stages than Timothy experienced. Sokei-an taught me “Ten Stages of Consciousness” and Nyogen Senzaki has a paper on it. When we are scientific and impersonal more attention will be paid to the experiencing of stages of consciousness and less to the personalities involved.
At the first session I brought one of those books stemming from Charles Luk. It has a clinical test for Zen. I submitted this to a psychiatrist and it came out the same, corroborating the claim. This is what is known as “Instant Zen.” I have no intention going around “teaching” any instant Zen but have failed to find anything in all of Luk’s books which is not true, true on higher levels. There may be some examples beyond my present state but everything experienced in Zen and also types of Buddhism which we separate from Zen which are not corroborated in his works and now I understand there is a another version of Surangama Sutra. This was not completely translated by Dwight Goddard for the simple reason he had not experienced all of it.
When this period is finished one will continue “Dharma Transmission” and soon to “The Lotus and the Universe.”
The association with scientists is much more congenial than with the metaphysical and cult people. I have started “Science versus Buddhism.” It is based on the writings of Lord Buddha himself and not on the multitude of speculations, metaphysics, explanations, etc. by those who have never had their eyes and egos lifted. One becomes quite indifferent of acceptance. The greatest success this person could have, either as a person or not as a person would be in the missions of Yasutani Roshi and Ruth Sasaki to this place.
I shall make no effort to convince anybody of Hierarchical or Patriarchal Dharma. Those who have it will know it to be true.
The theme, “Joy without Drugs” held its own at every level. One has now made contacts with a number of scientists on the one hand and a number of youthful seekers on the other One will maintain Mentorgarten as a “nursery.” After becoming grounded people will be encouraged to study further in any school they may choose.
Sokei-an made it possible to explain anything and everything in all Sanskrit and Pali literature. One has been put to tests again and again.
There are two forms of Instant Zen, one of which will be presented here. It is to realize on holding up a flower or leaf. Far more seem to get it that way than through meditation, and one also in turns finds more dharma-imprints in Nature itself. I have not yet decided whether this will be used here but well it may.
Paul Brunton taught in Quest of the Oversoul the ways of Breath, Heart and Light. All of those are presented here.
Faithfully,
Science of Man Church
1005 Market St. Suite 410, San Francisco, California
Telephone 431-8762
The speaker, Samuel L. Lewis, is a native of San Francisco who began his studies of Oriental literature and philosophy because of contacts made at the PPIE (Panama Exhibition) here in 1915. He has continued these studies unabated for some fifty years.
Lewis’ studies were invariably made under actual Asians, or under Western teachers who have been accepted in Asia though not necessarily in this country—as the Sufi teacher, Mrs. Rabia Martin here in San Francisco, and the author-philosopher, Paul Brunton.
He has been to the Orient twice, covering much of the continent on these two trips, including peregrinations into the Himalayan Mountains as well as to many other places, sacred and profane.
Sam, as he is usually called, has visited many shrines and temples and has been accepted, usually as a disciple, but sometimes as a teacher in the mysticisms and esotericisms of Asia. He has kept an actual account of these visits, enabling others to go to the same places, if they are in search of wisdom.
Sam began his study of real Buddhism here in San Francisco with disciples of the great Roshi, Shaku Soyen, who also once visited this city.
The talk on “Vietnamese Buddhism” will be concerned with the beliefs, rituals and scriptures of these people, and not with the foreign policy of the United States. It is based on objective realities and not on opinions of people who have not mingled with these unfortunate victims of long, bloody conflicts.
WHEN — THURSDAY AUG. 11, 1966
TIME — 8 P.M.
No ADMISSION CHARGE
EVERY BODY WELCOME
THIS IS THE CHURCH OF ALL PEOPLES AND CREEDS
YOUR SERVANT
Dr. Earl Blighton
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
July 7, 1966
Dear Gavin:
I was unable to visit the Ross Show on account of invalid friends here.
Today received a letter from James Pike with lots of inquiries, some of which I did not answer but rather stressed the positive side of life. Also a personal friend who is dabbling wanted my horoscope so I sent the 1938 and 1958 charts and we shall see.
The biography of Jean Dixon left me cold. “Why Gavin has been that successful in his predictions, perhaps without even thinking about them!”
In all my life I have never found such vindictiveness as you held against the late Secretary Dulles and in all my life I have never seen it so justified. Recently I wrote one Congressman and one Senator of my willingness to swear to depositions charging him with the war in Vietnam and getting away with it. And it seems often as I write an almost unseen hand puts the finger on him.
But yesterday I mentioned his name to a retired GII man whose name I must not mention. And when I put the finger on J.F. Dulles he said, “You are right. You are so right. I was his confidential secretary and everything you said is true. I never encountered such a stubborn closed mind in my life.”
I do not know whether it was personal or impersonal, feeling or insight and it does not matter.
I am working on my Buddhist autobiographies and then others but behind them lurk the hard facts of life. There are now two underground moves in Berkeley about arranging to have me speak on “Vietnamese Buddhism” and I am planning one such talk here. Mr. Dulles was interested only in the termination of Buddhism and in a certain sense he became an ally of the enemies of our country.
Faithfully,
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif
July 18, 1966
Dear Jack:
I am stopping off while copying a paper on “Sufism and Zen,” a carbon of which will go to you but the original is being sent out to an editor in the State of Washington, one of the many writing articles on “Zen” which, if they vaguely resemble something in or from Japan, have no conceivable connection with Ch’an Buddhism about which more below.
However this will be followed as soon as convenient with the paper, “A day with Dr. Suzuki”; in this case you’re getting the original for any purpose you desire. A flash came over TV that this worthy savant has left the world. It is with very mixed feelings I see him go for unwittingly he is responsible for the intellectualities running around carrying the name “Zen,” quite apart from any meditation prowess and still further from the Sutra of Wei Lang.
I must repeat here that when I was taken to the grotto at Kamakura the attendant told me Dr. Suzuki had never been there and had not earned his way. He added that Daisetz did not even know of the grottoes though they have been described, in various ways, by Sokei-an and L. Adams Beck.
Indeed on the negative side I have come out for “Ch’an Buddhism,” a real form of the Dharma, not yet besmirched by the four English “ass-men” of the un-Apocalypse, i.e. Humphreys, Heard, Huxley and Watts. (My best friend asks, “Why include Watts? His name does not begin with “H.”) And in going over Psychedelic literature practically all references to “Oriental Philosophy” is footnoted by references to one of these men.
Last week I “won face” because one of my Chinese “enemies” saw me with a copy of Dr. Charles Luk. This man without question had accepted the testimony of a certain affluential but not influential woman here who contributes heavily to all Oriental causes. She has long black-listed me but the latest person on her blacklist (which may come out in a public scandal) is now plotting. Our methods are definitely Oriental and in no ways resemble the justice of “Monte Cristo.”
Our first move will be to have a big meeting on “Vietnamese Buddhism.” Although I have approached Iru on the subject, this meeting will also have for its minor the collection of moneys for the Kwan Yin Orphanage. My own Mahamudra Mediation—which is practiced with Prajna and therefor does not resemble “Zen”—has caused me to abandon the “Peace Meditation” for the “Compassion Meditation,” and I am sending copy of this to Iru because I have not told him. And if he arranges another talk in Chinatown it will cause the Chinese in question to lose further face because at no time have they permitted any talks on Chinese Buddhism, in any form—and yet they collect funds for other “Chinese-American Institutes.”
Between the materials of Nyogen Senzaki, Sokei-an and Charles Luk I certainly do not need other literature. But as all the “Buddhist” schools have abandoned Prajna, there will be ample room for effort.
Charles Luk’s Cosmos—which may be called “Mahayana” is not so far from that of the Thai cosmogony. Both of these are ample to explain a lot of things, especially in the fields of “expansion of consciousness” now introduced by the delvers in Psychedelics. And it is certain, even to a casual observer, that the Psychedelics are far closer to Buddhist cosmogony than either the moral Burns of the amoral Watts.
Burns is receiving a lot of attention. It is amazing today how many people without any ideas of “expansion of consciousness” are writing all sorts of things called “Buddhism.” And “Buddhism” they well might be for this began as a term of opprobrium and was not used by Tathagata. And I am constantly finding terms in Pali which are translated into English so different from their Sanskrit correlatives that it requires close attention.
Burns commends Buddhist Logic, and his quotations are what he learned from Watts. He does not go, he does not dare go into the depths of Buddhist Logic. This Logic solved all the problems brought up severally by Lord Russell and the Semanticists. But so long as Buddhism in American adheres to Aristotle or Hegel (and it generally does) there is no room for “expansion of consciousness” or definite anatta and anicca.
One of the first things real Buddhist Logic goes into is the confusion of types (solved by Lord Russell) and the care by which genus and species must be separated. Santana Dharma is trans-logical without being anti-logical. The karma caused by speculating minds, the growth of misunderstanding and confusion will continue until there is curiosity, if not humility.
The paper on “Sufism and Zen” shows the unity of the ultimate expansion of consciousness. The cosmic view is affirmed in the Benares sermon—which should never be separated from the Kegon approach, and is. Even Shin Buddhists who theoretically accept Kegon practice Hegelian or Aristotelian dualism. My own conclusion is Samma-Drishti=Prajna and is an-atta and cannot posit anything “right.” This is a refutation of the Prajna-Paramita points of view.
Ch’an differs from Zen now in that it never loses might of Prajna.
Will continue soon, on with typing,
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
July 25, 1966
My dear Gina:
Egocentricity versus Universality In the Psychic Sciences
When Mme. Curie discovered radioactivity she investigated all the known chemical elements to ascertain of this were a “peculiar” or a “university” phenomena and today we have answers covering both aspects. This is the difference between the scientist and the specialist. The specialist grabs every peculiarity and over-emphasizes the known as against the unknown and leaves out anything that does not harmonize with his peculiar thesis of the moment. Muslims make Mohammed great not by extolling him but by failing to recognize the worthiness of other great Prophets and the same attitude is maintained by most so-called investigators into psychic faculties. The result is that on one hand the physicists, and most scientists, take a universal approach toward “odd balls” and at the moment the psychic researchers overemphasize some and ignore others entirely.
As I went through the life of Jean Dixon I grew colder and colder. If Gavin had a publicity agent like Jean a much better book would be put out. I don’t think Gavin has over-rated himself in his ability to peer into the future, but I cannot help feeling that he is a better seer than this woman. And while I have never personally checked on his predictions, one outstanding fact, and factor, is the small percentage of failures. I a have heard of failures but these took place when I was out of the country. And it is this emphasis on personalities which causes pure scientists to shun certain kinds of investigation.
I am also making a carbon of this for Rev. Eugene Wegner, last companion of to late Phra Sumangalo (Robert Clifton). Robert was going to write a hook on “Reincarnation” but gave up because of the overwhelming evidence, and the oversupply of material. When the World Buddhists Federation started they else had a department for the recording of clear cases of re-birth but have given it up. Too much theology there and not enough science. When you live amid peoples—every man has his own “Bridey Murphy”—this sort of thing does not even stir a ripple.*
I came into this world a la William Wordsworth with some snatches of former lives. The climax same in the house of Roderick White in Santa Barbara when the “Spirit” of L. Adams Beck appeared to me a week after her death and told she had come to reawaken my knowledge of former lives. It is notable that in this case as in the case of Sufi Inayat Khan they both pressed on my crown above the Pituitary Body and excited that gland.
*Telekinesis. Eugene Wagner just called! Howjulikethat?
I made pretty a thorough investigation of the material coming from L, Adams Beck. It also appeared in a giant epic poem, which I have lost, showing me to possess knowledge of all kinds of Yoga systems which do not generally appear in print. Thus I know Raja, Bhakti, Juana, Tantra, Yantra, Karma, Mauna, Ananda, Nirtya and possibly other systems. The late Princess Matchabelli declared I had learned these in former lives. And I was accepted immediately at the real Zen Monasteries in Japan—the Western “experts” reject this—and the other day to real Zen Masters stopping in this city for just two hours sent for this person. Ho hum!
At this point Eugene Wagner came in and confirmed that where he has lived, remembering former lives is normal and natural. Read Sarkhan of Burdick & Lederer.
At one time I visited the tomb of a saint in New Delhi and declared myself to be the reincarnation of a close friend of that saint. I was given the cover of the tomb which in turn I gave to my close friend Mohammed Sadiq. We had to keep mum because Muslims don’t believe in reincarnation???
After I returned to Pakistan I was initiated and ordained as a full Sufi because I had certain attainments in former lives—corroborating Matchabelli. But so far none of the so-called “psychic researchers” has paid the slightest attention to reports. So long as we deal with the West we are going to find individual cases and over-emphasize them.
Algernon Blackwood wrote many novels of the “Bridey Murphy” type and did not stir a ripple. He over-emotionalized everything else.
So long as the West refuses to join the East (or the reciprocal) we can never have valid Psychic Sciences. I am going shortly to the Persian Consulate with a book on “Lizards of Iran.” Scientists do not make differences of place or race.
As to the classes in Anthropology, it is not “exciting.” The evidence is so overwhelming we do not discuss the subject. And there are very few “squares” in such classes.
From Buddhism and from my own aeonic existence there are two things which may or may not be the same: “Akashic Records” and Alaya. While I am inclined to identify them it may (or may not) be so. But this I know, that one can find them. And Sufis have sciences-of-breath which others either do not have (occasionally so) or do not emphasize (generally so).
For instance a professor at Eugene, Oregon has found a way to stop the tobacco habit by changes in breath. I have been writing at length to too Reinholds on how to correct sex “abnormalities” (what is normal?) through breathing and so today we may really be humble enough to study some of the Oriental “exoteric” sciences. But anything anybody else can do we can do better???
Now as to Flying Saucers. In my private life there is almost perpetual war against the CIA. and a lot of people I admire are enthusiastic over Flying Saucers. So it is pretty hard to become indifferent. “True” has been running all sorts of articles.
Here I am in deep accord with Max Hoeffer who knows considerable about electro-magnetism. Besides the keys were mentioned by Bulwar Lytton who is no longer read. I found nothing fantastic in Carr.
But of these two subjects—the one that has been delved into and the one outside of experience, there is as yet too much ambivalence and egocentricities.
The University of Islamabad which I represent in this country, has already allocated a large sum for Parapsychology. So far I have 0 responses. We simply do not take Asians seriously. All the phenomena in all the books by Western writers are so elementary to what I have encountered—or for that matter experienced myself, that it is hard to take some of them seriously. And so people blame the scientists, while they adhere to egocentricities.
I mentioned the telekinesis incidents above. I have had no end of them. If the “right” person tells about them he is a “genius” and if the “wrong” person reports, he is an egocentric seeking publicity.
Anyhow a man with a lecture hall here wants to boost me and I am preparing a mailing list. My first subject no doubt, will be “Vietnamese Buddhism” which is the real religion of real people, and does not always jibe with American and British egocentricities which are regarded as “Buddhism” in this country.
As to “Cosmic Viewpoint,” that also is silly. An important newspaper man has uncovered that the late Bhagwan Das of India had the universal point of view, and has won a lot of people emotionally. I am joining the class on Sri Aurobindo next month. He also had the cosmic viewpoint.
But I have broken up meeting after meeting simply pointing out that Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, President of India, has the cosmic viewpoint and he is too well known to have his existence denied—although we love to bypass him—his very existence destroys so many precious prejudices.
Of course we are moving to the cosmic outlook but we shall never have it until “Whatsoever ye do to the least of these, my creatures.” This holds in mysticism and in the pure sciences. When will parapsychology catch up?
My friend, Bill Hathaway, is moving here. He has long wished to meet you. He was one of the last friends of Hugo.
Love and best wishes
S. A. M.
Sufi Ahmed Murad-Chisti
July 28, 1966
Bodhisattvas:
While on the surface this is an autobiographical sketch of two quite different meetings this week, it is really an effort to relate to posterity both events and impressions—i.e. the meeting with two real Zen Roshis, followed by a meeting with a top Vedantic swami. The meetings were hardly time consuming but the record runs into an immediate road-block because Americans who believe they are studying Oriental philosophy are over 90% of the time studying impressions received from personalities and in doing so from the very beginning are going contrary to basic Oriental philosophies. For these impressions are of the nature of samskaras. And so long as samskaras continue—and they will continue—we are going to have turmoil in the world.
One way to stop turmoil is to stop samskaras. In my forthcoming talk on “Peace” this will be Peace-as-Experience and most certainly not Peace-as-Idea. And so long as we are “thrilled” by orators we are not going to have peace. For instance I told one of India’s top savants that the greatest obstacle to peace was the repetition of a sound-noise, any sound-noise and that words like “peace,” salem” and “shanti” were obstacles for they disturbed the Universal Peace just as much as any other sound-noise. I lost the debate and India had two fighting wars after that.
These wars were stopped by a real man-of-peace who practices the Mahamudra Meditation into which I shall not go. One can only instruct those in Mahamudra who have complete faith in him. Besides there are other methods to real Peace besides the Mahamudra. I have delineated the four Jhanas, the Ko-an and the Mantra and also have said there may be other ways. So the Devil has us repeat “there are other ways” ant the anti-Devil spends his time practicing and not deliberating about them.
For example I was surprised to have Rev. Warwick at my meeting Monday and he had brought a young man whom I know whom he said he would initiate into Pure Land Mantrams. In this case as I know the young man quite intimately I was all for it, for for this man it would be a wonderful way to Peace.
Every person carries with him his atmosphere and it is very easy, after one has met such people, to recognize a man-of-peace at a glance. The other day I wrote Nyogen Senzaki’s paper on meeting Inayat Khan in 1923. I heard him relate about meetings in 1926 and it was fortunate that all three of us were in San Francisco in 1923 and in Los Angeles later.
On leaving Inayat Khan Senzaki asked,” Pir-o-Murshid, do you think that the light of the sun and moon and all these stars is one light?” “Good night, Mr. Senzaki.” Here the Zen monk asked a Sufi question and the Pir-o-Murshid gave a ko-an answer. But our minds, so intrigued with differentiations and ideas, cannot grasp this.
I am studying Sri Aurobindo and notice that not only was be quite aware of the five planes of functioning—food, breath, discursive mind, intelligent-understanding and bliss-love, but also of Prajna. He lays down Prajna at the beginning, holds on tight to it—finis. His disciples and everybody else go back to discursive mind and personalisms and dialectics over experience. “What do you think?—”what do you know?”
The Roshis remind one of a Sage, meeting an ignorant man, say: “You know but you think you don’t know. It is your ignorance which keeps you from recognizing that you don’t know, nothing else. Swamiji gets up and says: “You don’t know. I am going to show you.” He doesn’t but we like those who say that. Our pleasure is to listen and be charmed but not to change.
The great error in the interpretation of “Sudden School” arises from our ego-efforts—and we are not going to change quickly either, we are going to believe in Sudden-ness, but we are not going to experience it—our ego-efforts arise out of our blind-faith that by more effort in meditation we are going to become emancipated, where Prajna- (not Dhyana-) experience is Emancipation. Everybody has it, “we were born free” and as we do not study religion, even the simplest, we reject that both Christ and Mohammed taught all children are free, all adults are unfree. Which is the last lesson we will accept, yet.
I am laughingly telling people I shall start “The Prajna School of Buddhism.”
Reading the LSD literature one finds the “Four Unholy Englishmen” as the “experts” for Zen and mystical experiences. These four unholy men—Heard, Huxley, Humphreys and Watts—are not only believed but accepted as the experts on Oriental “wisdom” and “mysticism” by us who could never, never accept Wong and Fong and Mong and Tung as authorities on British culture.
There is nothing wrong with England, It produced a lot of poems right to this moment who had mystical experiences. The great Havelock Ellis has more in his “The Dance of life” than Heard+Huxley+Watts+Humphreys. H. Rosa who was a school master of Alan Watts during their boyhood is recognized all over the Orient as an accomplished mystic and here we do not know anything about him.
Daisetz Suzuki is gone, a man of splendid intellectual accomplishment but nowhere in the Kingdom-of-Heaven. Our egos, our intellects want D.S. but the actual accomplishments of Kapleau will smother him in two generations by those who are honest.
Meeting Taisan and Yasutani was a “meeting of no meeting.” Walt Whitman said, (he is not among our mystics): “In all men I see myself.” There was one atmosphere and this atmosphere accomplished four persons. Lottie said, “I have not accomplished it but “he, Sam” has.” The Roshis, not being experts of Oriental philosophy accepted this. We all together—there we six in the room, were in the atmosphere-of-peace, which is most certainly not an atmosphere-of-death. There is one Dharmakaya.
Now Swami starts in wit saying he had been urged to speak on Karma. Who urged him? Where is the Prajna? The spontaneity? Where is the anti-dualism? Who was it—it certainly was not “Brahm” who suggested the lecture. And here the devil enters and has a field day: was the lecture itself subject to karma or not?
Stories were told of men appealing to divinity but the speaker did not appeal to divinity; he was given the subject matter by colleagues, and starts out with “you are different and I am different” which is the death to all real mysticism and divine wisdom. Actually I should put it stronger. We love the devil of dualism too much to accede to the God of monism.
“I am going to tell you, I am going to inspire you.”
Well there is no use telling an audience of intellectual–ignoramuses that Swamiji was constantly repudiating the Upanishads. Instead of trying to enlighten he was mystifying. There is nothing “mysterious” about karma. All you have to do is get the ego out of the way. Michelson and Morley experimented over and over and could not explain; the egos were in the way. Einstein came along and kicked the ego out and there was relativity but we lovers of “absolutes” don’t like it. We want the ego, even if it means war, disease, crime.
There is nothing mysterious about “karma.” It underlies Newton’s “Laws of Motion” and also the recent uncoveries of cosmic physicists. Much is quite explicable by logic, much by mathematics, but none by our egocentricities. And if learned audiences wish to make “Karma” mysterious I am not going to take their fun away.
The Upanishads, far from being “mysterious” state plainly the Universal and the particular but Indians in general put Americans (and other but not their follow-Indians) in such a start of fantasy that we are glamorized and love it. And the plainest thing in the world, to be honest and not-self-centered, makes it possible to peer into the future. It is easy, it is efficient and it makes one very unpopular, for things are events follow Karma and not our wishes.
Swamiji was constantly defying both Upanishads and Dharma. The scripture says: “There is no slayer, naught is slain.” Emerson has written a fine poem on this but poets and Americans are not “experts” on Oriental wisdoms. If one had the universal, or Prajna point of view, what the Swami called “mysterious” would be so plain as to be humorous.
And one could see easily with the Prajna-eye that the Roshis not only radiated Peace but Light also, the one Light, while Swamiji radiated multiplicity. Jesus said, “Who by taking thought can change the number of hairs on the head.” But our “experts” are having us take thought and thought and thought and we love it; and remain in illusion and accept the principal in modern Physics.
Then the ways out from Karma—taught by Lord Buddha but not, most certainly not by most “Buddhists.” We all have to have accommodations for certain persons and certain ideas. Whereas Peace, the universal State is beyond, but not contrary to, such differentiation. That is why in Mahayana it is said that “Nirvana and Samsara are one “ upon which most Hindus differ and keep on repeating “shanti” and having wars.
It must not be assumed that there is not Indian wisdom that goes straight to the point. Some day I hope (but I am not a British “expert”) to present Mauna Yoga. It can be taught in many ways and I even know both Indians and Americans that have tried it, but often under other names.
Now Sri Aurobindo clearing differentiates between Prajna and Ananda. And there is no doubt in my mind he was in the clear state of Vijnana, Which is beyond mentation, being the integrating state. But we analyze and all the followers of Sri Aurobindo I have met in America and India analyze—one exception. But there are two other types of admirers of Sir Aurobindo (a) who accept his philosophy but not his person just as one might accept Lord Russell; (b) who practice what he taught. The Chief example of this is Dilip Koomar Roy, the musician, whom I think you met when he was here. He practices, he demonstrates. He electrified the atmosphere. His best “lectures” are musical renderings and they do have the effect, so much so that he has in his ”congregation” a number of the top research scientists.
Now these are my impressions—impressions of unification from and with the Roshis, of differentiation from and with the Swamis.
What is the Karma of the lecture and lecturer? No, we want to exempt him from Karma and this is nothing but diabolic-egotistic-presumption. You cannot vote karma any more than vote gravity. We should seek to transcend karma. We can and it is not difficult either, but one thing we have to stop doing—willy-nilly admiration of “great” persons” and “experts.” It is too enjoyable not to admire.
When we can carry the spirit of the meditation around with us; or when we function with Prajna, we live and do not karmatize.
This is my summary and I believe in the future it will be accepted seriously.
One thing about breath—it requires no intermediaries. Lord Buddha said (he did say a lot of things despite our “experts”): “Work out thy salvation with diligence. “Working out salvation” is not too different from breathing. We can breathe the “peace,” the happiness,” the “joy.” We cannot intellectually confer them but will keep on trying. Swamiji left us all attached to the Wheel, the Swamis showed how to live without the wheel.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
S.A.M.
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif
August 2, 1966
Rev. Iru Price
940 Post St.
San Francisco 9, Calif.
My dear Iru:
There are a number of things I wish to report on and alas a copy of this is being sent to Dr. Charles Y. Glock, Research Survey Center, University of California, and one of the officers of the
“Society for the Scientific Study of Religion.” For this organization and he personally represent a social rather than an individual point of view, and in this respect I consider them, and him, far more followers of Lord Buddha than the masses of so-called “Buddhists” (Buddha was not a Buddhist) who, believing they do not accept a “soul” are very such attached to egocentricity.
Sunday there was a program, “Is God Dead?” We have had two panels of religieuses on two broadcasting stations and they seem inclined to over-respect such other, and to have their own congregations in mind rather than the general public But when the two were combined, Rev. Howie took an “unusual” stand for our so-called “democracy” in assuming that he was addressing the public and not just his congregation, and that there were a lot of intelligent people in the unseen audience.
He entirely upset the apple-cart by introducing the most pregnant questions (and their answers) which his colleagues have been diligently avoiding. Not only that he talked on human suffering, human difficulties and the need to solve human problems rather than prove (or disprove) some
abstruse problem inherited from medieval metaphysics.
This is all in line with the general tenor of “Society for the Scientific Study of Religions.”
On Wednesday might, August 10, I shall be speaking on “Vietnamese Buddhism” at 1005 Market St. top floor. There is a long bit of personal history here wherein another “rejectee” who has a combination meditation and lecture hall has asked me to speak on this, and perhaps other subjects where he is convinced I have objective knowledge.
I am not going here to detail background. Neither is there going to be any “whitewash.” Briefly speaking, “Vietnamese Buddhism” may be qualified as “A poor thing but my own.”
The Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, it is hoped, will be more interested in subject-matter than in opinions. It is noteworthy that the departments of the University of California
delving into Orientalia reject the approach taken and the Department of Anthropology accepts it
unqualified. Living and dealing with human beings may bring up more sound knowledge than
listening to all the descriptions of opinions by “ experts,” some of whom were not there.
The Islam of the Peasants. This is not taught in the United States excepting at the Hartford Seminary which has the simple theme that you cannot convert people until you know what they believe. For the most part “Islamics” in the United States has been in the hands of
British and German savants whose erudition is great but who simply have hot mingled with the masses. True, Dr. Bernard Lewis of London visited Berkeley in recent years and gave an excellent view of the opinions and superstitions of the masses.
Three times a week I meet and American who lived two years in Iran with the peasants and got a pretty good first-eye view of these people. But such evidence as he might offer is rejected and what is worse we consider ourselves a “democracy”—which means listening to “experts” and not to participants. This man’s view of the faith of peasants is not so glorious.
Upanishads. Last week an important Swami from Bombay was here—I have heard him before. He talked on “Karma,” assumed the audience was made up of ignorant people and began to present themes in direct opposition to some of the “simplest” techniques (If there are any such things) of this profound literature. He disregarded in the beginning the karma of his own actions.
When I was in Bombay the Principal of the Jesuit University gave me a long session (sometimes Swamis never do) and we discussed the Upanishads and the possibility of our accepting them without in any way being involved in Indian theologies and traditions. As a matter of fact, and you won’t read this in books, the Indian Revival started when it was learned that the Jesuit Fathers were going (a) to translate the Indian scriptures into English and European languages; (b) they were going to teach them to the masses.
Next week I shall join a seminar on Sri Aurobindo to bring out some explanation of the Upanishads and no nonsense.
The Buddhism of the Masses. The theme “Science vs. Buddhism” is easily upheld. Scientists accept the teaching of other scientists and “Buddhists” reject the findings of other “Buddhists.” (Two Zen Roshis were here last week and there was immediately acceptance by all present but this is an exception.)
Immolation. This is rejected by prominent persons who never delved into the Dharma. It is both direct and indirect in Jatakas. It is indirect but suggestive in many of the scriptures (which we by-pass) of the forms of Mahayana accepted in Vietnam.
Today, as in the case of the Swami above, the opinions of the “expert” too often dominate the wisdom of the little people. Rev. Howie challenged this on the air, and he was right. Nobody challenged the Swami and even the World Buddhist Federation accepts without question opinions of those who call themselves “Buddhist.”
Synthesis. My first teacher in Comparative Religion was a friend of Mrs. Rhys Davis and she also taught “The Lotus Society” teaching of China in which the Five-Religion-Truth (Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Islam and Christianity) were advocated. This is against our way of unthinking and is in accord with the Tonkinese-Annamese point of view.
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
August 14, 1966
Dear Gavin:
This is a preliminary letter due to my being snowed under. The talk on Vietnamese Buddhism drew a small audience and a large collection, also preparations to visit Santa Barbara, Ojai and Los Angeles.
At the University of California in Los Angeles I can speak openly as nowhere else, yet. The report of the team that visited Cambodia is an objective example of the vast difference between real Asia and the compound of intellectual snobbery labeled “Asia” which has nothing to do with humanity and has much to do with the fear real Asians have for us. This was also substantiated by the speeches of Ambassador Ahmed of Pakistan in this city. We are not going to be swayed by him, of course.
I shall send you copy of the birth data of Quantz Crawford when I uncover it among a mass of papers. You are doing people a big favor in charging them enough. This is far less than what they would pay to go to psychiatrists. If I wish you to undercharge I will advise but I certainly do not wish it. The higher the price the more respect will be paid.
Quantz asked me about your book. I shall write him to send down the copy. Now the criticism:
I differ from you entirely about the Aquarian Age. I am now a member of two high-power organizations of scientists studying religion. While anybody may join, they are very serious. I attended their session when the scientists (AAAS) met at Berkeley at the end of the year.
The scientists differ very much from other people in that they want people to speak who have had experiences. They don’t give a tot about degrees; they want facts, information and not opinions. Consequently the mass of people who imagine they are metaphysicians or occultists either do not attend or try to establish their own groups. These fail because they do note recognize each other or the real scientists.
Another evidence of the Aquarian Age comes in the attitudes of the young. The paper about the Beatles shows the fears of the Pisceans.
It is because of the New Age I am unable to criticize your views. As I mentioned before, in re Jean Dixon, you often unconsciously peer into the future. It is up to you now to defend your own work which may fit in with the Aquarian Age and which does not fit in with the Piscean age.
If you cannot accept yourself the world will not accept you. I doubt whether. “The Cycle of Sex” applies to the past at all. Having seen a large part of the real world, met others who have seen other parts and spending much of the time in Anthropological studies, I see no more any “right” or “wrong” in behavior patterns than in chemical pattern. With one exception—the part “God” plays in human affairs.
By God I mean the Infinitude and not concepts, dreams, ideas. God created so to speak, some 108 metals with different behavior patterns. And perhaps created “12” or a multiply (108 is also a multiple of 12) basic horary types—but there are also astrological types.
The difference—and I do not know whether we agree or differ, is that excepting for radioactivity—which is real, metals stay metals a long time—while the “human” soul is subject to a more rapid and changing evolution.
My objection to Freud is that he did not accept the small capacity of the sex brain to all the brain. My objection to Marx is that he did not accept the sex brain at all. There is a question and it may be a nonsense question, whether the types determine human behavior or human behavior the types.
A more basic objection is that there is no room for God in your scheme, although it is decidedly broader than our traditions. Traditional marriage is an outgrowth of slavery and/or property rights. I am too much an admirer of Margaret Meade and Ruth Benedict to dispute them. But I am still more an admirer, and actually a spiritual brother of Sir Richard Burton although you and your friends have refused to accept that. I don’t care.
Using Burton’s methods I am now about to write two proposals for real Peace. I used his methods to success. The “world,” meaning here, has refused to accept them. Now the investigators found noting has been happening in Cambodia. We believe the press, the politicians, not those with direct experience. Scientists want direct experience, so do mystics. We are getting together. This is the New Age. More to follow.
Faithfully,
August 16, 1966
My dear Gavin:
Enclosed is the envelope from Quantz Crawford. I do not know whether this data is enough.
He has written he will sent money and I wish he would send it to you. Besides, I am leaving shortly for Santa Barbara and Hollywood.
I should not be surprised if this man either had Gemini rising or planets in it. In any case you know what to do and even to ask for an advancement because he is out of town.
Quantz is known to Bryn and he has just asked after you and Vocha. Vocha is leaving this week for a short trip to the desert.
Now I do not know how far this Pluto-Uranus thing operates. My prime purpose of going to Hollywood is a/c accidents to a dear friend. Well I just got a letter from Prynce Hopkins yesterday—la même chose. Almost a complete duplicate. So marry of my friends are in bed.
Actually I should like Quantz to raise money for a complete reading. If he pays he may take advice. As I wrote before this is more important than the horoscope itself.
Faithfully,
P.S. Quantz said he would send money also for your autograph of “The Cycle of Sex.” I wish you would take this up.
The book is not only out of my field but it may belong to the New Age—and I keep on harping on it is. To me the Old Age refused Sir Richard Burton, so?
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
August 18, 1966
My dear Gavin:
Despite our conversation and my willingness to cooperate with you in all means that will ensure your material well-being, I do not have time to waste on useless debates where one is expected to accept the credentials of others but one’s own credentials are rejected.
When Gina spoke in your home I attested memory of former lives, especially the last one. One added that many of these memories have been substantiated in ways which made “Bridey Murphy” look like kindergarten stuff and I have not yet been able to get anybody to real The Soul of a People by Fielding Hall, and being unable there it is useless to parade my own real knowledge as against a lot of exotic pseudo-knowledge which is paraded on the ignorant and often by the ignorant.
Until recent times a lot of knowledge was called “occult” and was confined to secret societies. My first teacher was nominated to head the French “Martinist Order,” refused and immediately after met her Sufi teacher and was initiated. She was thus able to bring the real occultism of the real West and the real occultism of the real East together.
I do not know what “religion” is or what “science” is. Under the ages of Magic the two were one and they are still one in the Tibetan-Mongolian versions. I have not only typed the whole
“Sepher Ha-Zohar” but had a few lessons with real Kabbalists. And from the French Occult schools got a complete training in Fabre D’Olivet who has come into science by the back door through the now famous Sapir.
In one of the classes on Anthropology I brought in the works of Fabre D’Olivet’s teacher and my own teacher had a revolution. He had always been against Max Muller and intuitively did not know why. The feeling was more than substantiated when he had the evidence and it is notable that scientists are moved by evidence and mostly arguing non-scientists are not.
Now I am going through adjustments. In the first place this person is amenable to Universal Logic and under this I have been compelled to accept the teachings of Sri Aurobindo. This has nothing to do with personalities. In India the teachings of Sri Aurobindo are being accepted by the persons whom his followers decry—i.e. top ranking scientists. This is based on evidence and not speculations.
In the next place I have been drawn into one movement after another which substantiate the teachings of Sri Aurobindo. All these seemingly independent movements harmonize with each other.
a. No one was able to refute my Sri Aurobindo presentations at the Psychedelic conference. Sri Aurobindo has achieved the harmonization of the Upanishads.
The only people who have ever given me the floor on this subject were the top American Orientalists and I mean American. They were all confused about Indian mysticism by which I mean Indian mysticism and not dialectics about it. They accepted my “solution.” It is based on the Integrational Logistics and not on analysis.
b. You were not present at the meetings Lloyd gave on Dr. Oliver Reiser. It was all integrational. My friend, Daniel Hoffman attacked the proceedings on the ground that India was omitted. Lloyd called on me to intercede and I immediately attacked our culture which grants a totally invalidated high place to Russia in “science” and ignores India. I mentioned “Plant Psychology” and “Metallic Psychology,” two sciences which came out of the Jagadish Bose institute in Calcutta. Old Dr. Lal of the “Examiner” immediately came and shook my hands.
c. Now Dr. Reiser has accepted the occult traditions all over the place. I mean the real ones which can be substantiated.
d. With him and a number of other people we are working toward a World Logistics. This cannot be done until we at least recognize the Nyaya and Buddhistic Logics of India. The more we call ourselves “universal” the more prone we are to ignore them. Korzybski tore our culture right and left but did not replace it with anything constructive.
All this is a preparation. India has six levels of sexual relationships: Pisaka, Rakshasa, Asura, Manusha (human), Gandharva and Deva. If we should look into the universe (which we won’t) or into humanity (which we are just beginning) we will find all of them. Somebody challenged
Aurobindo through me about the War. This was very easy because Sri Aurobindo was a real
prophet—I don’t mean a Jean Dixon, I mean he could delineate Causation and the grades of spiritual evolution of all characters concerned. It is only that his analytical followers are unable, as yet, to
perceive the same degrees not only of consciousness—which can be forgiven, but of perception, which cannot. Unless there is proper perception there cannot be communication.
All of the above levels are in Indian ceremonies and recognized. Also their relation to Astrology. Your “Cycle of Sex” evidently applies to human, or rather manusha behavior. It leaves no room for the others. All our Criminology will be in vain until we examined Indian wisdom.
The Greeks may have had a part in introducing Logical thinking and Discursive reason but now these are transcended, right here, now. Sri Aurobindo definitely carries us from the Human (manusha) to the Gandharva stage. I shall not argue with those who cannot perceive. The purpose of his teaching is to carry us to the Supermind and for this he has the best argument, Delight. And there is nothing more we fear than Ecstasy and Delight. We have the words; we do not have the experience.
Mrs. Rabia Martin initiated me into the true Occultism aid Papa Ramdas into the true Delight (ananda).
After my lecture on “Vietnamese Buddhism” I received a lot of stuff from Princess Poon Diskul. One article was Every Thought Is a Karma which is accepted verbally and that is all. When we adopt that we will have no trouble in human relations.
Another was her very severe attack on “Faraggi-Buddhism.” I was talking with a Hindu on this that Buddha, after all, did not found “Buddhism.” He came to establish the Sanatana-Dharma and talked about nothing else. If one goes to the Pali Scriptures one finds that the Pali equivalents are all mis-translated and this gives everybody, especially those not devotees, a change to get their horns in.
As in practice “Buddhism” is not a religion at all, but a concoction of speculations, particularly by Englishmen, a whole lot of Englishmen, who does not know what a religion is. One cannot use a word which has no meaning.
Once I entered the office of the Dean of Studies at the University of California in Los Angeles. Without looking up, he was very busy, “Do you know Princess Poon Diskul?” and I immediately answered, “Who the heck do you think sent me here?”
Unlike the metaphysical people who call the scientists “skeptics” he accepted this at once and we became friends. There was mutual trust, not a demand for trusting while withholding it.
The Indian Cosmos which was been presented also by a few Muslims and the first Theosophists provides Cyclic Law. I had a severe training in Cyclic Law both from the French Occult and Indian points of view and am not going to waste time with those who have not had it.
After my lecture a few of us gathered in a private home and I said: “The Indian Gods are real and this can be demonstrated and manifested.” This was done. Some day we shall accept knowledge from those who know. Americans want to teach. Most scientists are amenable and listen; many non-scientists call the scientists “skeptics” and do not know how to listen.
The fact is we are arising from the cycles of discursive reason to Integrational Logistics. It is here, I am in it and this has nothing to do with piece-meal disjunct factors.
When a World Philosophical Gathering took place in India some time ago the Russian speaker said: “We are not like the Americans, we learned our Islam from Muslims, not from Europeans; we studied Indian philosophy with Hindus, not with Germans; we sent to Japan for a Zen Master. We are not like the Americans.” The Americans did not even stay to speak. The Conference was saved by a Dr. Sen, leader in the Sri Aurobindo movement.
Faithfully,
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco, Calif.
August 18, 1966
Hon. Phillip Burton
House Office Building
Washington, D. C.
In Re: Peace Probing
Dear Congressman Burton:
There is an article today that one Chester L. Cooper has been selected as “peace prober” for Vietnam. I do not know what this means and the continuance of our exotic, if not to say psychotic policies will keep us in perpetual hot water.
I am leaving today for visits to Santa Barbara and Los Angeles and will see at least (1) the top American lay Buddhist and (2) former top CIA executive for SE Asia. They realize, as in time a lot of people will realize, that everybody counts but eye-witnesses. Sarkhan of the late Prof. Burdick tells the story so well that nothing can be added to it—excepting our stubborn, absolute adherence to schizophrenia that we insist on one hand for elections and reject equally the information in the hands of individuals.
My “Vietnamese Buddhism” has been tape recorded and the talk will be repeated on September 22nd in Chinatown. On the UCLA campus is our official historian with whom it is as easy to communicate as it is difficult with the press and state department.
Immediately after giving this lecture I received materials from Princess Poon Diskul, the President of the World Buddhist Federation in which she has given a terrific diatribe against “Farangi Buddhism,” a product of the United States, derived for the most part from brand names who have nothing whatsoever to do with Oriental traditions. This has reached the state when all Buddhists, both neutral and anti-Communists will probably boycott the forthcoming pseudo-elections.
It matters little to them whether the Chinese or Americans destroy their culture, but destroyed it must be unless…. I have now taken independent action to contact non-Americans who many have something to say.
The recent talks of the Ambassador from Pakistan are to us enjoyable, masochistic warnings and nothing more. Asians are still thought-forms.
You may use the above as you will. No doubt after the farce “elections” your position may become very strong.
Faithfully,
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
August 25, 1966
Written in Hollywood
Hon. Thomas H. Kuchel
Senate Office Building
Washington, D. C.
Dear Senator Kuchel:
How California Can Help Asia (continued)
One is aroused for the moment at the Presidential endorsement of the proposal to have Asian Nations meet to settle some of the difficulties in Vietnam. I have not moved one inch from “This world cannot exist half dialectic and half free” and along with multitudes of Asians (the human beings) remember our snubbing Ambassador Rumolo’s proposals several years back to the same degree. And it is unfortunate to the extent of being disgraceful that even our Vice-Presidents, intervening in the part of the world in which they have no roots, have each considered the dialectical “Asians” far more than the flesh-and-blood human beings who are the victims of a pincher crushing, having little to say who will kill them.
I have come down the coast stopping in several places, meeting and even conferring with those who respond, sadly, to my “The President is leaning backward consulting everybody but the people of Vietnam and those Americans (“Sarkhanians”) who have lived among them.”
I do not include in this such persons as Robert Scheer who was carefully selected. His book has been published by the important “Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions” in Santa Barbara and shows sadly, that dialecticians accept dialecticians even of most opposing views because all thrive on subjectivities and all are afraid of light, feats, information.
Before leaving San Francisco I spoke on “Vietnamese Buddhism,” a subject by-passed by all dialecticians of “right,” “left,” “center,” and “nowhere” covering the real people of a real unhappy land. The next day reports were received from Thailand and this country is on the way—unless I am mistaken—of a more than threatened loss-of-face at the forthcoming “plebiscite” in Vietnam. For it looks at the moment as if the real Buddhists (that is the people) will not vote, and they will not even boycott the “elections,” unless compelled by armed forces—very likely—to go to the polls just as in? democratic? Russia or East Germany or some South American lands.
Senator, I was living near “Azad Kashmir,” a portion of the disputed territory occupied by Pakistan, when a plebiscite took place. The press, the radio, even a few governmental officials went in and campaigned to “white heat.” The turnout was so small that a censorship was clamped down. These people do not think as we do and we will not examine their points of view.
On the night of my lecture the retiring Ambassador, Ahmed, of Pakistan, spoke and literally told us off for regarding Asians subjectively and not objectively and added he doubted whether it would do any good. And one regrets that a large section of those who pretend they are studying foreign affairs as masochists, preferring to be scolded than to be informed.
There are at least two wars going on in Vietnam and all the commentators, editors, pressure groups are not going to change that. One started out because of communist infiltration. But one followed almost immediately, that of all but deliberate interference with the ways of life of the peoples of SE Asia.
The objective reports on Cambodia differ so much from the press releases and entirely conform the living reports of “Sarkhanians” whom we ignore. The press all over the world, elsewhere, knows this. We have refused to accept Norodom seriously—and so other Asian-Asians.
The second war is against the American smarty-aleck defamation of the great regions of Asia. These religions are presented in two forms:
a. The Universities, particularly in the Mid-West where they teach the real religions of real Asia, Americans in cooperation with Asians. Their knowledges are accepted officially but hardly by the public.
b. Social—most effective in New York and throughout California where instead of real Asian religions with real scriptures we accept the dialectics of four Englishmen, very famous and loathed throughout Asia. These Englishmen have not in all cases accepted the status where they have been placed by us, but this condition has been enough to inflame Asians.
My real reports of real attitudes from real sources are in conflict with this “Social Asian Philosophy.” It is not the place of universities to go into propaganda and I have reported on UCLA before.
University of California, Santa Barbara. I was there only a short time, it being intercession, but was amazed to find already in operation two idea-principles by which we would have real cultural exchange with real Asians instead of dialectics from Englishmen, Germans and Scheers.
I am still working on the integration of efforts and research of, by and in the University of California, all campuses. It is regrettable that this has been brought into the political campaign and our continued over-emphasis on the efforts of 400-400 students at Berkeley and our blind responses to the success (not efforts) of over 20,000 others!
You see, Senator, it is so easy to show how dialectic and how non-democratic we really have become.
August 29, 1966
Dear Gavin:
The geography of the past two weeks has been very uncertain but I am writing because the aspects seem to be very certain. Not that one is looking into charts to determine affairs but patterns are clear.
At the worst was the clearing up of two problems of children I have baby-sitted; they knew each other in high-school, went off the deep end at the same time and both recovered with very Hollywoodian “solutions” at the moment. What I have been stuck with is that both the boy and girl came from well-to-do homes, their parents were deeply devoted to each other, they were raised in circumstances absolutely ideal from the “sociological” point of view. With everything in their “favor,” they both went wayward at the same time and they both came out of it at the same time, though they have not met since graduating from high school.
To me this shows there are aspects in our lives unaccounted for by material circumstances or doctrines and it is to be noted, from their births, ages, residences, etc. that they were under the same aspects and these aspects whatever they were and are worked out similar patterns where “sociologically” they should not have been.
All down the line I found that my dreams are coming into materialization, but not by me personally; and that the persons accomplishing these things all had accidents or required hospitalization. The same pattern discussed with briefly over the phone continued all the way. But my dreams for direct dealings with Asians are coming to pass and also within the framework of the “Multiversity” of California.
Now I am running into old friends, mostly unexpected and in strange ways.
I saw both Prynce Hopkins and Edward Connaughton and tended your regards. Some of the old estates around Montecito are changing hands. I did not see the Hydes but the family is in town and the hills are being occupied by a kind of Beatnik. Jim has changed his job and we only spoke briefly.
Cordially,
September 2, 1966
My dear Gavin,
You can believe that both your letter to me and to Mrs. James Pike were read with greatest delight by Evelyn and myself and now you are an author with a publisher and please tell me where I can buy your book.
You are quite right in that young Pike might have postponed his precipitated demise had he read either your book or heard something better than the wish-mash education now presented by schools and churches and political parties, and, like you, I am trying in my late years to do something to education, raising the Ford Foundation, Indira Gandhi et al. Now there are some good schools, taking care of about 1/10 promilles of youngsters a few years, after which they are swallowed up, again, by the traditional establishment whose “digests” of science is about the worst. Sir Arthur Eddington writes: “Where a group of physicists are today assembled, after an hour all converge upon one theme. Our amazing ignorance. It is not a pose, rather a startling observation that the very foundation of the physical world around us can be so completely hidden to such extremely smart people….”
St. Paul, of course, was a poor little pygmy of dogmatic opinion but so extremely like so many others that I cannot blame him or think about him except blaming and thinking about thousands in our time—but why do people let themselves be influenced by such nuts? Because of the entire system of present education, that claims to teach facts while every good mind knows there are no facts or that facts are made, by oneself, for the purpose of conducting a life and make it bearable.
As to the Aquarian age you are both right: Sam and You and I have reached it. Some others have not—although many more than most people think. None but an idiot would venture a guess about the account—it chances every day anyway. As to the peaks of the ages, a serious mistake crept into Hindu astrology 700 BC but is n now being cleared up by knowledgeable men of whom you may be one. From AD 499 onward the sun began to advance toward the grand centre. During 1100 years, to 1599, the human intellect on an average was extremely dense and only recently, as shown in the scientists’ refreshing admittance of ignorance, enlightenment begins. In 1894 a capable Hindu yogi reported that the equinox was 20o 54’ 36” distant from the first point of Aries (The fixed star Revati).
It was of course right of J. to say love thy neighbor as thyself, and very useful for those who can achieve that, but not so useful (which J. readily realized) for those who are not so made. For the latter there is an equally attractive and possible world. Our stupidity has been doctrines. All doctrine is false in substance though sometimes temporarily useful (apparently at least) for some. We must rid ourselves of belief and arrive at search. Life is an experiment, nothing much else and nobody can be happy for any length of time without.
Bryn
[Ed—written by Brynjolf Björset]
September 3, 1966
Beloved One of Allah [Ed—to Saadia]:
A number of things have been happening and, after consulting my legal counselor, he advises that if there is not good news soon it might be better to play to return to Pakistan.
Now in this life your Murshid has met all kinds of people who are playing leading roles in the world’s affairs, and especially in the complexities of Vietnam. There is a fictional novel called Sarkhan written by the late Prof. Burdick of the University of California, and although it is called “fiction” it has so many items in it which seem to be based on fact.
For instance your Murshid was invited originally to Thailand by Her Serene Highness, Princess Poon Diskul, of the Royal Family and now the President of the World Buddhist Federation. Whatever happened there was rejected by the press and Foreign Service of the United States. Only today, for the first time a group has officially recognized one’s material accomplishments and in general my fellow countrymen who know anything are never listened to.
If you visit “Pakistan Times” you might learn a little about Julie Medlock who was on (and may still be on) their staff. The stories she told me about Cambodia and Laos were corroborated from other sources but not believed. It is only last month when a survey team visited that part of the world, that it was proven she (and my friends) had always been honest. Honesty is no part of international affairs.
Anyhow one has gone “all out” to try to present peace programs based on realities and direct acquaintance and not subjective ideas. We all have our ideas which we want to compel others to listen to but we do not listen ourselves.
Next to the Peace program there is the Food Program. Here one finds the so-called “Muslims” are no more honest nor intelligent than others when they got into politics. On his last visit to Southern California for the first time one learned of some activities (from the universities) which may lead toward the solution of pressing problems.
One has also been to the Institute for the Study of Democratic Institutions. Before one left one discussed with an Astrologer friend of accidents to friends. On this trip and since there have been so many accidents, mostly to hands or feet that have hindered one’s success, but being advised by Allah one has been patient. In any event they have accepted my proposal for papers on “The Basic Democracies of Pakistan” and this opened the doors for my serious efforts. So one will have to visit that part of the State soon, inshallah.
The copies of letters enclosed will give some idea as to what is happening. There have been a few men drawn to your Murshid and another will be given Bayat shortly, inshallah. One has also gained the good-will of a long time friend, originally a brother in Tasawwuf, who has found that the one who knows the sciences of Heart may be wiser and more helpful than others.
Then comes the question women. They bring problems but do not always accept counsel. And in America women have become very strong-willed, self-centered, pampered and financially sufficient. They have their ideas of “wisdom” based on externals and superficialities and then when real problems arise it is different. But one has almost concluded that one does not care to administer to the American women. So one is making a final gesture—in several directions, to test the sincerity and devotion.
There is a single exception of my other god-daughter who lives in Los Angeles, and between us is a tremendous mutual trust. Only Allah has manifested to her in ways with which we are not acquainted. She has lived with the Maoris in New Zealand and the native Amerindians in Arizona. These people at one time or other had a Divine Messenger visit them and that one gave them guidance. There are other natives here who had other guidances. These people say to the Christians: “You pray to Jesus; we pray with him.”
Anyhow one has written to the President, to the United Nations and to friends and acquaintances abroad, without any deep feeling that one will be taken seriously. But a few people in this State now take one seriously. Besides the method one tried on one’s elder spiritual sister seems to have had some success. That is why one feels the necessity of basing inner and outer sciences not on “Islam” but on Allah. From this one goes into “Irfan.” This is no longer merely personal, but the whole world really depends on and will benefit from Allah.
As–salaam aleikhum.
Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti
P.S. One has sent our name and address to Ajmir to receive their material which is in English. You may not to all they proclaim, but at least you will find another point of view.
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
September 5, 1966
Dear Tsil-Tsil:
Conversation last night: “Hello, “Peanuts,” this is perpetual Peter Pan.” This to a forty-year old mother. It is a long story of hearts and broken arms and legs. Humorously or unhumorously, the last month has been, “if you love me you will manifest a broken limb,” only it is no joke.
I was literally thrown out of Fairfax in Marin County by a woman I shall call “The Enemy,” a woman whose instructions in Sufism were repaid by every sort of persecution imaginable. They have brought her no comfort.
Although Inayat Khan was a man of love, tolerance, majesty and nobility, he was very unsuccessful in getting disciples to walk in his path. And my great sin was to have received his confidence when, through age, development and otherwise it should have gone to others. I was never believed excepting by Luise and to a slight degrees by Paul, and by the folks in Santa Barbara. But those who did not believe were involved in struggles for power, wealth and human values.
In later years when I was privileged to go to the Orient I found the Sufis great souls in love and beneficence and often with a depth of understanding and conscious function beyond our ken.
When my friend Bill took me to Marin County we got a glimpse of the tales left behind. It seems that everybody trusts and trusted me but the disciples in Sufism. Self-righteousness, coupled with hypocrisy and down-right villainy gave Sufism a bad name but because the so-called “Sufis” gave me a bad name, I was absolved and never associated with those who so acted.
Bill and I ran into trusted friends, and to an invalid lady, and then to a story of marriages and deaths. Two marriages are clearing up some very complicated situations in which the young involved, going wayward, have come out of it in successful marriages end I am invited to another.
The girl’s name is Lenya, the family are Latter Day Saints. The girl is going to have (like Luci) a Catholic marriage. I pretended to be shocked. “It will be at St. Rita’s Church in Fairfax.” That did it. This is one of Puck’s churches full of legend and sanctity. He hopes to go.
But along with that was the sudden death of “my tween.” “My “tween” lost his father in infancy and I filled in a good deal of the bill. We were very close and he lost his life as a hero fireman. I never knew how many hearts I had won among the “common people,” until they tried to find me for the funeral. I was in Santa Barbara and Hollywood.
The death of Johnny was a great shock. Everybody loved him and he left a wife and some children. One brother to whom he was particularly attached suffered a breakdown and so did the mother. They moved all their things to Westwood in Lassen County. So I wrote to my friend Irene who lives there end who was once our common neighbor in Deer Park, Fairfax. Irene had meanwhile come down to see me, but instead she had an accident and is laid up. One does not like to use levity but so many friends with broken arms and legs—but this is indicated astrologically.
On the other hand the great love and respect which one left behind is as great as in the Orient and I have been receiving invitations all over the place. I want to go to Westwood and may, even if overnight. Then I must plan to come south again.
Ruth St. Denis is here but I cannot look her up. One has gone all out in his “peace” and “Asian” projects with the feeling that if all fail one will return to Asia but with the feeling also that all will not fail.
I have written to Hazel who made such big promises but I hope she does not come through now.
There is another story that Musheraff Khan, the brother of Inayat Khan came here and that I broke up his meetings (this from the Enemy, as above). Instead we had a loving embrace and he wrote about me to Ajmir, one of the Sufi Centers in India. In turn they sent me materials and these materials are wonderful and I wrote them part of my story.
On the 22nd I am to speak on Vietnamese Buddhism again. Everything counts in Asia but the people. I would like to close this also but have gone “all out.” In this I am joined by my “Sarkhanian” friends, who have lived in the disputed lands but have failed in getting anybody interested. We are all afraid that this policy will continue. But there is a Divine Moral Law and Divine Justice and it will triumph, even as it seems triumphing, after a long time, in my private life.
Well, tit-for-tat—you with your niece becoming married and me involved with at least two marriages among my “kids.”
Love and blessing,
Leumas
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
September 7, 1966
My dear Gavin:
Thank you for your long letter and the different charts. They will need studying but off-hand rather amazed me because the indications are much brighter than the outer life. Nevertheless one has already written “all out” letters and the indications are that some of these may have pleasant reports.
The “accidents” to my friends continue—all the same patterns and a number of events in my private life are totally against our sociological beliefs of the moment and all point toward astrological bases.
I have in my possession a considerable amount of Sufic and Islamic materials (not identical but harmonious with each other) which posit Astrology as a science. It will take more study than for what I have time at the moment—that is, I have no time for the Science but I always have time for Tasawwuf (Sufism) which is not studied here at all—the best being superficial intellectual derivations therefor. But now on the world scale I am accepted or being accepted, regardless of the attitudes of people in this vicinity.
I am for the moment preparing my “Swan-Song” on “Vietnamese Buddhism” on September 22 at the Jeng Sen, 46 Waverly Place, at Eight P.M. The purpose will be to collect funds for the war orphans who are Buddhists.
When I returned from Santa Barbara it was to learn that Lord Russell has declared and declaimed against LBJ. It is one of the most ironical situations of the time. Lord Russell is getting his information direct from an American is in some respect my twin-soul. It is a long history, both of us being regarded as “mad” by the foreign service and both of us welcomed where Vice Presidents do not—any Vice-President; but our people believe our Vice-Presidents and don’t believe us. Only Lord Russell is a close friend of my colleague and we are going to see, I hope in the open, the most dramatic review of “Real Asia vs. Phant-Asia.”
I have written Prynce Hopkins on this point and it will be followed up.
I am not against Saint Paul. I have my own saints: Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead with an occasional assist for or from Malinowski. I am far more a Chemist than Psychologist but use the same sort of reasoning. Reasoning chemically I come up to some conclusions, which are not in harmony even with my own traditions.
Rev. Blighton, whom I expect to see shortly, has come out all for the “homophils,” a term I despise. I despise all dualistic terms. Name-throwing proves only that the name-thrower is at fault. “A man is a man for a’ that.” All stomachs have wings.
One cannot compel the President to regard his own unfavorable Mars and Saturn and accept his own favored Sun—Moon-Uranus, etc. He has the great ability to listen as well as to lead, to accept counsel as well as to offer it. He can always find the wise course in life, and should rely more and more on his own inner self than on others. The latest reports indicate he is tending to do just that, but unfortunately not in military matters and international affairs.
What I have “seen” in the horoscope is bolstered at every point by my own private life and connections, but there is no way in which to make these known and effective because unfortunately our State Department does not trust its own citizens, while demanding blind trust. This is the weakness both of the President and the succeeding administrations.
Faithfully,
September 5
Dear Gavin:
Actually it’s the sixth being past midnight, and I’ve just posted my horoscope in a frame, backed by purple paper, on the wall in my kitchen. Alone there, I had the inclination to raise my fists and shout at it, “I’ll beat you yet.” Instead, I’m writing you this letter, which is where I’ll start.
Today I exited from the beneficence of your mind-ranging home to Chinese lunch and Sausalito taking with me your all too mature and lovely Patrick who had given me basic information regarding such mysteries to me as sextiles, trines, aspects, and, most especially, quincunx’s, so that I later sat down and tore my fate to pieces analyzing its nooks and corners and turning, where possible, all bad to good.
Gavin, if it is all so pessimistic, then of all things you threw me another “stymie” by the very act of telling me the nature of my birth. Gloom fell all around me as I relived all the horrors, disappointments, and just plain “bad luck” which even those close to me could never explain and which seemed to dot my career from early childhood. Nothing serious to health or education of course, but the less tremendous but more sensitive portions of my aspirations.
When I was ten or eleven I desired the starring part of Esther in a Purim musical at Sunday school more than anything in the world. The teachers and other students knew that I had the strongest and most on-key voice, and most drama experience (having opted for drama since age five at summer camps, hopelessly stage struck). But that lady who had to play the music on the piano resented having to transpose the whole show for my lower alto voice … so the part went to a thin-voiced creature, and I took a small part and stole the show from her. Afterwards everyone said, “Why didn’t Claire get the part, she was terrific,” but by then it was too late and I was furious inside and had already learned to be very deprecating and seemingly fatalistic about it on the outside. At high school I got off to the wrong start by not being initiated into the then operating sororities which were only one semester later abolished by law from SF as an evil in the public schools. Still, it took a long time to make good friends. By my senior year I surprised everyone by going ahead of the Science “brain” and the English “brain” of our class and placing high in the national merit scholarships—mainly because I was more well rounded in knowledge than these better known high school intellects. This finally put me “in” but I saw the falsity of the whole system of admiration based on either the right kind of clothes, figure, money, or in rare cases—grades. It was also too late to put me into the highly desirable girl’s honor society in which there were eight places. A friend, so called, troubled to tell me I had placed ninth! In college I discovered that my whole career had been seriously marred by the unknown enmity of a fellow student who had written music for a song I sang in the freshman show, and which gained me much acclaim. This student couldn’t stand that fact that his song had gained me admiration, and not himself, and he spread all kinds of rumors about me, I only later learned, again through one of the wonder “friends.” Had I known he had taken this so badly I would have done everything possible to rectify this hurt I had unknowingly afflicted. And so it went, year after year. Everything always seemed to end in “second best,” or too late acknowledgement of accomplishment, or even enmities.
Well, Gavin, I had long ago put these hurts out of sight because I began to realize that dwelling on them could not help me in the least and that after all was said and done, recognition came at last and I at least knew what I had accomplished. (I now recall my disappointment that the high school valedictory I wrote was widely accepted by teachers, but they came and told me they thought the valedictorian should be a boy, and awarded the honor to a math-physics whiz who was a genius indeed but couldn’t write a thing. The theme of my essay concerned regret, and the fact that we only regret what we haven’t done, including not exercising due control under certain circumstances, as well as the more positive aspects of action.) I could tell you much more serious examples of these “stymies” in my life, and the bitterness of too-late recognition on the part of peers and teachers.
Yet, there comes a certain time when one takes full responsibilities for one’s actions and I decided I really had made my own fate and that I could recognize for myself the slow piling up of certain kinds of achievement in my own terms—and that my time schedule had after all nothing to do with anyone else’s. It might take me a whole lifetime just to reach the things which seemed to come so much more easily for others.
It would take much too long to go into all the ups and downs since those days which your comments so vividly recalled. I am a real Aquarian in that I like to look ahead and the past is best put in its place, and even dwelling on it in this letter is upsetting and takes me backward. Tomorrow is my day and always has been, perhaps too much so. I am learning to use today as well. But yesterday is nothing but what I can do today better.
I simply refuse to believe that my horoscope can be so unfortuitous. If I am exceptional at all it is in that I have more psychological obstacles to overcome that other people and damn it I have been working on these barriers for years and years—and it has gained me?—more and more insights into others and a greater feeling for more and more kinds of people, and less and less estrangement—alienation from them that I used to feel so strongly. “I’m not like anyone else” I use to say. Now it’s, “I see something of me in you and you and you, and if I search I can find us together somewhere, you can’t elude me because we have something common in some side, corner, or hiding place within each of us.” Patrick says that maybe what was a seeming disaster (at that time a most traumatic, and certainly, for the next few years, stymieing experience) of being sent to an analyst at age 13 when most unready and unwilling for it, may have opened me to self-examination at an earlier age than others, and so have started me on self-solution of problems (at the time, what could be more of a stymie that being an adolescent and fearing your friends would see you walking into an office marked “Psychiatrist” after all it wasn’t “in” in those days).
Anyway, a talk with Ann Mero, or Barbara Voorhees or Pat will convince you that I am not today a completely stymied person. There are many areas I would like to open up in myself and perhaps the knowledge you have given me will help me to concentrate my energies (I tend to scatter them to the winds, having much of it), and if I had known what you told me a few years ago I am sure it would have really psychologically devastated me. It is not easy to take now. It makes me recall what has been overcome and reminds me that there is still so very much, but it also confirms my only personal knowledge of [?].
772 Clementina St,
San Francisco 3, Calif.
September 11, 1966
My deer Mr. Hopkins:
I hope you do not mind this piece of whimsy written to a local newsman. It is almost impossible to reach this profession and I was publicly thrashed for saying that our official historians never take any of their data from news documents. I have already been able to correct material in the hands of two official historians—one in Princeton, the other David Wilson at UCLA. It was not particularly important excepting on one matter.
The University of California is being called to account by a candidate for the gubernatorial post. I do not know a single problem of all Asia—and this covers tremendous territory—which has not been solved either on one of the campuses of the University, or by graduates or by research teams. The successes are so tremendous that this very situation has made it difficult to communicate. I have one interview coming up on the solution of food (and this would include water) problems of real Asia.
The short interviews at UCSB brought so much important data that I did not stay around—for example they are having real cultural exchanges with real Asians at UCSB. One cannot emphasize this too much, for when UC Berkeley held its conferences on “Asia” (very little to do with reality), Pakistanis and Chinese were alike excluded from all panels and here again one received a rebuff for even suggesting Chinese (non-political) speakers. This was before the removal of Chancellor Strong. Then these Nations make pacts, why not? They are both Asian Nations whose nationals are not “equal” to us, and still less to our ersatz “experts.”
I have recently been requested to act as intellectual and literary adviser to the “Temple of Understanding,” and have been a member of the “World Congress of Faiths” since its establishment. The story of how one became a F.R.S. is “ridiculous” and true and this very knowledge (of realities) has brought about this honorific. My “Dance of Universal Peace,” first version at Fatehpur Sikri, has been accepted by the “Temple of Understanding,” and of course by Ruth St. Denis.
One has been very careful about “seeking.” Homes have been offered both at Santa Barbara and Ojai since our late short meeting. And my goddaughter in Pakistan, whom I have mentioned, has been still more successful socially and financially and wants me badly. In Pakistan I am known and accepted as a spiritual teacher; here only by the real Masters (Korea and Japan.) It is funny. Knowing the histories of Wei Lang and Hakuin, one waits. The greatest weapon is patience. And with that, knowledge, one hopes.
The whole history of Julie Medlock, Lord Russell’s biographer, and my own are so remarkably parallel, that the future generations will take a different view. Scientists accept in situ observations; diplomats do not.
A tentative meeting with my Congressman, Hon. Phillip Burton, has been accepted; the condition being one would want the whole staff present. It is not easy to take us out of “realism” into reality. But one is disturbed about a stock market crash when it is found that the reports from Thailand and Vietnam are no more reliable than those on Cambodia, now exposed.
It is therefore with utter indifference one speaks on “The Buddhism of Vietnam” next week.
So far as the Center is concerned, I have offered to report to them on “Basic Democracies in Pakistan,” a subject which has been by-passed and especially by certain publications dedicated to Asian studies. As suggested, the election is a farce.
If one succeeds in nothing else but the reality of “Prajna” this will be something.
Yesterday there was an article on the discovery of evidences of Japanese civilization in Argentine. It was time to bring the book published by the Smithsonian on the parallels between Japanese Jumon and Andean ceramists. One bought two copies. When I arrived at the Diabutsu, which is owned by a real Zen Buddhist, my friend for whom I purchased the other copy was present with his companion who is also a real Zen Buddhist. Prajna works that way.
This is just a report. No answer requested.
Faithfully,
Sunday [Ed—September 11]
My dear Gavin:
I am enclosing copy of a letter to Prynce Hopkins largely because it indirectly confirms what you have offered in charts. The lunar one has encouraged all-out action on my part, sticking to actualities because the only bad aspect is the Sun-Neptune situation.
True I am speaking on “Vietnamese Buddhism on the 22nd at 46 Waverly Place. I am not encouraging a large audience, because while a large attendance might mean a larger collection for the poor innocent war orphans whose crime is that they were born Buddhists, it could also mean strength to the real peace forces, demonstrating that Americans do not really care.
For a long time Prynce Hopkins was the chief American real lay Buddhist but because those who claim leadership in American Buddhism are so individualistic and uncooperative to each other, he does not like his name to be used for or by them. His Buddhism is acceptable in the Orient but hardly here.
After my lecture I shall either visit Westwood or go to S. B. Both matters are involved with accidents to friends.
The lunary one is utterly astonishing and yet it was confirmed by a local lady who is more than a seeress.
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
September 11, 1966
Books in Review,
3311 Wilshire,
Los Angeles 5, Calif.
In re: The Circle of Sex, etc.
Dear Friends:
I am taking the opportunity of a book review today to present some serious material to you. The book reviews of the Sunday paper give a long review on Gavin Arthur’s book and one can only hope that it will lead to increased sales.
The reviewer seems to be dominated by whimsy and even suggests that this effort is the result of that attitude. I doubt it. But the reviewer certainly and the writer perhaps seem to be guided by analysis. Analysts differ, and integrationists agree and I do not think we solve problems by analysis.
The fact that this work is against psychoanalysis is about as important as saying an Oak tree should not be taken seriously because it is not a Maple. On the whole Gavin has given wider consideration to the subject matter than any of the “experts” mentioned by the reviewer. But to a scientist this is all nonsense. Present doctrines in Physics were not determined by majorities, much less by minorities. They were reached by the complete examination of all the known elements and were re-checked every time a new element appears, be it for a “twinkling,” be it for an eternity.
Thus the Physicist and Mystic agree in being universal and analysts differ from them and from each other in not being universal. Freud was destroyed not by the church but by Malinowski. The public is not so much acquainted with Malinowski and there is some question how far Gavin would accept Malinowski and, of course, psychoanalysts do not. Civilized man is city-man and generally man under technology and not man under nature. Under nature, pure or raw, developed or undeveloped, behavior patterns may be different.
My own doctrines—to which I am not too enamored, not being an expert—have been derived from two Sufis, Sir Richard Burton and Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan. I am enclosing an article by the latter. I commend it for your consideration.
Both of these Sufis accepted the three-body existence to begin with and examined Indian conventions, Astrology and cosmic metaphysics as we in the Western world have not. The West has to learn humility if not curiosity. The Psychedelics think they have reach heaven to have gone through five stages of consciousness. The Mystics know a lot more but metaphysicians never listen to mystics. The Mystics spoil the Metaphysical show.
I have already presented to you the five-stage evolution, a partial derivation from Indian marriage customs. It is not complete but it is more complete than anything I have seen from Western sources.
The chief difference between Inayat Khan and Sir Richard Burton is that the latter wrote disjunctively or rather his published works are disjunctive. Actually I knew his grandniece who had a record of the destroyed works, but not, of course, their contents. In neither of these Sufis is there any reference to “right” and “wrong” and in both many references to cosmic evolution, implicit in Burton, explicit in Inayat Khan.
I am not sending you “Twin Souls” to prove anything. This has been my experience and in general it has been accepted by real Zen Buddhists (Nyogen Senzaki) and Sufis. I am not going to argue over it. When people want to learn from the experiences of others, the matter can be delineated.
We are having a reception for Vocha Wednesday night but something happened yesterday which may be of interest to you. I bought those books on the ceramics of the Andes to give to one Shibata-San and Rudolph Schaeffer of the Art school. Both are close friends of Vocha.
There was an article on the discovery of Japanese shards in Argentina, and I took this and one book to Shibata-san. He was with Schaeffer! About four hours business in five minutes. Actually my first realized twin-soul was once the business partner of Shibata! I have my diary notes on this.
I am going to Schaeffer’s shortly. We have here e different type or Circle. I am all for Circles.
Cordially,
September 13, 1966
My dear Gavin:
This is a very difficult and very easy letter at the same time. It is difficult because one is not sure of the impressions; it is easy because all claims by this ego self are backed by your own charts. And if you take the charts seriously—I am not holding you to it, you will see that statements and even claims made are supported by the configurations and the question will come to the extreme point—do you accept your ego-views, or do you accept the views expounded by the occult and perhaps scientific study known as “Astrology?”
This letter is necessarily divided into three portions: Self, yourself, and extraneous matters. While these matters may have little to do with the charts, they are welcome. And I wish to introduce a sheet of paper into my files that should I pre-decease you all my charts, and perhaps some of my books relating to Astrology will go to you. These are not the ordinary books, but cover Oriental (and at the moment unwelcome) studies.
The Lunation seems to indicate that one shall succeed if one does no go far afield—i.e. Sun square Neptune. Therefore I am throwing myself into those studies, those researches and those reports which have to do most with two problems of the present—Peace and Food, and with the philosophy which will make possible the solution of these problems, better expressed by Oliver Reiser of Pittsburgh.
It is ridiculous and it is true that the solution of problems in the scientific field depends on the direct researches of personas involved; and in the social and economic fields the weight of personality is thrown around far more than the direct experiences. That is why I am concerned with Vietnam and also because at the top levels communication is easy—and accepted. The world’s rejection of Robert Clifton is the basic cause of the war and I am writing now on three distinct “wars” going on:
a. The State Department versus citizens
b. The war against communism
b. The war against Asian “superstitions”
On the first you, if anything proved to be a prophet—better than Jean Dixon, because if any one person is to blame it seems to be the late JFD, flanked by “Tricky Dick” and even by Billy Graham. But “protocol” demands certain noblesse oblige. Only now Lord Russell has or can get the direct testimony exactly as we do in the sciences and not all the dialectics or social prominents can overcome facts.
As to the war against communism, this the so-called “Doves” ignore. Actually the “Doves” here are more anti-religion than communists are. On the contrary the communists want you to believe they are anti-religious and so they use the institutions of Asian faiths for their own machinations. It is very simple, very easy, very effective and “impossible.”
On the third point, we have had the impertinence to have our citizens go to the Orient, especially Thailand but also Vietnam and acclaim and reclaim that these people are not followers of “true Buddhism” and these people are apt as not to have learned their “Asian Philosophy” from our good friend in Sausalito who does not have any standing in Asia, or has such a standing that if you went to real Asia you would find yourself fighting the nationals just as the locals who went to Thailand do.
When I speak on “Vietnamese Buddhism” I shill speak on “Vietnamese Buddhism.” A member of the Royal Asiatic Society (A “Fellow” despite Landau) and the World Congress of Faiths, I am constantly getting material absolutely anathema to our whole culture. And when I present actual Buddhism on September 22 at 46 Waverly Place I do not expect a large audience and this will enable me to communicate with the foreign press all over the world—these doors are open. And, of course I shall begin with Julie Medlock who has access to everything and has gotten exactly the same deal in America as Sam Lewis.
In any event the charts indicate and therefore one can work with them, avoiding “imaginaries” this year and watching the health next year when Mars seems to be negatively involved.
So Gavin, before you answer any point it is like having your secret in my pocket; Your charts will speak and the question will be “Is Gavin Arthur right?” or “Is Astrology valid?”
Although they do not belong to my chart your story is most interesting and supports my belief in a new race” or rather a whole step-up in cosmic evolution. This is based on knowledge of real Indian metaphysics.
I see no reason why boys should wear their hair long and girls short, and I see no reason to the contrary. I am bitterly even unalterably opposed to their critics. We are judging all over the place and we are going to receive the karma. If they are Pitri types—which I believe they are, they are like “fairies” in human form. By this I do not mean any type referred to in your circle of Sex—I mean they are basic fairy-types with no sarcasm or even symbolic. As we reject the Fairy world (excepting our good friends, the Irish occultists) we cannot perceive Leprechauns, Trolls, Sidhe, Elves, “Tinkers,” Sylphs, Dryads, etc. coming into human manifestation…. Beyond them are those who correspond to the Gandharvas and Apsaras as predicted by Sri Aurobindo Ghose.
There is no typical metal, there is no ideal metal; and if there is a typical “human” it means what the Indians call manas but as we do not study Indian cosmic psychology (we often “teach” it without studying it at all) we are apt to call “peculiar” what is not dominant.
September 16
Dear Pir-o-Murshid Shamcher;
Some time back Gavin Arthur delineated a Lunary for me and also a transiting horoscope for next year. I wrote him that either he was wrong or his horoscopes were wrong, that his opinions were entirely in conflict with what he says the stars say; that he could no longer insist there was science of Astrology and hold to his personal views, that one or the other was certainly wrong. For these charts were very, very favorable, provided one did not go into the realms of fantasy, fancy and imagination.
Actually this was the same conclusion Pir-o-Murshid gave concerning this ego. It meant a sort of initiation in that “initiation is a step forward into a direction in which one has not gone.”
For the first time last night I was listened to socially. Vocha Fiske was guest of honor at Lloyd Morain’s. She was very well received and present were some of his oldest friends and some of these were quite coincidentally my oldest friends and others via Luther Whitman. In order to give Vocha a break Mary Morain asked all those who had been to Japan to state their most dramatic experience.
When it was my true I told them I would not give the most dramatic experience but the one which was of most historical consequence. I them told of the last day in Japan and the errand one was sent on to unite the Buddhists internally against the communists. This mission succeeded at all the higher levels, but was either shunned or utterly derided by the American Foreign Service.
The remarkable thing about it was how I met my very close friend, Phra Sumangalo (Robert Clifton) who died of a broken heart warning us in vain of the communist infiltrations into the Buddhist monasteries, I went to the home of my very good friend, Princess Poon Diskul, and was sent to her office (will give details elsewhere) and she immediately (no words) sent to the monastery where Robert was—he had arrived in Bangkok exactly the same hour—no letters, visible communication elsewise.
I was not only taken behind the scenes of SEATO, but into the depths of Buddhist organizations and operations and went through a lot of drama “in two worlds” including the reportable meeting with the spiritual head of the Vietnamese. In the course of this mission one had a single American ally, the representative in those parts of “Asia Foundation.”
One remarked that there are three wars going on—(a) American Foreign Service vs. its citizens; (b) Against communist infiltration in which many Nations support this country; (c) Against Buddhists. Then I told the audience I was speaking not on politics or diplomacy but on “Vietnamese Buddhism” this coming Thursday. And there among old friends and now I was as warmly received in Lloyd’s home as I have been coldly received socially before. Evidently the “time has come” without one knowing clearly for what it has come.
Curious cross correspondence with the poet-archaeologist Robert Graves got one into correspondence with Sheikh Idries Shah whose works one receives and he makes statements remarkably like your own. I have seen nothing to show any of these statements wrong.
At my class one refused last week to answer certain questions until the inquire read, “The Mysticism of Sound” and this brings us into that field in which sheikh Idries Shah is operating. This is also in complete consonance with real Kabbalah which deals with Sounds, Words and Meanings—wrongly translated and of little effect on aspirants who look at everything intellectually or “mysteriously” instead of directly.
Next week is the last lesson in the “Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo.” Last week I spoke on the difference between differential-words and integral-words. Sufi is an excellent integral-word, and is impossible as an analytical or differentially one. We say, “Raise us above the difference and distinctions which divide me” and then go right ahead making differences and distinctions.
In one of the books Pir-o-Murshid has written on “Twin Souls.” This one has had such experience innumerable times—with real Zen Buddhists, with Hindus and with quite a few Sufis. This identification with others is shunned by all “Aristotelians” and separatists. Mohammed himself had better Zen experience than 90% of those who write about “Zen,” including a specially Daisetz Suzuki who never experienced deep Satori.
There is one Sufi to whom I hold entirely, which is to say Al-Ghazali with his definitions: “Sufism is based on experience and not premises.” This has hardly been adhered to and Prof. Titus Burckhardt came out strongly on this point.
Pir-o-Murshid’s original draft for a constitution was never completed. It stopped short in the middle of a sentence:
fana-fi-Sheikh … Khalif
fana-fi-Rassoul … Murshid
fana-fi-lillah … Pir-o-Murshid
with come indication, not completed, about baqa.
In travelling through Japan with my “twin-soul,” Kiichi Okuda, he called “Zen,” that, which is to say in Sanskrit tathata, or bhuta-tathata, and this is beyond integration, being the integration of all in integrations.
“Buddhism is a human development. Lord Buddha taught Arya Dharma or Sanatana Dharma.
Prof. U. Durrani of Peshawar gave me his “Whither Sadhu,” which showed he experienced all the degrees of the Sages, or post-Rishis in their Upanishads. One day we were at the foothills of the Himalayas, the very Western end. I said: “Will you please cross this stream and tell me whether this valley beyond was not where the Rishis lived?
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
September 18, 1966
My dear Gavin:
Something happens in the life of this person every day. There are now in my possession a number of books and materials showing the validity of a basic Occult Science of which Astrology is just a facet. The condition under which friends of mine have accidents or have to go to the hospital continues, almost “one a day brand” but on the other hand this is giving an opportunity to try a form of spiritual healing—one does not wish to try it but it seems to be coming, and after all, this is the other fellow’s pain. Pain are suffering are generally the way toward spiritual elevation.
Bryn has set forth his spiritual position and I have no time to look at it analytically. He has presented some claims which are not secret or secretive but have been made secret or esoteric by the pretenders who like to make mysticism mysterious, which it is not. Thus I am not going to hear Manly Hall but some day may call on him and he may have the graciousness to listen to some objective corroborations of his claims. We love everything until it is evident that it is true, then we don’t want it any more.
I am welcoming Bryn (Shamcher) for a multitude of reasons, but mostly as regards world peace. The terrible nonsense of ignoring the existence of 40,000,000 Sufis while determining the super importance of less than 10,000,000 Jews shows how far we are from science, religion and the existence of God. Who makes whom important and why?
The result has been the non-recognition of the largest force quantitatively and qualitatively working for world peace, brotherhood and justice.
The tide turned in my private life Thursday night. Vocha spoke on “Japanese Contemporary Literature and Poetry.” At the interlude Mary asked that each one who had been to Japan tell their most fascinating experiences. I did not; but I did tell the last day and how its utter rejection by the public, State Department, press, etc. has added to the factor behind the Vietnamese war and the fact that their would be more such outbreaks until our foreign service (and press) trusted eye-witnesses.
At least many present—and some have known me for years and years—suddenly became interested in the purported lecture on “Vietnamese Buddhism” which will be presented at 46 Waverly Place on Thursday night. One has become utterly indifferent to any response. If we wish to wallow in ignorance we shall continue to reap the karma.
The lecture will be followed immediately by preparations to go to Santa Barbara and Ojai. One has been promised housing in both places.
One is sending a copy of this to Bryn and any mail from him which does not arrive before my departure will be forwarded. I am not verbally accepting Bryn as a Sufi teacher without doing something about it. Even in his autobiography he has leaned far over to the side of modesty. But I cannot well present to others his actual position in the spiritual world because we don’t recognize the Sufis to begin with. For practical purposes 40,000,000 are non-existent.
I shall mention a single incident: A prominent Arab scientist came to my pension. How he found where I was living should make your ESP friends open their eye-lids which they won’t, yet. He told me who sent him. The theory is down in a book called The Dervishes written by an American, J. P. Brown, who lived with them. If he had been an Englishman or German who did not live with the Dervishes his book would be used in universities—no sarcasm, this is the way things are. This American explained exactly and the book used to be in the S.F. Public Library, but who cares for the direct experience of any American?
(The nearest, and that was far away, was Seabrook. Bryn has gone beyond Seabrook of Gurdjieff.)
This scientist, after presenting his Sufi credentials said: “Russians are 100% dialecticians, Americans are 50% dialecticians, we are no dialecticians at all; Russians are 100% materialists, Americans are 50% materialists, we are 0% materialists; Russians are 100% atheists, you Americans are 50% atheists, we are not atheists at all. We are far more against the Russians than you are and you will not even admit our existence.” (True, very true.)
He then let me in on the methods the Sufis were using to set China against Russia and Russia against China. This was long before we knew of the break. In six weeks some Chinese diplomats came to Shepherd’s Hotel. They had nothing to do with the Russians, they kept far away, from them. But you can’t tell the Foreign Service or press. Oh no!
They also told me of their alliance with the Pope and when the Pope came to the UN his speech was almost word for word what these real Sufis told me.
I do not expect us to jump from “realism” to reality overnight.
The fact that a break came and that it happened at Morain’s is very significant. There will be a lot more significant things happening and I hope before going back to Asia. We shall meanwhile live in our dream world and try to “win the hearts of Asians” by getting applause from respectable American audiences. Even the Philippine Prime Minister knows better than that.
If you want any information on the scientific and Sufi materials son Astrology you may have it.
P.S. Leave for S. B. Saturday taking my diaries for Prynce Hopkins and Linus Pauling.
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 30 Calif.
September 28, 1966
Mr. Arthur Hoppe
c/o S.F. Chronicle
San Francisco, 19. Calif.
My dear Mr. Hoppe:
Now that you have succeeded in obtaining the post of adviser to both gubernatorial candidates, a rare and wonderful achievement, it is very necessary to write to you on the need of abolishing crime. I have not studied crime and criminals. Once and on the only visit to San Quentin won so much admiration I thought they would say, “Stay around a little longer.”
Long Hairs and Crime. The Oracle, JEH, has spoken. This is a modern variation of JAH, and will do just as well. Men who do not go to the barbers and women who do overmuch are the sources of all our troubles. True, that in looking at the mobs in TV the males seem to have short hair and the women long hair but this is either a delusion or they are extras hired for the occasions.
It is quite obvious, that that He has spoken that the late Yogananda was the chief archhood and he even got away with it. Have you ever met his followers? Quite the softest, nicest, calmest, gentlest, and pure-minded looking people over encountered. This reveals the insidiousness of this man. He not only made his vicious wolves look like sheep, he roboted them. This shows how clever and skillful he was. Not only that none of them have ever been arrested for anything more than parking tickets and then not too often.
Short Hairs and Literature. We should at once remove from our libraries all works referring to George Sand and George Elliott, to begin with, and as for Gertrude Stein!
The Statue of King Saul should be taken from the museum. All statues and pictures of Jesus Christ should be carefully gone over and especially the depicting of Saint John—anybody that in any may resembles Saint John should not. Why doesn’t JEH appeal to the Pope?
Confusion. Jedgahoover, the self-made god as above, sounds remarkably like—pardon my slip—Supersuperiorman Mao, who wants all males to cut their hair short, and behave just so. He has prepared armies to go around cutting off the hair of those. The lately removed Sukarno did the same. Whenever a crime was committed in Indonesia the police arrest the long hairs. The hairy boys languished in prisons and crime increased and increased and increased until there was not more room in jail. Only a revolution stopped this. If you had to wait in line before your turn at the barber shop, it was no excuse—off to the hoosegow for you.
Children have to go to school now and pray but if they are caught wearing their hair like Jesus Christ, to the principal’s office. They must salute the Father of the Country but if they are caught, especially the boys, dressing like him, that is super delinquency.
Mary Martin is undoubtedly the counterpart of Yogananda. We cannot permit sentiment to interfere. And why should a woman take the role of Peter Pan? Peter Pan, in theory at least, was a male.
Mr. Hoppe, we do not realize how much freedom we have; no country in the world has the freedoms we have, at least Jedgahoover says so. We cannot permit the young to interfere with our freedoms by wearing their hair different, dressing different, speaking before all their elders have spoken and committing such nefarious crimes.
Anthropologists Are Suspect. And we should withdraw our Ambassadora, if we have them, from Kenya and Uganda. The Masai, who incidentally were not among the Mao-Mao and do not like Mao, have their women cut their hair and the men, during youth, wear it long. What would be more wonderful than to have Jedga go to Kenya seeking out the Mao-Mao criminals and arresting the Masai. That is exactly what he would have done, and in effect is proposing that now. My chief Anthropology teacher and her husband are now serving the American government in Kenya and Uganda. They should be arrested at once on their return. Our liberties must not be tampered with by having women’s hair out short and men’s hair grow.
And something should be done in Thailand. To women there it means the right to cut their hair short. And no more Japanese wrestlers. They must follow the disciplines given to the bull-fighters—hair off or your head off.
We should be thankful for Jedgahoover. The next generation of comic writers will have infinite material to go on. Crime is being abolished, but rape, murder, mayhem, robbery, malicious mischief and hold-ups will continue.
Please use your influence with the gubernatorial candidates.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
September 23, 1966
My dear Gavin:
This is more of a testimonial than a letter. The very favorable Leo lunation is “marred” by Moon square Neptune, the same aspect as that of birth. And again I have had the “malefic” experience of a woman whom I met for the first time in a large city and who should have been very close to me, turning suddenly and acting as an enemy. The experience itself was shocking for the moment but one realizes that karma acts in cycles and aspects are strengthened (or weakened) by their relations to the radical chart.
Fortunately while this woman—who is playing a very large role in world affairs—has turned on me, one of her principals, Dr. Radhakrishnan has sent a warm letter of commendation on the very same matters. As she is a pioneer toward world Peace, I am afraid she is repeating the role of Addison Brown. Working for World Peace requires much more circumspection than in other field.
I am leaving for Santa Barbara presently and putting some faith in the chart, as to time for action.
It is notable here that Neptune strongly aspects—28+ and 12- is 40+ and 5 neutral in January. If the charts are correct one may expect some almost revolutionary changes for the better the role of “villain” is taken over by Mars on the January chart. There it has Moon square Sun, Moon, Mercury, but fortunately on the radical it is Mars trine Sun (which accounts for pretty good health and longevity.) But in that lunation Mars repeats sextile to Jupiter which is exactly the same as in the radical. The Capricorn lunation indicates a pretty busy career is coming up.
Last night I was challenged by a long-haired boy on LSD. “It puts a low roof over you.” He liked that answer. The mystic does not have any roof and very gradually some people are learning how deep this person is in Oriental mysticism.
Leave for Santa Barbara again and should see Prynce Hopkins, and have appointments with UC, Santa Barbara and Dr. Hutchin’s institution but will go to Ojai. There is a severe series of epidemics, accidents of some sort to many people which I attributed to the psychic poisons from Vietnam but which a colleague also attribute to our atomic tests and space travel experiments.
Faithfully,
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3. Calif
September 23, 1966
Hon. Thomas H. Kuchel
Senate Office Building
Washington, DC
“Peace” in Vietnam
Dear Senator Kuchel,
Last night I spoke, and sometimes one hopes it is for the last time on “Vietnamese Buddhism. For a long time I have been writing your office, the world cannot remain half dialectic and half free” and there is no question here the dialecticism are winning, anti-Marxist” it is true, but nonetheless dialecticians and not pragmatist or “scientists.” Truth is not based on observation material or otherwise, but on the power-value of the persons involved.
During the War I had some slight associations with an important branch of GII, under one Col. Harris whose aide was Edward Landsdale, now one of our top experts on Vietnam (diacritical marks omitted here). There was an office in this department consisting of Americans who were adepts in real, practicing Buddhism and they used to put on real Buddhist programs in Japanese to appeal to those people. And I think I wrote, when the surrender took place, General McArthur took further measures to separate pure religion form the personality worship of the Emperor.
There is nothing like that now. The percentage of Buddhists in Vietnam is higher than that of Japan, but we have ignored, trampled on them and insulted them, and added to this insulting the horrible phrase “winning the hearts of Asians,” which means in effect, gaining the applause of the immediate audience.
The audience learned much is kept from them and has little to do with the politics of the fighting. Indeed there was tacit acceptance and no arguments over the basic fact that communist infiltration started the struggle. But when we begin with basic and then first facts and then shift ground we have lost our raison d’être. The fighting took place originally to clear the Buddhist monasteries from communists and not to enforce any type of polity upon these people, from the outside.
We have not made any effort to study, like Fielding Hall, “the Soul of the People.” And after the talk someone told me about arrangements being made with a local VIP, and this in effect is one of the worst possible arrangements. Why should not American citizens who have had unusual experiences in foreign parts be welcomed by some branch of the State Department when they have items which could be of interest? Quite the contrary. If you have unusual experience you are generally ignored, if not downright insulted. The reports of the explorer, Nicole Smith, in Tibet were rudely brushed aside; the emotional reactions of the newsman, Lowe Thomas were accepted as fact. We “lost” Tibet and recently we had to suffer an exposé on Cambodia.
This person not only “saw” the excellent methods used by GII during the war, which were most effective—he has seen the absolute refusal to repeat these today and we have had no great success.
This person had as his host in Thailand, the late Phra Sumangalo whose constant warnings were rudely brushed aside by the State Department; and Princes Poon Diskul of the Royal family, now President of the World Buddhist Federation. Be had a number of experiences, some desired, some not, but all rejected when one tried seriously to get some objective facts before the American public. One gets tired of being shunned or shunted by the Foreign Office and then has to witness mob attack on USIA installations.
As Her Serene Highness herself was my guide I saw the work of SEATO first hand including the part our military have been playing. One does not discuss these things too openly but an effort to present first hand experiences depends not on man’s experience but to his place in society, and especially is relations with the press.
It is not only that we have totally neglected the religions of the mass of people in the disputed areas; it is that we have encouraged false “ersatz” movements bearing the same names. We might have given more heed to the Hon. U Thant. We might now encourage the “Temple of Understanding” which is being dedicated near Washington. Your friend and colleague, Hon, John Sherman Cooper has been interested in this undertaking. It is one way in which we might honestly and actually win the heart of Asians.
One other point mentioned need was the contribution of the Vietnamese to World culture. We ignore that, we ignore them. The combined numbed of dialecticians, of the so-called “right” and “left” includes a small percentage of Asian human beings, and 90% of the news of those people and those countries.
I am leaving for Santa Barbara and will be contacting those who are strongly anti-war and just as strongly anticommunist, but there is no place for them, yet. I do not believe our “Peace Corps” will succeed, despite all publicity, until we can learn as well as teach. When we can find out something about Asia from Asians we shall be on the highway to peace and this would not interfere with our social order or society of even profit-making institutions.
Faithfully,
P.S. I have just received another letter from President Radhakrishnan in full endorsement of our common view. When my memoirs are finally published they will contain much material of historical interest if not consequences.
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
October 4, 1966
Beloved One of Allah:
As-salaam aleikhum. There was a Hindu teacher who wrote his biography: “In Search of God,” followed by “In Vision of God.” On this recent trip one had to seek seeds at the Botanical Garden in Santa Barbara. Walking there he was picked up by a motor car and the driver asked him, “Are you going to the Botanical Garden.” “Yes, I wish to get some seeds.” “I knew it, I knew it! This always happens to me, I am the seed collector.”
He took me in and introduced me to Dara. “Where did you get your name?” “Years ago my father was a lover of Persian Sufi poetry!
I had just been to Ojai Valley and a lady there wants Bayat she said she had never heard of Hazrat Inayat Khan. Her house is full of shelves of serious books. I went over to a neglected bookcase, pulled out a book, “Health” by Inayat Khan. Where did you get this?” “I never knew I had such a hook.” I opened it and there was an inscription by the youngest Mureed of Hazrat Inayat Khan. So I reported to the man now acting as Pir-o-Murshid for the United States and told him of the incident. I am sure he will take this as a sign for the writer was a countryman of his and was also the college chum of my host!
Ojai Valley is a strange place, occupied by people who believe they are on the spiritual search and most of them believe that one J. Krishnamurti is either the reincarnation of Jesus Christ or at least his representative. To your Murshid they appear very mixed. It is certain that all the home libraries visited were full of books showing the uncertainty of the owner. Besides that there are other people believing in other men being Avatar or Mahdi. The result is that everybody has a number of phrases they use to throw at anybody with ideas, or knowledge. Contrary to this the visits to the scholars was very edifying.
One is now concerned with Peace in Vietnam. This continuance of hostilities has poisoned the psychic atmosphere, resulting in one’s private life of news of more and more people becoming ill and more accidents. In not a single case have the physicians been able to diagnose the trouble. At least one of the persons has gone to a psychiatrist.
There is a spiritual healer here in San Francisco who is something of a seer. He has privately made a number of predictions, all of which have occurred. Lack of religion, superficiality in it and hypocrisy are the fuels to the disturbances caused by war—or they cause the wars. There is no solidity. And on his next trip your Murshid hopes to meet serious people who really want to face the basic problems: the war, the existence of God and the divine experience.
Your Murshid returned suddenly, attended a Gandhi celebration as a Sufi, and alhamdu lillah, was greeted as a Sufi for the first time outside the Pakistani and Iranian circles. Either your Murshid has evinced some progress or a considerable number of people are becoming more serious about their spiritual problems. Anyhow this house is open tonight for inquirers.
What Asians either cannot see or are disturbed by is that there is very little knowledge of Asian religions in this country. People here look to various Englishmen and Europeans as sources of wisdom, or knowledge. The only Muslim reaching the public first turned Christian, then Muslim again and always a hypocrite, with enough publicity to confuse everybody.
There is a meaning of “Surrender to Allah” that one has to dispense with all plans, all programs, all everything. One has not the slightest idea at the moment of whether he shall be accepted seriously, or whether his writings will be published or by whom. Only now there are experiences in Fana-fi-lillah. One night one woke up with a headache. “Allah I am asking you take this headache away. How can I do work for you if I have a headache. I am not saying it is your fault, I am saying “You are the healer, the preserver. I cannot serve both You and this headache. Soon the headache departed, your Murshid arose at 4:30 and worked all day from that point on without fatigue.
It seems funny to act toward Allah as If He were a man in one’s immediate presence, that one could talk and even argue with Him. On the one hand it seems imaginary, on another it seems shirk, and yet it has been effective, alhamdu lillah.
All this present condition keeps you in the open consciousness. Your Murshid has been blessed with health and vigor and in a few days will be 70 (seventy) years old. This is all Grace, but it is real.
Love and blessings,
Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
October 9, 1966
My dear Quantz:
I have your letter of the 6th and am making a carbon for Gavin Arthur to save time. I must make it clear that Gavin is very busy, and I do not ask him for more favors than he now accords me. But if you send him money for a horoscope progression or otherwise this will enable me to decipher it for you. You will have to make some sacrifice in order to get real help and this is one way in which I operate.
The last progressions he made for me indicated a very busy life and perhaps more successful. But this very business—which is already coming true, and the successes—whatever they might be have caused me to over-extend myself and have thus brought a recession in my otherwise good health. It seems that there are an unusual number of problems among friends and contacts and that there are psychic rather than the usual karmic reasons therefor. Thus at least three cases of illness wherein the doctors could not find anything wrong and it is obvious that the persons involved are in pain.
As regards his book, I refuse to analyze. I am becoming more and more anti-analytical and only think through those problems which are within my “dharm” (spiritual duties) or scientific prowess. I am today pretty well anti-establishment in most things and therefore will not be antagonistic toward those who are anti-establishing in other things. It seems that among my colleagues we have all concluded that there cannot be a single norm for sex, marriage, etc. and I will not get myself into any illogical bind to criticize his book on “Sex.” My objections to it are on the grounds of Indian metaphysics and not on Western so-called “standards” which are very limited in time, space and humanity.
Another reason or rather reasons for not arguing against Gavin come from two geographical sources, but both trends came out of Sufism. The Sufis continued the “four element” teachings of the Greeks and carried this into two areas:
a. Mystical breath. This is my field because everybody else has abandoned it and I am giving out teachings on breath. On the whole the scientists are becoming interested while the metaphysical people shun such knowledge.
b. “Occult medicine.” This is a bad word. It is “occult” only because we do not study it, it is not secret or esoteric.
One school continued in the Orient and some of my brother Sufis have gone way ahead in reviving interest therein but actually you find it in many parts of Asia.
The other school continued roughly in what we call “Rosicrucians” but who called themselves “theosophists” although their relation to modern theosophy is dim. It is quite evident that Shakespeare certainly, and Bacon possibly, belong to them. But the work of Paracelsus, Agrilla, Helvetius, etc. became more and more scientific and I have an excellent botanical which has substituted the Seven Planets for the Four Elements. But whether we approach from the Seven Planets or Four Elements, we have excellent schools for treatment, now abandoned for a mass of medical superstitions, unable to diagnose illnesses because they omit psychic faculties.
This should be your field, not mine and if you indulged in some research instead of self-pity you would find glorious worlds right in front of you.
It is very strange—or not strange, that at the moment I am receiving more and more good-will on university campuses but have a pretty tough time with cults and “isms,” for the devotees of the latter have closed ears and hearts—proved by their attitudes toward one another—while the scholars are becoming more and more serious seekers.
There have been three or four serious climaxes in my live all running together, the most important of which is the growing unification and reconciliation between scientists and mystics. The scientists and mystics are getting together without any “help” from pseudo-occultists or cults or metaphysical verbalists who think, by twisting language they solve problems.
It is sufficient that this last week definite contact has been made with one of the chief scientist-mystics of India; and that yesterday in the classroom for the first time I was permitted to bring forth logical proofs of the premises the teacher had offered. When the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion met last year the conclusion was that they are the egotists who will not listen to the statements of others and that we must be very careful in rejecting seeming braggadocio. Our word “bombast” comes from the name of Paracelsus, and was applied to extreme claims of a scientist of the day who is now recognized.
The more we get into the broad vision the more power we have. Personal and personality problems are small and can be overcome. I suppose someday I may be able to bring the Sciences of Breath, the occult (in the above sense only) medicines, etc.
Now as to love in the highest sense. Despite his being a most powerful ruler, Shah Jehan was extremely devoted to one woman, the Queen for whom he built the Taj. She was very beautiful, but he overworked her body and she died.
No man was permitted to work at Taj until he had a training both in Sufism and marble-cutting. Thus they had to have either inner love or outer love or both. When these combine the feeling aspect of personality increases many fold.
In class yesterday the teacher purposely played short in order to bring out a challenge on the relation of human and divine love and the student was very clear and successful. I am not going to plague you with definitions here. It does not make much difference whether human love brings one to divinity or divine love brings one to humanity.
I am not satisfied with some Indian sages, whose divine love does not bring them or their disciples to humanity. I see this in two forms (personal and social)—the personal involves sex and the social consideration for humanity as a whole. The Sufi outlook which is totally unknown in this country save superficially by a few scattered individuals, brings these together.
There is now a surgence of LSD. As there are many stages and states of consciousness and they are real, I cannot blame those who wish them artificially. But these people, experiencing a little, think they have reached the summit. They are entirely right in breaking down the materialistic-ego of tradition; they are wrong when they surmise they have reached the Kingdom of Heaven.
It is curious how well the universities accept information and research suggestions and how the metaphysicians reject.
As I am thus working universally it is very difficult to enter into what I seem to regard as little problems. If you do not know God how can you summon Him to help you? God is in everybody and expresses different in everybody. Marriage is not for eternity although Love is and if there is a Love-marriage, fine. Even if we make marriage a sacrament it is not a sacrament if it is held up. We cannot reach God until we drop everything—everything means everything.
Now lots of peri-souls and jinn-souls and leprechaun-souls and troll-souls are in the body and they operate differently, this is the evolution. Love does not mean ownership or possession, and I do not wish to quote. One reason is that I may become personally involved in the very sort of problem placed before me by others.
Finally we as a race are so concerned with our personal problems we do not often express thanks for blessings we have. We are not in the difficulties of the Vietnamese nor Hindus or others facing worse problems. If you would build up reservoirs of joy, the very complexes you now face would disappear. Joy is our natural home.
Faithfully,
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
October 9, 1966
E. W. Hathaway
P. O. Box 486,
Carpenteria, Calif.
My dear Bill:
This is really a diary entry and I am making a copy of it for my friend, Mrs. Vocha Fiske who is coming to Ojai for the Krishnamurti lectures. She may be staying with Mrs. Margaret Houghton, or at least Margaret will know her whereabouts. I hope it will be possible for both Marian and you to meet her at that time. She is an old and trusted friend and also a spiritual “sister” and more.
Marian has asked me to copy the Horoscope made by Gavin Arthur. Off hand it looks like a remarkable chart. One would be “superstitious” to take it too seriously and a fool not to. It is very probable that there are psychic conditions caused by planetary factors and psychic conditions by our own mental upheavals and also there are physical factors due to wrong dietary ideas. At least there has been enough empathy to have been feeling unwell at the time you called and I stopped the class—it went an hour and a half—because of this.
The drama in my life continues. I may have told you of having been called on the carpet for daring to be an eye- and ear-witness to the affairs of Vietnam. The chief “culprit” had been working for Dr. Radhakrishnan and she was on the spot. I am pleased to say I received a pleasant letter from her and also have asked her to contact one Surindar Suri, a very good friend of mine, in the same professor (Fourth Estate) who is also wandering around Germany.
The Radhakrishnan letter and my Sufi robe were accepted for the first time in other than Islamic circles and I had to control upstaging at the Gandhi celebration.. After all I have been following Gandhi since 1910 sometime before he went back to India.
The lady critic has been very close to my colleague, Dr. Oliver Reiser and we are now in a “nice” complex. I have received the brochure of his book and copy will follow. It is based on Cosmic Humanism and the integrational reasoning.
This is all the more timely because a very long manuscript has just been received from an Indian savant who claims to be both a scientist and mystic and gives every evidence. I can only say that when the real scientists met to discuss religion it was generally agreed that those who reject are far more egocentric than those who make bizarre claims. Bizarre claims have time and again proven to be true.
The contents of the article prove that there can be unity between scientists and mystics and without discussing it further it harmonizes with so many points raised by Oliver Reiser that new doors may be opened.
I have also received such a favorable letter from UCSB that I must visit that institution although for the moment I do not know exactly how. I should prefer to come if by bus, on a Tuesday night; if with you by mutual arrangement and stay until Friday night, so as to be here on Saturday morning.
The class on Mediterranean culture started out perfectly and as I already bought that Crete material—which prepared me for the text—which was written after those two books purchased at Wilshire in L.A. and this in turn with the “Atlantis” material which has a big headline in the local papers.
However as we did not have a quorum, I attended this morning an alternative class on “The Philosophy of Religion” and struck gold, so to speak. You heard Agnes criticize the so-called “American Academy of Asian studies” which made such a farce out of Asian religions. Now the philosophy teacher wants the very materials which were a priori rejected there. And next week I shall bring in a paper on my Kamakura visit and support it by the contentions of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religions that they who reject are the egotists, not they who make “outrageous claims.” And if my Kamakura report is accepted it will be a complete change of front—facts are facts no matter what the elite “think” about them.
There was also a letter, to my surprise, from Mrs. Evelyn Beorse in which she tries to act as mentor for health and I am holding her letter for you because it may be helpful. It is against my principles to advise too much as to health, food, etc., even though I feel (or know) the contents to be true. As we develop intuitively we improve, but I remember the way the late Nyogen Senzaki lived and he did not believe in over-disciplining the body to satisfy his own or anybody else’s theory of longevity, health, vigor, etc. It is only when you wish to change I should go into such matters.
Anyhow I hope you can be here on October 17 and 18th. I am making preparations for my birthday party slowly as some of the “invitees” are also unwell.
What we need is more sedation, more repose and less excitement and the whole culture is going mad over excitement. I get enough in my daily life as you can see. My love to Rae.
Faithfully,
S .A.M.
October 14, 1966
My dear Gavin:
I an enclosing a letter to Bryn. I love Bryn, I think he is a wonderful man but he has been trying to get me to acknowledge as spiritual superiors one of the Khan family. Each of these had been to the Orient and I remember the comment on my first public lecture: “This man has plumbed the depths of which they have not even scratched the surface.”
One has to be exceedingly patient but my recent visits on campuses have brought forth a double respect which I do no find in society and don’t care:
(a) age; (b) wisdom.
I am writing this because sooner or later you will have to face a trial—do you respect your charts or your opinions most? Only you can make that decision. The charts bear out some things deep in the person, and evidently they are coming into manifestation.
I do know that tomorrow I shall be facing an American professor of Oriental philosophy and have been permitted to mention some real Zen experiences. These experiences have been accepted by several Zen Masters.
But I am more interested in the Yoga and Sufi backgrounds. As they are true, both inwardly and outwardly true, I shall keep on submitting them until somebody takes them seriously. When at Ojai I heard the most awful and scandalous tales about some of our “experts” on the Orient, what the real Asians thought of them. The same applies to Vietnam. So long as the opinions of the Big Man who was not there overpower the experiences of the little man who was we shall have war. I am on edge now because of the utter rejection of reports of a friend who lived in Cambodia and Laos.
Faithfully,
October 14
Beloved One of God:
The Spirit urged the writing to you again. And the Spirit manifested itself in some delightful ways. I had to go to a bookstore to have a Buddhist work sent to Master Seo. I wanted to test the clerk and he immediately said to me, “That is for the Master, isn’t it?” He was right. The book belongs to Master Seo and we both did a lot of communing and very little talking.
Later a beautiful young girl came in and wanted to buy a copy of Idries Shah, on the Sufism. “Why do you buy that drivel?” “Because I have the right to call it drivel.” “Who are you?” “Sam Lewis.” “Oh! I apologize, you are a friend of Les, aren’t you, and of Ralph Silver.” “Yes!” “I am sorry. I was told to look you up and have not.” Anyhow I as able to announce my Monday night lectures on “Breath” to several people.
The presentation of the teachings of Inayat Khan are most difficult because they have been wound up with personality instead of with Truth and mystical experience. His chief prayer begins, “Praise be to Thee, most Supreme God.” In this last lecture before leaving Suresnes in France, he said, “There is no Message, it is only to bring man to the Praise and Acceptance of God.”
Elsewhere he tells of the lesson learned from his grandfather, that there is no gain exerting the Praise of God on the lips with every breath and no loss excepting the omission of this Praise. You can meet some people called “Sufis” and you will seldom if ever hear them mention “God” much less the Praise-of-God. So you may be seeing Sufism hut hardly in the form Inayat Khan gave to the world for his disciples do not, and some will not, spend their time in Praise of God.
Some day we may visit the home of the Fraelies in Camarillo. Mrs. Fraelie is the daughter of Mrs. Bhakti Engle. Bhakti is the widow of Sheikh Fatha Engle who took the Bayat at the same time I did. When he died she kept all his papers, including those needed by me now, and kept them as private property. There is now a complex story:
Hazrat Inayat Khan wrote out the Moral Teachings under three laws, the Law of Reciprocity, the Law of Beneficence and the Law of Renunciation. And he gave ten separate lessons to illustrate each of these. And from the start you will see people do not respect these teachings.
The Law of Reciprocity is essential the same as Karma only the Sufis observes the wisdom, not the justice side of this Law. And people who take the Sufi path are no different from those in Ojai, that as soon as they get a little knowledge they think they are more advanced and lost, instead of gain their humanity. This seems to be true of most spiritual seekers, unfortunately.
Pir-o-Murshid originally wanted all his close associate to write commentaries on his papers. But instead of doing that, instead of writing the commentaries, they changed the constitutions after is death, and omitted all reference to it. So those who took the mantle do not have to explain the Deep Wisdom and if they have not experienced it they cannot. And I have the sign to rewrite these commentaries to you so you can know the Moral Law.
It is not based on Democracy. It is based on Hierarchy. We do not understand Hierarchy; we understand Democracy and think that God has a universal democracy. Brotherhood yes, democracy, no.
The Sufi Invocation reads:
Toward The One, the Perfection of Love, Harmony and Beauty, the Only Being, United With All the Illuminated Souls Who Form the Embodiment of the Master, the Only Being.
The first section is the Advaita, and here Vedanta and Sufism are very close. Only devotees do not regard God as the Only Being. They affirm certain people and make God an Unreality, The Teacher says, “The Only being” and the pupils explain it away.
The second clause refers to the Hierarchy. Hazrat Inayat Khan said, in “The Unity of Religious Ideals” and elsewhere that the Hierarchy was as real as Creation itself and even more real than the Creation. In 1926 he gave, or affirmed, the Hierarchal Initiation to me in Beverly Hills. In 1930 he took the first step to confirm this on a higher plane and gradually this came into manifestation.
And when I went to the Orient it was further confirmed and finally in a grand convocation of Sufis it was openly pronounced but I am not concerned with the acceptance or not—especially by those who want to present the Moral Law as taught by him—as the actually of function in this world.
Actually Hierarchy functions in two ways—in this world, and in the next. Generally from the next plane it does not function so different from the theosophical hierarchy. But in this world it is in the midst of things, and I have met such Sufism.
I think I told you that Paul Brunton said the adepts he met were all Sufis. And it is certain that those persons who came to me represented the same Master(s). They are very much in this world and I have seen now the last step in demonstrating what they told me—on and for the physical world.
The earth body is made mostly of Silicon and Oxygen with a lot of Iron and Aluminum. This makes most of the elements “peculiar” and so most human beings are “peculiar” to others. To me nobody is peculiar. Every rock has its own chemical composition and every human has his own psychic composition and all evaluations are for ego-satisfaction.
No doubt finding themselves in this dense, commercial world, their basic “fairy” or “genius” nature revolts and this revolt shows out in many directions.
The LSD revolt is funny. I have heard Leary and others and accept their Five Stages of Consciousness. But is this a limitation or the goal? Why must one accept the experiences of others and not be accepted by them. Mystics, even among the Buddhists, go much further than Leary & associates can fathom. Allen Ginsberg avowed he had much more Joy from other means. He even went into Mantra Yoga. We do not know the Mantra Yoga and we are afraid of Mantra Yoga. Even those who have gone a little into it do not go far and they want to delineate what the Guru should be like.
Roerich had a lot of books on the Guru and Hierarchy and ignored them in real life because he could not find Gurus and Hierarchs to satisfy himself. So his books went one way and he another. I am not a king for you to have your charts run one way and your ego another, but it might give you an area to think about.
A letter has just come from Shamcher (Bryn) which I must answer. I have some problems here that people who are ill come for help ad want one to be negative. I was initiated on the paths of positive mysticism.
Love and blessings,
October 14, 1966
My dear Shamcher:
The morning is starting with two sick typewriters and full of hope. I am preparing for a session with an American professor of Oriental Philosophy. So far I have had but two tangles with American Professors of Oriental Philosophy, both connected with the University of California as visiting lecturer. The first got up and attacked every fraud, phony and pretender who had been accepted by the public as representing Oriental Philosophy.
On the second occasion he was regarded as the Authority on Oriental Philosophy, and then when some questions were asked on Mysticism and nobody could answer, Sam Lewis was granted the floor and everybody, especially the top Orientalists in the country accepted these answers. You can bet your bottom dollar none of the popular “experts” would even have permitted the floor.
I have gotten tired of people refusing to look at letters received from Dr. Radhakrishnan. We are so busy “leaning backward to reach the hearts of Asians” that we have become over enamored with slogans. When I challenged the top university philosopher in India to a debate on the Upanishads he was thrown off by the very challenge. He left this country after meeting a whole bunch of phonies; he could not stand it and became anti-American.
The most ridiculous thing is the Law of Karma. When you meet people who talk on Karma you can be pretty sure they will be very careless on how they deal with others. The last five lectures I have been to the speakers emphasized Love, Compassion and Brotherhood and not one of them recognized any of the others. And their total contributions to the poor children victimized by the communists is exactly $0.00.
With the doors open for real correspondence with real scientists who are mystics and real mystics who are scientists, it will become possible to lecture one anything and reveal the Divine Wisdom. I convinced a young metaphysician of this yesterday. He did not wish to be convinced. So he turned on another man who claimed he was an occultist and who was getting turned down by everybody.
He said that by studying Helvetius, Paracelsus and their colleagues he had uncovered he was a healer, but could not find anything on it. I asked, “Please hold out your hand.” He did and I said, “Yes, you have extremely strong magnetism, it is as you say.” The metaphysician gawked. Objective proofs are not wanted. I did find some of Pir-o-Murshid’s books and told him of my lectures on Breathing. The metaphysician sulked. They have to.
As long as I am rejected I am going to come out stronger and stronger and stronger like the Sybil who visited King Tarquin. The God-Reality which Paul Brunton said could be approached by the Eye, the Heart and Breath will be presented by Sam Lewis as realities, and let other people present their personalities and be acclaimed—but no God.
Realizing that the message is in the Sphere I am going to the Sphere and not to man. Pir-o-Murshid said, “There is one Teacher, God.” But if man is attuned to God he can pick up the wisdom. This is by Kashf-Prajna.
I meet so many people who say there are no words for the LSD experience. There are no words in English just as in Sanskrit there are no words for electromagnetism, supersonic and typewriter. Egocentrics want to teach, not learn. And already the University of California at Santa Barbara has commissioned me to write a paper on “Psychedelics through the Nose” which is based on real experiences with real people in real places and not metaphorical dialectics of important “experts.”
There is nothing funnier than the people who acclaim Galileo and damn the Inquisition, doing exactly the same thing as the Inquisition. But they have no power and sooner or later the universities all accept the experiences of man. I have quite a few incomplete contacts with the University of California in Los Angeles and will hold them off until I know whether you are coming that way or not.
On the whole I find scientists willing to listen and metaphysicians not. There is another person who has had some slight mystical experiences arriving here as “teacher.” He reminds me of a book I saw on “Ecstasy” last night in which laboratory tests were used to measure it. I shall keep on gadlying everybody because such superficial investigators overlook the President and Vice-President of India, both of whom have had ecstasies at levels we can’t want to face because “anything that they can do we can do better.”
Draw a crowd by lecturing on “Yoga”; Draw few by demonstrating Yoga. Pir-o-Murshid first tried Yoga in 1911 and attractive very few people.
God Bless You,
S. A. M.
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
October 16, 1966
Dear Gavin:
You will find enclosed a rather hurried review of Oliver Reiser’s Cosmic Humanism. You may receive this with mixed feelings:
a. Against your stands, is the need to stop basing knowledge on personalisms and personalities who are admired (or not admired) in certain quarters. Social reactions have nothing to do with truth. As I write another fellow-Sarkhanian is having truth. She is close to Oliver Reiser, has lived all over Asia, and especially in Laos and Cambodia and is getting the same coup de grace that all of us get who have had the temerity to be where history is being made.
b. Against your stands, Cosmic Humanism is an example, perhaps the first memorable one, which brings real religion and real science together and no amount of pseudo-prediction otherwise is going to stop factual movements.
c. For your stands is the justification of Astrology.
d. For your stands is that this justification comes from the pen of Lloyd’s teacher. I love Lloyd but he will have to face it, that Astrology may be accepted by the world and his form of “General Semantics” is no being received. It is merely a question of ego-centricity and cosmo-centricity. We cannot have both.
I have met more professors on more campuses recently who at least accept my contributions—no more a priori rejections, and that has in each case lead to new friendships. It has been a long, hard road of patience. At the moment your charts appear to be coming true no matter what personality reactions are.
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco Calif.
October 16, 1966
Dr. Oliver L. Reiser
Department of philosophy
Pittsburgh University,
Pittsburgh 13, PA
Dear Oliver:
Your inimitable Cosmic Humanism has arrived and this only a sort to fore-runner review. I am making a copy of this for Gavin Arthur—I don’t know whether you have met him or not—he has been close to Lloyd from time to time. He is a Professional astrologer and he has made two fore-charts for Samuel L. Lewis, the interpretations of which are not always in accord with personality reactions. But if we realize there is no abiding self, and that our analyses of people are mere analyses, or maps. And it is tiring to find even people who verbally announce “maps are not territories” who take greater realities of their maps than of the territories. The ideas are very good but I cam going to refer to them only in so far as they are concerned with the elements of Cosmic Humanism.
At the moment I am taking two courses, one on the ancient civilization of the Mediterranean and the other on “The Philosophy of Religion” and in both of these there are climaxes (or climaces) related to this work.
Coming as it does after two important letters from India—Dr. Arsani and Prof. Radhakrishnan, I see the coming into actualization both “Project Krishna” and “Project: Prometheus.”
After Nayan Redfield completed has work on Fabre D’Olivet, we urged her to translate the Sepher Ha-Zohar, the compendiums of the real Kabbalistic knowledge and doing some research for her I was fortunate to meet at least one real Kabbalist and will present some of the materials imparted; I must call to your attention that all these ideas were rejected, mostly a priori by groups of men who were regarded as “experts” in another age, and who individually and collectedly are looked upon with disgust by the savants of the day.
Moses had two teachers—one in Egyptian Wisdom and one in Indian teaching. You will find the Midinaim (Midianites) of the Bible are nothing but the Mitanni of historical importance.
There are a tremendous number of myths in the Ramayana and Mahabharata which appear in the books of Moses and the book of Jonah is nothing but an Indian Purana. The “Flood” saga appears in much more detail in the Puranas. I may go into detail either because your review requires a more entailed study or you may request it.
The most interesting thing about Cosmic Humanism is its remarkable consistency from the integral point of view. It is not only “fluxional” in its logistics, but insists acceptance of the contributions of others to human culture. There is none of that phony “universalism” exhibited by our friends in Arizona and England who have seized the “world university” idea and excluded the majority of mankind.
This presumes harmony and this harmonization is brought out doubly in the sections on music and harmony. Most of the stuff on Pythagoras is nothing but metaphorical metaphysics. You have brought this down to earth. Pythagoras did give specific teachings which have been preserved and no better place than in the Science of Music. At an earlier stage I not only studied Fabre D’Olivet and his pupil St. Yves-Alvedre but continued this research by a double reading of Helmholtz and Ellis of Northwestern. As soon as a man semanticizes or scientifizes what is called “occult study” than he draws on himself the anathema and enmity of a multitude of people who like to be known as “Occultists” who mysteriorize everything.
But I must say this includes Dane Rudhyar. Rudhyar came to San Francisco and was invited to stay at the American academy of Asian Studies. It was a war of attribution. Egotist met egotist.
I could go on with this and will as either you suggest or as a more than cursory reading would propose. But there is another aspect—the getting this book into the hands of schools, etc.
There has been a great change in my private life and one could easily foresee it as soon as Americans replaced Europeans and mystics metaphysicians in certain philosophic studies. I have signed up for a course in “The Philosophy of Religion” at the University of California Extension. The professor’s name is Kelley and I’ll try to get more information on him.
As a prelude I submitted a paper on some of my Kamakura experiences. These happened in this world just as much as the fact I am typing happened in thus world, but I found myself against all sorts of “experts” who even went so far as to accuse me of fabrication. They were successful; they were believed. Only it seems not a single one has any standing in real Asia.
At this moment Asia Foundation has selected former Ambassador Reischauer to act as a Trustee. I visited this man’s center for Buddhist Studies in Harvard. He had four assistants: a Chinese, a Japanese, a Korean and a Hindu. There was then nothing like it in the rest of the country and not a single Englishman or European! They dominate the Near East Studies but none with Reischauer. This shows we can have peace, peace by the simple method of having Americans sit with Asians.
On my last trip I placed your books with Prof. Durrani in Peshawar, a Sufi-Yogin; and with Dr. Radhakrishnan and all our obscurantists in the country cannot efface this from real history, when we are ready for real history and not the present day fiction called “realism.”
Having been successful in getting Prof. Kelley to accept my real Kamakura experiences, I can now present my meetings with Dr. Radhakrishnan and bring you into the picture. No doubt there may be some seeming confusion between the mystical and the integrative. But when we get out of our metaphysical and egocentric confusions we shall find that there are two doors to immortality, if we follow either Hazrat Inayat Khan the Sufi; or the Upanishadic matrices. One is by Vijnanavada and the other by Anandavada.
Your work previously and certainly now follows the methods of Vijnanavada, which can be called “Integral Humanization,” for Integral approaches lead to harmony and harmonious approaches lead to integration. Reischauer and Chicago and Wisconsin use the harmonious and integrative methods but practically all the other schools, “experts” and authorities on “Asia” use the additive, analytical methods.
(I have two sick typewriters at the moment and am working under handicaps.)
If there is anything at fault in either Earl Russell or JM’s “peace efforts” it is due lack of operative knowledge of harmonization and integration just as both are obvious and suggestive throughout Cosmic Humanism. We have to admit that Asians are living beings and that their contributions to knowledge will have to be accepted and woven into the whole fabric of “encyclopedianisation,” despite our fast disappearing pseudo-experts and our Mortimer Adlers. Now that I have an instructor who has accepted my Zen reports, he will accept my Radhakrishnan reports. On the whole students at the universities are favorable toward objective reports and are less and less attracted to the fabrications of “experts” in any field.
I am reacting toward Cosmic Humanism as Luther Whiteman and I reacted toward Science and Sanity years ago. The other day I ran into new editions of both of AK’s main works. I had met AK’s works, though not his person, via Cassius Keyser. The G.S. people refused to accept this, and this element of egocentrism was followed by the rejection by those dominating our culture.
The project method, shunting no kind of contributions to human culture, and Cosmic Humanism recognizing all peoples may have a more fortunate history. I shall carry this work with me not only to my new friends in Philosophy, as Kelly; but my new friends and older friends in Anthropology and to some scholars who are inquiring into real mysticism and real Oriental Philosophy.
Mohammed said that the Light of God was neither of the East nor West, and it is time to bring East and West together without any “Suez Canals.”
Faithfully,
772 Clementina St.
S.F. 3
October 24, 1966
My dear Shamcher:
Long before I heard of Lord Snow I began making two diaries, one of my scientific ventures and one other matters feeling that everything in the scientific line would be accepted by the scientists and very little in the other two lines—historical and “cosmic language” would be accepted by the non-science scientists. Actually the non-scientists have rejected a good portion of everything and the scientists are accepting in greater quantities the non-scientific, i.e. the historical and occult.
When the scientists met last winter and there was a fierce inconclusive debate in the religious section I spoke later and said. “I think I have the answer.” “You have, why did you not speak?” “Do you know where you are?” “No, what does that matter?” “It matters everything because in this region the unusual from the unusual person is a priori rejected.” “We are sorry you did not speak.”
That afternoon I spoke before the scientists on “The Saint in the Industrial Order.” It is based on facts, names, functions, exactly as the scientific materials per se are, but it is only the scientists that seem to be interested in such matters.
Saturday in the class on “The Philosophy of Religion” the professor called down a student who was objecting to the spiritual accomplishment of others. This is the first time this has ever been done. Fortunately the student who was objecting, realizing he was losing face admitted it. The culture of the day is going to get rid of all the traditional egocentricisms which prevent those who have accomplished the unusual, or been the instruments for the unusual, to speak. In one of the following classes the subject will be the mystical experience itself, and I thank God that one can be objective in this especially in the university precincts.
Sunday I went to a new type of church and heard a young man speak on the beatific vision and Divine Union. Because—despite the denial of all the metaphysical people, there is a function of listening to the Divine Voice which comes constantly from within—the Voice told me to go. It was a miracle. There were a lot of young men there, and at least half of them had been picked out of the gutter and Tenderloin and most of them have had either the Beatific Vision or direct mystical experiences. Shut off from the “respectables” they formed their own Church and now they are beginning to affect others. For the time is coming, inshallah, that those to whom God has spoken or God has manifested are going to have their say. And as in the class room, the reactions of those who have not had the Divine Experiences are going to be laughed off the boards. The world cannot remain half scientific and half egocentric.
I have been assigned the topic “Real Mysticism and pseudo-mysticism and the theme will be from Al-Ghazzali: Sufism Consist of Experiences and Not of Premises. We can also quote: “When the gods arrive the half-gods go.”
I have been a nuisance to culture because I was directly involved with both the Vietnam and Indian-Pakistani imbroglios. Oh, it is easy enough to correct the official historians, but it stops almost there. Now the real Sufis of Pakistan—and they are called and sometimes call themselves “Sufis,” have recommended Sufi Ahmed Murad for his historical roles and the reflex of this is found in the copy of the letter to the Temple of Understanding, enclosed.
It requires almost infinite patience to keep on presenting that God Alone was Founder of Sufism, that Sufis have existed and do exist and they are real persons and some Prime Ministers and also the Vice President of India are disciples of some Sufi teacher. And it is ridiculous but universal to pretend to believe in “the brotherhood of man” and then start rejecting this one and that one all over, until there are a multitude of “brotherhoods” purposely oblivious of each other. Incidentally I predicted this in 1927 in a public debate with the Baha’i Khuli Khan.
I personally believe in the Ether or Alaya Vijnana that everything man does or thinks is engraved in the ethers and the inability of egocentric and material people to penetrate merely means they do not penetrate. I still remember the first lessons in Buddhism taught by one Dr. M. T. Kirby in 1920-1922; Kirby became the teacher of the famous Dr. Malalasekera. They are engraved in the ethers and the rejections of disbelieving man mean nothing but karma, of course.
Pir-o-Murshid sent for me five times after my interview with him in the Beverly Hills Hotel in 1926. He wanted me to write up everything and I did and it was rejected and that is the way we accept our Bayats and verbalize brotherhood, whatever that word means. These instructions from him are engraved in the ethers, they will remain there and no amount of verbalizing to the contrary take away the “truth,” whether it be as simple fact, or as something deeper. It is certain that all the Sufis encountered, and one has encountered many, many thousands accept both the facts of the interviews (which even you I regret seem to reject) and the contents themselves.
But as Hazrat Inayat Khan wished a Universal Temple the Universal Temple will appear. As he said, “The Message is in the Sphere.”
The attachment to papers, the alteration of the esoteric constitution, the abolition of duties for Murshids, and Khalifs, the refusal to accept, “Whatever is done to my Murshids and Khalifs is done to me,” etc, means that this particular strain will not and cannot succeed. When you show me a man who manifests the prayers, I shall accept him—even if it be a young person recently raised from the gutters.
In 1923 I introduced Nyogen Senzaki to Pir-o-Murshid and they immediately entered into Samadhi. Now in the course of life I have had this same experience both with Buddhists and Sufis, and I may use the interview notes made by Nyogen Senzaki knowing beforehand they will be accepted by the professor and perhaps by the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, but hardly by people who have not yet come to recognize that God manifests through whom He will when He wills.
In studying the lives of various saints they do have in common—Grace, Glory, Wisdom, Joy and Peace to varying degrees, but most of them do not see this is common for all saints, whatever their religion. It is only some Sufis who recognize the universality of universality. And it can hardly come from the rejectors. Those who have seen God, in a sense, know God. Of course I have not seen God in the sense that Sri Ramakrishna did but I have seen God in the sense that Swami Ramdas did. And no amount of rejections mean anything, for there is still to be a rejection from saints of any faith, and I mean just that.
Love and brotherhood are to some self-deceiving words and for others ways of life. Pir-o-Murshid assigned to me also the reconciliation of Science and Mysticism and not all the rejections of everybody mean anything, for if God wills He wills and this is going on at a rapid rate. Both those whom I associated with Saturday and Sunday have already concluded that the God-experience will be accepted by the scientists and rejected by the religionists and metaphysicians. And we all seem to use the same words and phrases as well as symbols, having gone through similar experience. Which brings us back to Al-Ghazzali: Sufism Consists of Experiences and Not Premises.
I know—because it is in the nature of life—that future generations will accept the fact that Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan sent for me in 1926, and that I went because he sent for me, and not otherwise. The Sufis elsewhere have unanimously accepted the reports because they are in line with the basic spiritual traditions.
Add to that Hierarchy about which one may read, “The Spiritual Hierarchy is more real than creation itself” and I am certainly not going to enter any lists with people who, acclaiming themselves as Sufis, reject this.
Mrs. Duce compelled me to turn over all my papers and then after some time she relented and returned to me the commentaries which were also written at Pir-o-Murshid’s bequests—rejected of course. The original Esoteric Constitution called for commentaries on the Gathas by Khalifs and by Murshids on the Githas—the “solution” was easy; change the esoteric constitution.
Prophet Mohammed said, “Act as if in the presence of God (Akhlak Allah) and remember. If you do not see Him, verily He sees you.”
A couple of years ago she relented to the degree of returning to me all those papers she thought I had written (the commentaries of course). And as a bizarre result she kept a lot of papers written by me and is using them as Inayat Khan’s teachings.
And she returned to me the original unclassified notes originally written either by Hazrat Inayat Khan himself or by Rabia Martin. Some of the letters and books were lost or thrown away—I had read them all during Khilvat.
But I have his original Ryazat or esoteric instructions quite in detail and if one had those Ryazat and nothing else he could establish a complete Esoteric or Inner School. In one sense they did not or do not belong to me but as one is rejected and rejected and rejected, I am compelled now to follow these Ryazat as part of my own Initiations. They are far the most complete lists to Ryazat I have ever seen anywhere—and although this was rejected in both Europe and America—by this time I have had access to many types of Esotericism, either in verbal form, or through Bayat and ceremony.
The verbal forms have never been used for anything and came from the colleague Major Sadiq. These completed the list appearing in “The Sufi Message of Spiritual Liberty”—Zikr, Fikr, Kasab, Shagal and Amal. Now the list is huge and enables one to commune and communicate with many schools of Sufis. And this was manifested most easily in one of the visits to the Dargah Nizam-ud-din Auliya.
Pir-o-Murshid spent many of his last days in New Delhi with others while Kismet was kept in seclusion. Whom he met, what he told them was in entire accordance with the substance of the Beverly Hills meetings, down to little details, And it is one of the men who had access to his presence in 1927 just prior to his departure that is today one of my greatest champions and loved friends. He has been a witness in all the worlds, so to speak, including the efforts to bring peace between India and Pakistan.
There is no attempt to convince. One knows we have the two cultures, the scientific depending on facts, events and experiences in which all can share; and the non-scientific which is over-personal. I have been able to discuss this with sages in all lands. One who knows does not change, for as the Bible teaches, “It is not I that speaks but the Divine Spirit in me.”
God bless you,
772 Clementina St..
San Francisco 3, Calif.
October 29, 1966
Shamcher B. Beorse
Box 142,
Keyport, Wash. 98345
Beloved one of God:
This is a special letter, which is part of my diary. It is like the story of Balaam in the Books of Moses, that he went forth to curse the children of Israel and instead had to bless them.
I have been successfully recently in discussions with Pakistan on “external truths,” that there is no God that favors just a particular person, that does not manifest and keep on manifesting, or, to put it in the words of Prophet Mohammed, “Allah is closer than the jugular vein” by which I think he meant that, and while I have had many discussions with Muslims on this point I held out and held out and held out and they have succeeded. Only to say Allah is closer than the jugular vein is one thing and to know it is another.
Recently I mentioned the criticisms about the disciples of Inayat Khan for making a separative cult—which is absolutely against his teachings—and the failure for any of his relatives to resemble with the main body of Sufis in any way and to either proclaim for their personal leadership or against the brotherhood of Sufis has worked to detriment.
I returned to this land over four years age, following Balaam so to speak, that my duty before the living God by which I mean Reality and not bundles of thoughts in somebody’s ego-mind. It was necessary to face insults, ignominy and rejections. But my instructions for the University of Islamabad were clear:
a. Learn how to establish technical shops.
b. Find out how to derive food from Leaves.
I had nothing to go on but the faith in the Murshid of Ayub Khan who is also President of the University of Islamabad. In practice there would hardly be anything more difficult. Despite SEATO and CENTO Pakistanis are not permitted or invited to speak at conferences on “Asia.” Pakistan has not been consulted on any of the problems of Southeast Asia, and I do not think in our history we have ever been more shameful than in our policies here. We told the Pakistanis that war would not solve the Kashmir complex and what the Pakistanis were fighting for was a plebiscite and then we turn around and demand votes and plebiscites in and for Vietnam with which we do not have a treaty and which demand did not come from the Vietnamese but from us.
The greatest oration I every heard care from one A. Bokhara. We were having a conference labeled, “How American sand Asian Could Get Along.” Very few Asians were permitted to speak, but lots of diplomats from European countries and lots of newsmen. On the final day the delegate from the U.N. was introduced. He was not introduced as a Pakistani, even less as a “Muslim.” We had lots of “experts” on Islam; all from different parts of the British Empire! The audience gave him a response as great as I had witnessed from William Jennings Bryan or Woodrow Wilson. I went up and gave him the Sufi signal and he fainted in my arms! Unfortunately he died soon after. He spoke on “The Peace of God” and he meant just that and not a lot of words with theological surroundings.
But it illustrates that there are people who know God and they are living and do not presume that Bokhara Sahib was the only one. The first ambassador from Pakistan (Mr. Ispahani) was also our spiritual brother.
It has been faith in the Murshid that, adhering to it, one his not the key to the answer of the problems he gave and even if one be alone—and with God one is always in the majority, it does not matter.
Sufism is divided into fana-fi-Sheikh, fana-fi-Rassoul and fana-fi-lillah and today I am taking my fana-fi-Rassoul materials to class. It is the form of Miraj wherein Prophet Mohammed played exactly the same role as Beatrice did in Dante’s “Divine Comedy.” It is for the teacher to decide but we are coming to something else.
This poem has only been seen-here by Mr. Mawlawi of the Arab Information Bureau, descendent of Maulana Roum (Jelal-ed-din) and he has come to conclusions concerning my person quite different from yours—which does not matter. But I wish to introduce evidence of fana-fi-Rassoul before giving evidence of fana-fi-lillah.
Therefore also one has gone over much material from Christian saints and though they may differ in theology they agree that God is an experience, if not The Experience and their God is quite different from the God of various political heroes. It is marked as all real mystical experience is marked, with stages and steps in Bliss. And no argument without the corresponding bliss is of any value.
When I joined the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion they told me they were entirely opposed to negatives. Man’s rejection only showed his egotism and when a speaker presented the Divine Experience last winter, the Baptist critic made an ass of himself. Scientists want God-experience, religionists want God-doctrines.
Last in 1965 the top scientists of the country were meeting in Berkeley. Those confounded fools let me in, they even let me speak. They should have known better but they didn’t. And between sessions I was walking around, that same Kashf-Prajna directing my footsteps. I entered a building to escape the rain and there was Dr. Chandrasekhar, the top demographer of the whole world. I am not supposed to meet him. Well, that dastard proposed collaboration. He is a top banana and I as not even a peel. But Allah has His ways and now Dr. C. is in the new cabinet in India.
I know a lot about India if you believe Indians, but not if you believe the “experts.” There was a troupe of Indian dancers here not long ago and I went up to the leader and called out laud her Mantram; only that time it was among my friends. I do have some friends. And they were not surprised that I could know her Mantram. Indeed I expect to contribute a little to them for some poor student of music or dancing. I believe we can become friends through the arts. So India is safe whether I am safe for it or it is safe for no I do not know.
I expect to be there in 1969 for the Gandhi Centennial. There will probably be two Americans on the platform, Julie and me. Julie is like me only more so. She has had more ‘madventures,” meets more people and gets more rejections. This is not nonsense; this is as it is. And she is following in the footsteps of my departed late friend, Robert Clifton, who died of a broken heart trying to warn us of Vietnam. Julie has been there too and everything Julie told me, my pal, Eugene, last secretary of Robert told me and he has had 100% rejections.
Indeed it is tragically funny Americans don’t get in Sikkim. The people of Sikkim are Asian-style Buddhists of whom we ain’t got here. When a Lama came here everybody shunned him. He did not look like a Lama. In fact he looked like a European. His mother was European; his father was a Kalmuk (but not Abdul the Bulbul-Ameer). He hag never been forgiven. I treated him fine and nobody else. He did not look like a “Master,” so he could not be a Master.
Anyhow some d… fool believed in us. The “fool” happens to be a Vietnamese monk. I have been yelling alone for the Vietnamese Buddhist. I save a lot of money. When the Doves come around and ask for money I say simply, $1 for each Buddhist speaker.” I raised to $5 and then to $10. I am safe. The Doves don’t want no heathen Buddhists, they only want to collect funds. Anyhow I am guilty already of having stolen Vietnamese from under the noses of their hosts and have never been forgiven. So I am getting ready to host a Vietnamese and maybe, just maybe somebody will listen to him. I had 34 rejections before I got that interview above.
I may have told you the story of Princess Poon coming here and greeting me first. When she lived in S.F. years ago, being small and ugly and un-presentable all society rejected her. Didn’t we have nice looking Englishmen to teach us “Buddhism?” What did we want with an ugly dwarf? Well that ugly dwarf is the most powerful women in the world both in the political and spiritual spheres.
Well, stubbornness has its rewards. I am not the only American who went to the Orient and met a lot of Masters. Two weeks ago another American came here. He went to the Orient and met a lot of real Masters, and got the treatment. But he convinced one of our larger universities he had been to the real Orient and met the sages and gave him a job.
By this tine those of us who have been there and meat and got the boot began getting together—the Englishmen who went to Asia and learned Buddhism from Asians, the Germans who went to Asia and learned Sufism from the Sufism; the various Europeans who underwent real Yogi training. They have joined together and they have sent for this person. I had the chief credential: social rejection. There are some top names. If you want to make a pun this includes Dr. Pallis who climbed a lot of Himalayas and met a lot of Tibetans. They have sent for me. But as above I had already planted to go to England. I had the money from my late mother set aside for that purpose. So I am going abroad.
I am going abroad with ersatz audiences. I know, as this Kennedy stuff got out, and we learning, two year late, what really happened, the British who could read it in the London Times (I did) will now listen to an American who was there in preference to editors and commentators and “experts” who were not. Anyhow I got Thailand, India, Pakistan, Iran and the Arab world on my side. I have had Japan, some Vietnamese and Burmese. When I get to England or before I shall win over the Ceylonese with real documents warning about Vietnam long before it happened. The New York Times and the late Lord Luce are the authorities. They can tell you all about “the Asians.” I prefer meals with real people to dialectics “experts.”
In the meanwhile I have had gotten some material to send you. My friend has failed me so far, and I may have to approach you differently. School is out next week. Now I have the money but the question is the time. Therefore I am writing this and making a couple of carbons. The Bible says. The stone which is rejected has become the corner-stone.
And the kids? They are coming here is greater numbers. I think I shall close the door for god-sons and god-daughters and begin with grandchildren. I know enough of them and there is actual love and this is increasing among the young all over. God willing, I do not have to worry any more. But I do not ask forgiveness for worrying about you. The Prajna-Kashf has been working. What the “good” things have done is to increase composure and awareness, not causes for gloating.
Love and blessing,
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
October 30, 1966
My dear Gavin:
I am sorry I cannot come to your party, mostly because I am involved in research.
Dame Sybil Leek is speaking this forthcoming Thursday night at the Woman’s City Club and if you want a ticket I shall purchase one for you, either by pre-arrangement or at the ticket office. Of course you may have met her by now.
The world privately is following exactly as the horoscopes. Papers and poetry which were a priori rejected—it is marvelous how “noble” people can a priori reject—are at least being examined by UC professors at this time and it is even possible I shall get credit and some notice for the materials submitted.
It is certain in the past that anthropologists have accepted a mass of materials which others have a priori rejected. These others include several well defined classes, all of whom belong to Lord Snow’s “other culture.”
We cannot upset the Law of Karma and those persons who blindly reject. I don’t mean reject but blindly reject—sooner or later meet their proper reward-punishment in the universe so ill-will is totally unnecessary and is, indeed, a burden.
The funniest experience I ever had was to be told I understood nothing of Taoism—and I believed that criticism, only to be told by a Chinese that I was one of the few Americans who did. In general people accept the criticism and Chinese take the opposite view!
Anyhow my poetry and my—what I believe are—mystical and occult experiences are under consideration by the University of California, several professors, several campuses.
I am going to a reception Friday night at the American Society, Friends of Far Eastern Art, and they are going to accept what a lot of other people have a priori rejected. One thing I shall never do is to reject a priori.
Hope your party is a success.
October 31, 1966
Beloved One of God:
Sufis have a prayer:
“O Thou, the Perfection of Love, Harmony and beauty, Lord of Heaven and of Earth, Open Thou our hearts that we may Hear Thy Voice Which Cometh Constantly from Within.” I am not going to argue against devotees who refuse to realize what they are saying.
When I was at the Cayce foundation they used to say: Prayer Is Man Speaking to God Meditation Is God Speaking to Man. In practice, Prayer was repeating some traditional devotion and Meditation was the leader making up his own words and there was no Silence, no listening to God.
This is the eve of All Saints Day by which God means that. Man means something else, and I am asking you in all sincerity to respect All Saints, those whom you may be acquainted with and those with whom you are not acquainted. For the Saints have in some respect notified their love and blessings for you personally. Man will reject this of course, but the Sufi listens not only to the voice of God Which comes from within, but also attunes to the saints and Messengers of God.
You have been entirely right in your intuition of having a powerful role to play in the heavens which you wish could be played on earth. And it can. The Light that you have seen is real, the hopes that you entertain are real and you are hampered, or blessed by your geography. But there is no sign that you should change your geography and there is no sign that you are not free.
The Sufi prayer, Saum, which will be copied for you ends: “Until in us be reflected Thy Grace, Thy Glory, Thy Wisdom, Thy Joy and Thy Peace.“ The prayer also affirms Love and Light. The difference between the devotee and the mystic is that the devotee is always seeking and is so much in love with his seeking he does not know himself.
Now Samuel knows why he is to remain in San Francisco. It has all been clarified in the last few days. Primarily it is because of two men who have come into his life. It is also an answer because the real Masters of the real Far East have summoned him. But he is to play the “Marpa” role and in a sense both of these new friends are “Marpa” types and without Marpa, no Milarepa.
Prof. K. teaches a course on “The Philosophy of Religion” by which he means just that and not a mass and mess of words put out by cultists, dialecticians and power-complex little people. He demands experience to support contention, just as the scientists do. He is a double PhD and this is a strong argument against the superficial attacks always made on him.
Prof. K. accented my Kamakura and Satori experience there. This has been rejected by almost “everybody” but accepted by every Zen and Mahayana Master I have met. The rejections come from our misled egocentric friends who cannot abandon ego and demand that those who have had cosmic consciousness abandon their egos. But it becomes clearer and clearer that Sam must follow “Marpa,” and as he has already been recognized by the Preceding “Marpa,” a real Zen Master, this is the testimony of the Wise against the Ignorant which is the history of the world.
This week Prof. K. accented the “Miraj” experience which follows the pattern of Mohammed’s “Journey Through the Heavens.” But in the same class he also accepted the Christ-experience, which has come in several ways. Generally when one meets an advanced Nun or Monk it is easy to commune and communicate. But with egocentric intellectuals it is almost impossible. And this has encouraged one to place a lot of his mystical experiences on records, these going to top savants who will consider them carefully and not to those who think this person has a power complex to lead others. Hazrat Inayat Khan said: “Leader is he who is leader of himself, ruler is he who is ruler of himself.”
The other case is typical. There are a number of self-centered metaphysical people who are generally admired and often followed who do not have to manifest Love or Light or Wisdom, just talk on these things and they are admired. One somewhat wealthy and powerful lady here has set up and then tried to destroy almost every spiritual (?) movement that has come here. She wants to be boss and then is kicked out. She has even led some souls to madness and destruction—she is a good woman, of course, she has contributed so much to good causes.
A mutual friend, knowing she was lonely, introduced her to Rev. Blighton here. There was a whirlwind courtship and then plunk, suddenly an annulment. The mutual friend has been on tenter-hooks ever since. But my past has had the bizarre effect of alliances with fellow-persecuted. The persecutor sets on each one separately and is able to get society to turn against them. So Sam has in turned gone to his “fellow-sufferers” and the next thing one found in Rev. Blighton a wonder.
Believing in Jesus Christ but not in Christianity, he practices, “The Last Shall be First and the First Last” and “Whatsoever ye do to the least my creatures, ye do it unto me.” So he has gone to the gutter and picked up drug-victims (including LSD users, and sex deviates) and the norm is about eight weeks to spiritual transformation! And I have heard more spiritual talks from these neophytes than from a “month of Sundays” of prominent members of the tribe pseudo-mysticus Californicus.
November 6, 1966
My dear Gavin:
My long-time friend, William Hathaway, has been anxious to meet you and I have half suggested that the best means might be through his having a horoscope made. We are both leaving shortly for about five days unless a surprise event stops us.
Bill has lived both around here and around Santa Barbara and New York and so has contacted people who either knew you, or know about you. He knows James (the little) Pike.
Events of life are following the horoscope progressions and not the opinions of others. All my efforts to get Asian experiences over at any level, spurned by people in Berkeley and Francisco are now being accepted—accepted slowly but truly. I do not know why people insist on adhering to untruths and thinking they can command respect forever.
Don Hayakawa end Alan Watts have fallen out and one of the things they disagree on is “expansion of consciousness” in which they are tyros. Whatever the public believes, they are tyros. If they really knew they would not differ.
I have received another letter from Dr. Radhakrishnan. Very slowly the world will find out our relations and why. The refusal to accept hard facts is one of the reasons not only for the Vietnam war but also for its continuance. So long as we claim to believe in a democracy and at the same time accept the opinions of the big man over the experiences of the little man this will continue.
It is not only that Dr. Radhakrishnan respects my spiritual life; it is for the first time I am getting credits from the University of California over not only my geography—which the “big” people rejected, but over events in spheres of activity still beyond the American culture.
Real Zen Masters came here and sent for one person only. And today I go to meet a Sufi teacher, a real one. I wish I could invite you but it is impossible. I had to go to Dr. Chaudhuri’s as a Sufi despite his unwelcome and he did a rapid reverse. Even former employers give the respect due to one who wins the Robe by achievement and attainment.
Faithfully,
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
November 13, 1966
My dear Aramdarya:
This is written with Love and one hopes Wisdom and I wish you would share it with Marian (Tsil-Tsil). It shows a gradual transformation of position, not that life is smooth and generous, but one is slowly being received with respect. Only the long series of a priori rejections is affecting adversely all kinds of people. And as I told some young men today, Patience is the greatest of weapons, there is nothing like it.
I am preparing to write a rather autobiographical “Real mysticism versus pseudo-mysticism.” This has been preceded by a letter to a friend in Pakistan who is alike a disciple of Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan and by two Pirs in that country. I have sent a copy of it to Bryn.
Bryn has been troubled because I have not accepted either Musheraff of Vilayat seriously. But like all Europeans and most Americans they have rejected the six conversations held at the Beverly Hills Hotel in 1926. I cannot even make it clear to them that Pir-o-Murshid never said I was his successor. He gave me a number of appointments, all overlooked or rejected in Europe excepting by one mureed who established his own movement.
Temple of Understanding. Pir-o-Murshid gave me the exact plans for what was to have been his temple. A Temple of God is for God and for all humanity and not for a select few. In recent years Mrs. Judith Hollister of Greenwich Connecticut not only planned but has been successful in instituting such a Temple for all faiths. Whether I am famous or not is a matter of indifference but I am the first historical person who has been admitted into mystical schools all over the earth.
Masters. When I travelled the Masters of all faiths received Samuel L. Lewis and many elevated me. Now they are coming to San Francisco and I shall not go over past history.
Sidi Abusalem Al-Alawi. There is the faculty of Insight which we as a people reject and even so-called Buddhists and Sufis which stress it theoretically reject it practically. Last Sunday a Buddhist friend told me he was to be host for a great teacher from Morocco. I knew exactly what to do, and selected a book on the man who happened to be his teacher. This and my chanting proved to be the best sort of credentials.
And do you know what Abusalem Al-Alawi told us? You can read it all in “The Sufi Message of Spiritual Liberty.” It was no different and although I do not understand Arabic intellectually, in the heart it was easy to follow. Sometimes he used whole phrases exactly the same as Pir-o-Murshid did end during the question period the answers were the same all the way through.
Love. I have had to visit Northeastern California. It seems no matter what others say, there are trails of Love all over this State and most usually with people met outside what we call “spiritual circles.” Bill Hathaway has been kind enough to take me.
I have also given Bill some of the Sufi teachings received in the Orient and one type I may send to you to see if it will help your body. Quantitatively there is so much. I am tired of being rejected and rejected and rejected to the ridiculous point that all the things I brought back from Asia have been spurned. But Bill is now copying them and I have permitted him the extreme “selfishness” to begin with those things which will help him most.
We are planning to leave here on Wednesday morning, the 23rd to have you come to thanksgiving dinner with us at the Corsican. I do not know whether Marian’s husband would permit her to join us. We wish to have Thursday in either Ojai or Santa Barbara. A long visit is impossible. Too many people wish to see me.
Then I have to come south around Christmas but I have to figure this out backwards, from the date that school resumes and hope to go as far as Yuma. There are so many people from my past, very good friends, scattered far and wide.
Although I do not write to Marian regularly I have a very deep feeling more of a spiritual than personal affection.
The people I met at Westwood came from the Deer Park Section of Fairfax where the old Sufi School was. I used to clay with the children. When I visited that sector last and came out of a house, I was surrounded by a whole troupe of seven and eight year olds who invited me to play with them exactly as it was during the long periods I lived in Fairfax for many years. Evidently vibrations stayed in the atmosphere there.
University. The Philosophy of Religion. This week I have to write a long paper on my Sufic experiences. As long as the European Sufis and followers of Mrs. Duce reject this there is no reason now to come out fully and openly. At least I can have university credit.
I have already submitted both my Christ and Mohammed poetry. Since passing my 70th birthday God Himself has absolved me from any more holding of secrecy excepting in strictly esoteric matters. The teacher is very sympathetic but as a rule the teachers I meet now are as sympathetic as those whom I had to accept previously were not.
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
November 19, 1966
Rev. Cecil Gibbings,
Longthorpe Vicarage,
Peterborough, England
Beloved one of God:
Your “Divine Healing” is before me and it is just an excuse for writing. Last month I passed my seventieth birthday and God Himself has released me from certain sub-vows because as this generation has refused to accept anything at all, and it is necessary to have substantial facts not only recorded in history, but used to produce a continuum in spirituals transmissions, there are two duties before me, as a person.
The spiritual Message of Hazrat Inayat has temporarily failed and this is due entirely to nufs or egocentricism. The success of Science over Religion is simple and has nothing to do with Truth or truths—scientists accept other scientists, religionists other religionists. And all the excuses in the cosmos will not release such people on the day the Judgment.
It is even worse when religionists claim to be working for “The Brotherhood of Man.” It has been a nonsense symbol of arrogance. I have seen such movements as the Baha’i and Roerich with millions and millions of dollars trumpet Brotherhood and fall to the ground. No man is a Brotherhood and no restricted and restrictive organization can possibly be “Universal Brotherhood.”
At the moment I have been aligned with the Temple of Understanding in Washington. This organization has sent for me. Samuel L. Lewis—Sufi Ahmed Murad. They have accepted reports, and even claims because have been substantiated.
When the Scientists met last year at the “Society for the Scientist Study of Religion” and had an impasse this one was silent. The chair told him he had the solution and regretted his silence but hundred of rejections made this advisable. When another impasse took place in the afternoon this person was not only permitted to speak but his resorts were accepted with applause—this by Scientists, not by clerics, and most certainly not by cultists.
Now there has been a veritable parade of spiritual Master to this City and each one points to this person as being the most advanced spiritually. This was true in a lesser sense all over the Orient but that was merely accepting one as devotee, not as leader.
Recently a Moorish saint, Sidi Abusalem Al-Alawi came here and spoke on the need for a spiritual guide and then on Sufism—exactly the same as Hazrat Khan throughout. And later, I heard, he told people that this one was fully qualified to be a spiritual teacher, in everything.
The next morning I was assigned as teacher for the Prelates of “The Church of Man.” It is Christian, not sectarian: but it is also Christian-universal. No man can become a full clergyman until he has had the Vision of the Lord in some way. There is no nonsense about it, you have or you haven’t. Thus it is possible to study scripture from the standpoint of experience and understanding.
I had the rather Zennish meditation, why did she Lord select beatniks and bums to be His Disciples? It was not a meditation, it was a ko-an. I met Rev. Earl Blighton and saw this in front of me—the most disreputable young men having the Beatific Vision. Oh, I have met plenty with the Beatific Vision but they are the leaders in nothing—with the single excerption of the Protestant mystic Rufus Moseley.
Rev. Earl Blighton has “The Church of Man” and their immediate next aim (after regeneration) is Divine Healing. So I am taking this to them. Only their Divine Healing is scientific. Nothing to do with Eddyism etc. Everything to do with the three bodies as depicted in the first Epistle to the Corinthians.
Now I am ready to work on “Six Interview with Hazrat Inayat Khan” which will be sent to Pakistan for recording and one is quite indifferent whether members of the family accept this or not. But with regard to the ryazat or esoteric practices this is different. Everyone of the person in Europe or here, claiming to be successors to Hazrat Inayat Khan has rejected those Six Interviews and in parts of the Orient they were accepted immediately, at a glance. With the Moorish Saint they were also accepted immediately, at a glance.
Every effort will be made to coordinate with the family. Otherwise this whole pile of records, plus all kinds of esoteric practices of many schools will go to Pakistan, both for the Inner School and for the Sufi University. I do not wish this, but God has said these records must not be lost, regardless of man.
I find in the case of Rev. Earl Blighton above it does not matter on whether “I” say “yes” or “no”; what happens, happens. Each religion today is about as far from its base as can be conceived and now that we do have a real mystical and esoteric Christian church, particular or universal. But God is willing, The Temple of Understanding will include, has already included both the esoteric and exoteric together.
Love and Blessings,
Samuel L. Lewis
Sufi Ahmed Murshid Chisti.
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
November 21, 1966
My dear Vocha,
I have the card written from Los Angeles on the 17th and it is barely possible that I shall cross-trail you. I suppose you have not forgotten about Blau at Claremont.
There is another group in that city that played me a dirty trick, but that has been usual. I was scheduled to appear at a conference of all faiths and then was black-balled by one of our European Professors of Oriental Philosophy. I say this light-heartedly because it is notable that a Master of Japanese, Korean and Moorish wisdom have all within this semester said I was among the most advanced in each of their respective teachings.
I think I told you about Yasutani, whose work I now have. It does not differ in any fundamentals from the teaching of Dr. Kelley in The Philosophy of Religion. I have already submitted my term paper on “Real Mysticism versus Pseudo-Mysticism” with subsidiary reports on my own Christian and Islamic epics, my own research on St. Augustine (trilingual which will add to prestige), and subsidiary reports on Christian and Zen matters. I shall miss the class this Thanksgiving week.
Most important was the visit of the Sufi Saint Sidi Abusalem Al-Alawi. I was asked to bring credentials and came in a Sufi robe, chanted Sufi style and then showed the Saint a picture of his own sainted teacher. I think this was enough kashf=prajna which seems to be a forbidden subject. Indeed one result is that I am now teaching with some zeal those portions of “Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch” which are ignored by the schools that revere verbally or ritually that Teacher.
Fortunately I was able to have a semi-private interview wherein he stated my status and this was more than confirmed by his report later to his host. I could understand what he said even before translation and there was considerable empathetic telekinesis.
This had followed another meeting with an Indian lady musician whom I delighted by greeting her with her own Mantram. The Indian audience was stacked in my favor all around, and people rather suspected something of the kind, but the meeting with the Sufi it was the other way. One man quoted Kabir at me and I said, “prove I am not Kabir.” But dualistic people never understand mysticism and it was a field day for self-affirmed wise men excepting they get in each other’s way. The Saint told the host that SAM was thoroughly cable of teaching what he (the Saint) had offered.
I have been having some running discussions with both Lloyd and Don because I would like to avert any scene when you are here. But I have written a paper on Science and Status Symbols copies of which went to Lloyd and Oliver. You see, Vocha, I have been up to Lassen Forest and I have found that nursery men and forest rangers have performed the experiments, and quite successfully, which I had advocated during the “Silent Spring” controversy. That was the most silly forensics I have ever encountered—nurses, sociologists, attorneys, psychologists and others, having intellectual credentials were permitted to discuss at length and a plebeian retired professional spray operator was considered too much below dignity to answer.
I notice at the agricultural experimental stations and at the AAAS meetings that the real scientists were quite willing to listen to our forest rangers whom “polite people” would never permit to speak at their gatherings and they have solved two of the outstanding problems brought up in “Silent Spring.” Both of these solutions had been anticipated and I have had conversations at length with leading scientists on wide-range reforestation programs. The approach has been internationally.
Now what is wrong—and the G.S people will not face it—is that with too many people status-symbols are more important than “truths.” This lies behind Snow’s “The Cultures” which Don and Lloyd disdain. But in speaking with scientists and forestry people there is universal agreement on the need for a proper logistical setting for Science and they do not see one. Von Reichenbach was too obtuse and Oliver is not yet popular. So I am asking you to please tell Harry to order for me
2 copies Cosmic Humanism
Oliver L. Reiser
Schenkman Publishing Co.
Cambridge, Mass.
There is nothing I have participated in in Plant Breeding, Plant Nutrition, Soil Science, several branches of Anthropology (including work on Ceramics), Desert Reclamation, Ecology, etc. the roots of which are not found in Science and Sanity but when we go from the lab to the interior of men’s minds or egos, we cannot, do not and will not have a Science.
Actually this egotistic dualism carries much further. And so a question arises, can we have Systematic Logistics, which can be used in the Sciences, based on something near to what AK wanted?
Love and best wishes,
December 1, 1966
Bodhisattva:
Sometimes so such happens in the life of the individual that he cannot afford to keep in touch with everybody; besides it may not be one’s Dharma. It is very difficult to impress on so-called “Buddhists” even the simplest of Lord Buddha’s teachings and here I refer to attachment. As we remain attached to our ego and not to Truth we see only attachment or detachment, we find no “middle way” (though we use this term) and even less the real Middle Way which transcends these opposites without destroying them.
I was rather “shocked” today to find that two of my friends wish to enter my morning study class. This has not been over the years. Familiarity brings contempt and it is always the person from the distances that has not only charm, but is in some way the Divine Messenger. “God” with all the attributes we surround Him with, has not the ability to bless someone in our midst and Jesus had enough sense to get out of Galilee even though it meant His death. But before that it meant crowds and He was concerned with the crowds, not with His own death.
The ignorant, the self-centered, the selfish have long emasculated God, just as the ancients emasculated their own gods. Consequently no matter what the spiritual attainment of those in our midst, it can never be compared with the glamour of somebody who has come a long way. The distant may be a charlatan, an ignorant man, a fool, or even a criminal, but that is what our culture likes. Only there are enough of us to see the wisdom of working together, working together without any of that false aura of believing in world-brotherhood. This belief gives us the right to reject anybody.
When you were ill it seemed the right thing to do to consult a spiritual brother who is a Christian healer thousands of miles away. Why not the Christian healer here? So having more sense or folly than some people I had the Church of Man headed by Rev. Earl Blighton pray for you. With what effect I do not know for events piled up more and more.
It was necessary to go to Ojai. Ojai is the center of glamorism where males are out of from humanity by females who worship some Avatar or other. The male does not count; he can never compare with the Avatar; only Avatars, like roosters in a barnyard, instead of demonstrating spiritual love, cause bitter rivalry between the females also. Then the maya operates as glamour and those who seek never find.
One lady, particularly repelled by her female fellows, has received what is known in the Orient as a spiritual initiation. She became a sort of lost soul socially. The appearance of Samuel on a different mission aroused her. There in a part of the world where everybody must lecture on “Compassion” this one gave a lecture on Vietnamese Buddhism. This was pretty awful for all the cult followers who are dedicated to “Compassion.” They would have none of that; that interfered with their peace-of-mind.
But the lady, already rejected, and gifted with spiritual clairvoyance saw differently. She knew that a sort of deliverer had come and now she is my first lady disciple for a long, long time. And this being a new age, her initiation was universal and not particular, and one had to initiate her not only in one’s own right but as a result of another event, or series of events in these parts.
One of the essential differences today between Rinzai and Soto is that the former accept the Hierarchy and Patriarchal transmissions. The rejection of this by sects and cults and egocentrics does not interfere with the Hierarchs and Patriarchs in the least. They go right ahead functioning.
When Rev. Warwick came here with the Tibetan transmissions he missed those credentials which Americans, especially American ladies love—the right kind of turban or hair on the head or hair on the face, outlandish clothing, outlandish habits, etc. To our society these are signs of God, but only if on the “right” persons. We reject the very Bible we claim to respect. He could not possibly be what he inferred he was.
Recently one received an emergency phone call from him that a Sufi Saint was coming to his place for a single night. This could not be, of course. “We” know better. Buddhists are Buddhists and Sufis are Sufis and it is better to reject both than stand for such nonsense. Anyhow the Saint came and Sam was asked to present his credentials.
People who are fortunate enough to escape membership in one or other of our so-called “Buddhist” movements may develop Prajna which is the main theme of the Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch and other scriptures. This gives one direct insight into the nature-of-things. It does not give us response to lecturers who fill us with delight; it must arise from one’s own inner being. It is there all right but you can’t make older people believe that.
Anyhow among other things Sam brought this spiritual teacher a picture of his own teacher, who was also the teacher of the others, including the interpreters. That was enough for them but although much more was added, these evidences never affect the cultists and so-called “occultists” who want people to accept what they have to offer and at the same time reserve to themselves the right to reject.
What happened, although in public, may be told if you wish at a later day. We cannot see, we do not wish to see that there is a Universal Love which transcends all boundaries, all divisions, all separations and brings together people regardless of all the differences with which they are clothed or with which we clothe them.
A few of the people present have begun to realize that there may be something in the person who is visited by so many Masters and holy men, some of whom have come to San Francisco just to see him. A the time Princess Poon came here and upset the apple-card by greeting this person first, one recalled a series of similar events, all here, and in them it seems that the spiritual and sometimes the political leaders of the world have very different ideas of the person than the cultists and pseudo-occultists and all the rest.
This was followed immediately by alliances with two men, neither of whom is in particularly good standing with the cultists and “occultists” and separative groups. One has a class at the University on “The Philosophy of Religion” and he makes you put the cards on the table. No nonsense, no claims without supporting evidence and no rejection of evidence because you don’t like the person presenting it. This has encouraged the first phases of one’s own autobiography and will no doubt be followed by others. After all aren’t we having a long war in Vietnam because we have refused to listen to the little people who have been there? There will be more of this. We are not going to have any “peace” until we accept the little people who have been there, and especially the Vietnamese themselves. We love war and do not realize we love it. It is exciting and anything that is exciting wipes out all commandments.
The other is with Rev. Earl Blighton, that one is now leading the class on the mystical and esoteric interpretation of the scriptures. The class is mostly young men and one older woman. They want their own mystical achievements recognized and these are recognized and there is no domination by older ignorant people who know things intellectually but have had no inner experience, and do not understand grace and direct transmission.
It is this class which is going on fine. There is love and understanding and nowhere are opinions permitted to overshadow experiences. Christ can appear to the least of these, His creatures, and sometimes does. And I am hoping to welcome such of my friends as are interested or curious but this will have to be taken up with the Esoteric Council. We want people, but also harmony.
This communion with the young has been followed by another communion with the young centering around Daniel, a son of my companion, Bill Hathaway. Relations with Bill are long and very complicated. But believing in the predictions of theosophical clairvoyants and taking them seriously, one foresaw the coming of a new race with new faculties. And when these young people did come they were summarily rejected by their elders who stick to words and persons and have no insight neither of the clairvoyant type nor the Prajna type.
We took Danny to Gavin Arthur and the horoscope came out exactly as we figured. It woke Danny up. Here were two men who have not seen each other lately, saying the same things about the same configurations, making the same predictions, delineating the same characteristics. Indeed Danny was taken down a peg in a humorous fashion when he ran into somebody making the same claims he had.
Now Danny is one of a group who were raised at the feet of Avatar-Krishnamurti and found him, “Human, all too human.” But these young people have exactly the same characteristics as was predicted for them, and this “shocks” the disciples of the people who originally made the predictions. After all both Krishnamurti and Manly Hall were swathed by people who make predictions and both broke, causing some confusion. But although of a super-human type, they were neither so advanced as their promoters thought, and neither has ever sat the foot of real masters. The young recognized this and the elders refuse even to look. So there is a revolt of the young at Ojai and Santa Barbara.
They have taken refuge in LSD and found its short-comings. The next step may come tomorrow night when Danny meets Joel Andrews and Anne whom he knew from school. The subject will be occult and spiritual training with and through music. Both Gavin and I see things coming from it, but cannot say what it will be.
Gavin’s predictions about Reagan have already come true; not what appeared in the paper but the original script he wrote out and which was overly modified by the press. He is becoming more psychic or clairvoyant or serious and also more efficient.
During all this time one is having a sort of “battle” on a world scale. The West accepts the glamour people and the East is very circumspect. We do not have peace, we are seeing more wars and this will be until we can get along with our own fellows. It is too much fun to criticize and find fault with those near at hand and glamorize those at a distances.
I am going to consult Rev. Blighton before the next steps. The whole group seems to be moving together and that was what the Church originally meant. We are all One Body. And we are setting the One Body church against all the separative and separating groups of whomsoever, whatsoever.
This is merely one man’s report.
Love and blessings,
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
December 9, 1966
My dear Quantz:
Before answering your letter I wish to write about Gavin Arthur. It is very easy to praise a person or blame him especially for actions toward the person, but when one has the universal view it is different. There is a spiritual vision which few have and it is helped when you are rejected. If everybody believes in you, it does not help. It is like Judo, only spiritually.
This point was just strengthened by a telephone call from one of Gavin’s clients who wishes to have an occult reading. They get it free from me if they pay Gavin. He is a poor man and I am under orders—whether he accepts it or not, to see that he does not starve.
He is coming from my point of view into an important era, continuing the excellent work of Fabre D’Olivet. Yes, I was initiated into French Occultism and more early in life and this brought to me not only rituals and “secrets” but private documents. These were destroyed when the Sufi House in Fairfax was burned but now some of the material is coming to Gavin.
I am teaching a group of young people on the Mysticism of the Bible. Gavin is anti-Paul. We are not anti-Paul. The Paulina humanity consisted of those under Seven Stars; Gavin’s humanity consists of those also under Uranus, Neptune and Pluto and so he is functioning before a totally different humanity.
Gavin may someday realize that Edward Carpenter was his guru. Edward Carpenter worked on the Uranian types and Gavin is working on the Neptunian types. This is very important because although we would say Carpenter is a much greater man, he did not live among Uranians, excepting a few; and Gavin is living among Neptunians and they are all around us.
I do not have your chart but I can tell only a story by analogy. I am faced with a great many young people from broken families, father against mother. I can help largely because that was my history also. But often this works toward their spiritual, though not psychological betterment. The problem is, given these spiritual hopes, can we help them psychologically?
A girl came in the other day and she had cold feet. Instead of finding fault with her I worked on and for her feet. Then we discussed Sufism and all of a sudden her feet were warm. This is a Grace.
The whole history of my relation with local Sufis is full of horror—animosity, persecuting, etc. What saved me has been the hatred of my enemies for each other, they destroyed each other.
Now I have been all over the world and met so many Masters. What is happening today? The fountain is coming to Mohammed. Sam signed up for a course on “The Philosophy of Religion.” The teacher is an American and he was permitted to relate his own mystical experiences to an American teacher after Englishmen, Germans, Hungarians and a lot of other “experts” on Oriental philosophy absolutely refused even to look at his things. This not only happened here but it happened in Southern California and in Massachusetts. I can take you to Harvard where Englishmen and Hungarians teach Oriental philosophy and I can take you to MIT where Americans teach and the greetings would be totally different. The same covers other matters.
But this semester I had the honor of having both a great Zen Master and a Sufi Saint come here and the public wasn’t included and there was no way to include the public because of one’s rejection. Which did not stop. But there was also a group of spiritual Hindus and this audience was all friends, including a former boss. They expected a miracle and Sam want to the Hindus and repeated their own mantrams. How was this done? It is because we live and move and have our being in God.
The next thing is the entanglements with the New Culture, or Uranians and Neptunians (and possibly Plutonians). They are here. The brave New World is not that of Aldous Huxley, it is that of Bulwer Lytton. Lytton was an initiate and all the public acclaim does not make Huxley an initiate. If you came down here you could be studying all sorts of occultism and mysticism but you would have to give up loves and hates alike. The vacuum attracts by being empty.
Now despite all the rejections Sam has the complete exoteric practices of the Sufis to a greater extent than anybody else ever had and if he has not Fabre D’Olivet’s manuscripts he has those of Nyogen Senzaki and the highest of Hazrat Inayat Khan.
The young feel when an elder has been rejected and they welcome him. They work much more rapidly. I do not know if your children belong to these types. My friend Bill was divorced by his wife. His younger son joined the “outcastes” and his younger son is a Genius type, at least. We plan to have a gathering at Gavin’s where you will see the first elements of a real “coming New Race,” not Huxley’s but Lytton’s. The center of them is around Santa Barbara and Ojai. Their parents followed Krishnamurti; they do not.
I have been hesitant about asking you to come here. It would bring you a geographical break. I do not know any way to summon rain and limited to a certain area; or to bring out sunlight just for the just and not for the unjust.
There are two aspects of Love: Intensity (which you have) and Broadness or Compassion which is limited. This is not to be a blame; all Americans with rare exceptions are like that. Intensity builds up Heat and Broadness builds up Vision. If you could meditate on the Sufi symbol you would experience the broadness, you need it. And if you are right about Sharon she also has intensity and not broadness.
In my “God” there is no room for anybody, and yet in my life I have come upon innumerable cases of “Exclusive Cosmic Consciousness.” In God there is no exclusion and even your worst enemies, belong within God.
As long as you allot power to Sharon she has power and when you ignore her she can do nothing. It only came to me while writing it would be good for you to be in California, especially if you can earn your living. You could lose your complexes in causes. There are all kinds of causes.
My main two causes are “Peace in Vietnam” and “Food Problems.” I have been involved in Vietnam directly or indirectly since 1947. So have some of my closest friends and associates. We are ignored. Read Sarkhan by Burdick & Lederer. It was most difficult. I have lived, unlike Burdick, in both Buddhist and Islamic “Monasteries.”
I had to live amid 600,000 (six hundred thousand) utterly displaced persons in Karachi. None of our Americans can understand this. Our “Poverty,” programs are superficial. But the President of Pakistan is a disciple in Sufism, he depended on God and without fanfare he did a clean-up job which Mr. Shriver cannot conceive.
I have to thank God every minute I am not involved either in the poverty of those Pakistanis or the misery of the Vietnamese, due to extinction promised them by both sides.
It is possible to talk to God and get answers from God but not on our own terms. We cannot command God and the “God” of religion is dead and religion, on the whole, is dying. What is outside of man’s experience is false and what is within man’s experience is true.
Faithfully,
P.S. While writing another, one of Gavin’s clients telephoned to call on me. Spiritual counsel is offered free to those who pay him. But they have to pay him and I do not seek any bargains. He is doing a fine work and merits what little he can get.
December 11, 1966
Bodhisattva:
A holiday is coming which at one time meant the celebration of the coming of the Light, but now has come to mean anything that satisfies the ego’s desire, and our substitution of the term “heart” for ego, does not change it at all. The war continues in Vietnam, rumors of starvation go on and we reserve billions of dollars to “conquer outer space,” thereby raising animosity from those more interested in “conquering inner space.” But the conquest of outer space which does man no good is attempted impersonally and on principles, while the putative conquest of “inner space” is tried by all sorts of egocentric endeavors and will fail therefor. Until man recognizes University and the right of God to manifest in whom He will and not in whom we will we remain in samsara.
The coming of a Saint here marked a change in the inner and outer life, a change which will be accepted and is being accepted by the young, but their elders who often know everything intellectually, do not often make the grade.
The immediate aftermath—it does not look like “cause-and-effect” of the Saint’s coming was the teaching of a class mostly of young men who cannot get into it until they have had the Vision of Christ or its equivalent. There is just one woman in it, of mature age and it looks now as if the spiritual resurgence of humanity will come mostly among the young with here and there an elder woman. Mostly it will be some elder women who is rejected by her “equals.” And in general the young will be those that have either rejected or been rejected, while their elders will certainly be rejectees. All the metaphysicians, all the cults, all the self-centered utterances do not chance, “In the hour ye think least the Son of Man cometh.” He will so come, is coming, will come, and it is only by awakening and never by self-will that this happens. But self-will will and will and will and everybody joins a different cult rejecting other cults and espousing “Brotherhood of Man.”
This nonsense the young are rejecting looking for other formulae and other persons or no persons, but certainly sticking to principles.
You have no idea how a lonely rejected Sage feels when he becomes surrounded suddenly by young who are also sages and being young are rejected by their elders in years but not elders in wisdom.
In a sense it began with a meditation on why did Christ select “bums” to be his saints and they ultimately reached perfection. Our society will accept no such procedure. Our society either wants a worn out Orthodoxy which keeps people sterile and in ignorance or it wants certain personalities and these fall into a few categories, and we stick to those self-selected persons, each divided from the others and so the cults are being mocked at by the young who believe in the same principles and processes but not in any human selection of leadership by those who cannot awaken others.
Christ went out and selected some bums and turned them into perfect men (Saints.) Rev. Earl Blighton is going out and selecting ex-deviates and LSD-ers and somehow or other Christ appears to them without asking society’s permission. And “in a twinkling of an eye” they are changed. So we study the Bible as if it were our own experiences—and it is—and not some far off scripture to be taken literally—which is nonsense; or “esoterically” which means to make it so vague it has nothing to do with life.
And although as an elder—and some people do respect age—I act as their leader, the marked manifestation of spiritual awakening in the young is far far greater than among several of the groups with whom we have associated in the past. Light means light and nothing but light and the light manifests in the darkness and the darkness comprehendeth it not but the light comprehends it and there is Love and Joy, and not those empty words demanded by those who haven’t it from these who haven” IT.
The Saint came and went and told a few that Sam Lewis was quite capable of teaching what he taught. This may be true but lacking a few credentials, one is compelled to laugh. As the years have gone by and one has an accumulation of esoteric exercises which have probably been the greatest of anybody yet appearing—the accumulation of exercises is not of itself a mark of supreme distinction but is much more important than a vast accumulation of literature we cannot explain—does not mean that people are going to accept even written words. “That fellow can’t have them” and that is that.
Once I approached an Indian professor and presented him with the theme, “The Identity of the Jewish and Indian esotericism.” Of course this is impossible because this fellow can’t possibly have it and you can ask your friends and acquaintances and need no look further. Finally I gave this Hindu the copy of “The Lesser Upanishads” after coming to all the esoteric exercises. One-prominent person took the papers and kicked me out. That is not the first time this has happened and it may not be the last, but inasmuch as the brilliant looking public speaker is always more spiritual than the badly dressed insignificant one there is no need for argument. Our “God” has to accept our premises, and so the war and the confusion, and the growing uncertainties.
I don’t know whether you have the synopsis of Humperdink’s The Goose Girl in your books on the operas but I think you have. This symbolizes man’s rejection of the divine messengers and this is part of our perpetual behavior. In this case the little peasant girl operated as the Messenger from God but this can’t be so she was rejected. Knowing that the Children of Light operate as the Children of Laughter and I predict that within two generations the young will laugh the old out of their serious nostrums.
This already happened at the University of California when the scientists met to discuss religion and the scientists discuss religion and the cults do not. And there was a traditional minister and nobody bothered about him and he left before it was all over.
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
December 17, 1966
My dear Marian:
This is really my dairy but things are happening which will become of historical consequence and this week two men saw me as I am. One was a new acquaintance as the other a life-long acquaintance which I think is more valuable.
Today very suddenly I find myself leader of three groups. I did not wish to be leader but every time somebody says I have not a certain faculty God gives two more. Thus the crossing at Ojai raised the inner eye and his did not have happened if one had not been crossed. It is just like Judo only inwardly, that when opposed one gains the psychic and super-psychic strength of the critic and either their faculty or a new one.
Thus I am now quite uncertain whether Danny will not exemplify all the virtues, claims and arguments for Krishnamurti and himself to become a Deliverer, which is to say a World Deliverer or Bodhisattva. It is certainly “in the stars” and his horoscope gives such promise. But he does not know it yet. In any case I may telephone his mother when I come to Ojai again. And I feel you have certain intuition in yourself, which must be nourished to the extreme. For bombast and press agents no more bring in the Kingdom of Heaven than did the Pharisees and Scribes at the time of Scribe. And “in the hour ye think least the Son of Man cometh.”
One of the groups meets early in the morning. I began teaching this is as soon as the Sufi Saint came and departed. We study the Epistes but everything is based on realization. The class, mostly quite young men, shows degrees of clairvoyance that would make their elders blush. I have always said that in American the lamb and lion might lie down together but our society would never let a little child lead them. But now the children are exerting themselves and showing faculties which are in the books. The world is filled with book-books and people starve.
And out of the LSD youngsters the search for joy grows and grows and when they seek outlets and outlooks for Joy they rush in while their elders lecture and write books, as always.
One of them saw Sam as he really is and I have not forbidden him revealing. Evidence is of no value here. Why I have introduced top spiritual leaders of the world to people and that did not mean anything, and so now the top spiritual leaders come in secret and this will go on and on. And those who will not accept even the evidences of their sense, won’t accept anything anyhow.
There are two comedies in. this and they are more laughable than shameful. One was the coning of the Witch, Dame Leek. Oh, all she said was right but it is nothing when compared to the real Rosicrucian scientific knowledge of such men as Paracelsus and Helvetius and Agrippa. And now I have a scientific book of their successor filled with occult and astrological interpretations of plant life.
While the pseudo-occultist are shouting bombast and denying each other the scientists are planning a big program next month on the deeper aspects of Psychedelics. This will be serious and impersonal and will lead ultimately to the uncovering of Soma, the plant juice which adds to life, not only of the physical body but of the subtle body (at least). The bombasts and pseudo-occultists work with personalisms and the scientists work with knowledge and knowledge is open to all.
Another funny thing but more serious was an attempt to get me to become disciple of a Sikh who has gracious words but denies the merits of other spiritual teachers. You can always tell a true from a false one that the true always defend the other true. This man’s secretary told me if I joined them I might meet some Sufis. It is ridiculous. No sooner than did Sam arrive in East Pakistan than he began meeting Sufis and ever since. And when one of them who is known as a “Saint” came here we recognized each other at once, immediately and communed and communicated on all planes at once, with or without translation.
I was rather urked with my old friends who see everything intellectually and personally and was amazed when one of them phoned last night to corroborate this. He had seen also—twice in one week people have seen “Sam.” But in this case we had been initiated under the same Masters and he should have known I was given in each ease a higher degree—two schools of Buddhism, and yet he kept on trying to “teach.” It is all right to try to “teach” but never to one initiated in a higher degree of the same school without permission. After forty years, he came through last night and I am a little ashamed.
But I was also initiated in the real Esoteric Buddhism to act on the path of discipline rather than compassion and that is why I am so concerned with your progress in the world of compassion. Christ had twelve Disciples who were to complement each other and their perfection did not consist of their being the “all” but of the perfection in and with the qua1ities God had given them, or which they had earned in the aeons.
Contrary to all the cults, sects, pseudo-mystics, pseudo occultists I told a good deal of my inner life in a paper submitted to the University of California and the teacher said he regretted he could give no more than an “A.” Our last subject (after the explanation) was on whether Christ and Buddha were the same or not, and if not the same who was grater.
Now during the course a great Zen Master (a real one) came to this city just to see Sam. He stayed only a few hours. Now I am giving out all of Mrs. Ruth Sasaki’s works because she is an illuminated American whose husband (and Master) had also been my Master and some day when the cultists, pseudo-occultists and metaphysicians become impersonal they will accept this. God selects whom He will as He will and outer signs have nothing to do with it.
On my return from Asia a Mrs. McInroe in this city gave me a copy of The Whirling Ecstasy concerning the Sufi Shams-i-Tabriz. In this discipline your robes are rags and your rags are robes. But in studying both the Zen and Christian saints it is the same. Our society wants robes to be robes and rags to be rags and so long as this continues we will abide in darkness.
The Whirling Ecstasy shows Joy so far greater than Psychedelic drugs. Danny is on the first stage of this search but some young people are much further along. I should know this coming week whether there will be a grand break-through or a gradual increase. But for them I am opening the Krishna-Yoga. You can bet a million to one, and I mean a million to one and no fancy about it, that when I write to the top people in India they will accept it at once and here there is no use even mentioning it excepting to God-mother Ruth St. Denis, if she can only remain in the flesh till my next visit. For we commune and draw from the Ethers and recognize and respect each other. But pseudo-occultists cannot do that and close their minds and hearts.
Danny will no doubt take me to Big Sur whenever he gets back and he is as ready for a show as anybody and it will be a show.
The Krishna-Yoga took on another step last night when I demonstrated the Brihadaranyaka in sound for while the other two classes are mostly men and young ones, this group has a lot of women, mostly young also. And by the sound one illustrated States of Consciousness up to the Deva grade. I did not wish to demonstrate the Deva grade excepting to initiates, but if the world continues as it is, the occult knowledge will be given to the public and the young will laugh at all the secret cults, societies and pretenders to divine knowledge who do not love each other.
For the older lady there, Occult Astrology. I had hoped to open this for Danny. Being the depository of a multitude of mystical and occult traditions and sciences I wish to unload as many as possible to concentrate on the deep Yogas which make it possible to talk to God directly and listen to God directly. This is true of the morning class, but there, although I sit in the teacher’s chair, all can listen to God, and my superiority comes in the knowledge of some Greek and a little Hebrew and of the world’s sublime literature. Let those who think I haven’t got it think that way and let them go ahead in the darkness.
Last night I also re-opened the Mystical Creation of the Hebrew Bible, one lesson only. Too much on one evening is enough and I was busy two and a half hours. Not a single question remained unanswered. There are no moral admonitions. One seeks to comfort people beginning with the physical body. The young find a kind of comfort they do not find elsewhere and mature women smirk and that is fine. I have not come to lead the whole world into the Kingdoms of the Heavens. In fact I wished to teach three or four teachers but failed. And the teachers would not accept it was necessary to go to the public. But these Uranians and Neptunians, misled as they may be into Psychedelics, at least have ears, at least know there are other stages of consciousness and are drawn to one who has been rejected more than to those who have been accepted.
Love and blessings
SAM.
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
December 25, 1966
My Dear Shamcher:
This is very strange Christmas and evidently it marks the end of a period of turmoil, strife and unwarranted a priori rejections. There is a great deal of difference between blanket a priori rejections (of which I have had many) and rejections after one has been permitted to plead his course. In the case of my brother I got a lot of rejections but after I had been permitted to state my case and I am thus receiving another small legacy. But in the world, and it is most important, nearly all the rejections have been a priori—you are not permitted to present your case at all. You are not “worthy” of having a case.
I laughingly kidded my brother and my attorney that with my additional legacy I would go to India. And in the next mail a letter was received from Prof. Merchant. I don’t know whether you have read of the work of Joshi and Wadia—Merchant is their pupil disciple. They have worked out economic principles far more carefully than either Douglas or Soddy hut have not been able to “sell” them to India.
I am preparing to write on “The Solution of the Problems of India.” I did write such a paper for one Prof. Satya Agrawal and a copy went to Prof. Park then at the University of California but in general I have not been permitted to submit papers at all.
When the #3 man of the Congress Party cane here and told the audience he had come five thousand miles just to see Sam Lewis, some of our “experts” stomped out angrily. And when Dr. Chandrasekhar proposed collaboration, others sneered instead of listening. But I am very serious and will write Merchant.
In the course of events I may have to come north both to see my uncle and inquire into Social Credit operations. S.C. does not exist at all in our world of “realism” and is one of the sharpest evidences that our “realism” is nothing but subjective, fantastics, dialectics. But I mention this also because I am hoping to bring Merchant and you together. I shall send him Oliver Reiser’s Cosmic Humanism (my copy of your book was burned in a fire many years back now.)
My next step for India will be here in connection with one Daniel Hoffman, a friend of Reiser; and with Joan Bonderant, of the University of California. After I am gone some top Indian officials will probably tell Americans off not for rejecting, but for not-listening. This is the grand method of all power-structure people.
I am getting enough money to warrant a trip to England and have already sent ahead for lectures. Do you know Cecil Gibbings? I may be living with him in Peterborough but I think I shall be lecturing in England.
I am troubled about two things in England. I may run into Julie Medlock, friend of both Oliver Reiser and Bertrand Russell, who is a champ at getting brush-offs and a priori rejections. And Dr. Malalasekera who declared, “How can you trust a Nation that does not trust its own citizens?” Dr. M. will accept a peace proposal from me in nothing flat but I don’t want to go into that. I am no Addison Moan and at least can support any contention with facts and knowledge; and today with personality acquaintances.
But all this does not warrant any peace plan from me without taking into consideration what you have been doing.
The famines in both Pakistan and India which I foresaw and know the reasons thereof will enable me to reach the governments of those countries easily. I have answers at my finger tips. I may try to contact Lord Snow because his doctrines work out—the scientists accept facts, the non-scientists judge by personalities. Buber and Einstein become saints when they are dead.
The University of California at Santa Barbara will at least look at my memoirs. I ran into a PhD there who was also getting the run-around. He had some of the same experiences I had and was getting the same sneer reactions. But I laughingly said to him, “When I go to India I shall write on the “Psychedelic Effects of Indian Vedic Ceremonies.” “I accept that.” Here, not a chance but the time is coming. The scientists are going to have a Psychedelic. Conference next month and the director of the affair is a man I know. I’ll thus act as an errand boy (I generally do) between the campuses of UC at San Francisco and Santa Barbara.
I don’t want to go into the past. All the problems of the day can easily be solved—Vietnam, famine in India, water problems, but those in control of power structures won’t let those who have the answer speak. I ran into this recently on the Berkeley campus—some power people won’t accept anything from their own underlings.
Vocha will be here shortly and I am trying to avoid any arguments on Semantics based on personality rather than on human knowledge and logic. If this cannot be helped it cannot be helped. G.S. has not caught hold, making it necessary for me to advertise Oliver Reiser—he at least lets me do that. But I am considering you and your past efforts. It would be a shame to let them become moribund.
Love and blessings,
S. A. M.
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
December 29, 1966
Dear Carlton:
Thank you for your Christmas card. This year I had a season somewhere between that of the Bible and Mr. Isaac’s of Marion Crawford, not that it will be believed but one in time becomes totally indifferent as to what people believe. Besides it does not matter.
For blessings were received from the Grand Masters respectively of Pakistan, Morocco and Korea. And along the line I received my paper “True Mysticism versus Pseudo-Mysticism” back from the University of California with the notation, “Sorry I can only give you an “A.” Copies were made and one will be taken by me shortly to UCLA and the other carbons to Chicago, M.I.T and Punjab Universities.
When the life-long struggle between my brother and self was settled, apparently amicably, with some unexpected funds, and with a very good chance of income being doubled. If so this will enable me to travel (or not) the rest of my life, and in fair comfort. And this has been followed by a big offer to help in a gigantic farm project in West Pakistan.
I was turned down twice before—one because I could not interpret offhand the 51st Chapter of the Qur’an and second because I refused to support Pakistan against India on the Kashmir issue. This is the way things operate and our diplomats know nothing about Asians (Vide Sarkhan).
Have just read a book by a disciple of Gurdjieff who went off to see his teachers. Well there was nothing that Gurdjieff’s teachers told him that Sam Lewis (Sufi Ahmed Murad) does not know. But do you think Americans and particularly Californians will accept that? So it looks as if I go back to Asia to teach Asians Asian wisdom.
Isherwood’s Ramakrishna is marvelous. I am, of course, Paul Brunton #2 excepting my writings haven’t been accepted yet. And I already have friends in Ojai who were close to him. I do not know anything about the esotericism of Amerindians of South America, nor have I heard of the Edhemis.
Don’t kid yourself about the Zen Center. I am teaching the New Testament to a flock of young men who have experienced various degrees of illumination by Christian methods and I have seen more progress of some of them in two months than the whole Sangha on Buddhism in the whole time Shinrya Suzuki has been here.
There is even a fair chance of my meeting Govinda soon, but watch out. When I met Dr. Chaudhuri’s philosophy teacher I said to him, “Which do you want, to hear the Flute-of-Krishna or to have a discourse on Chandogya Upanishad right off, no preparation.” The Swami who introduced us said, “He means exactly what he says.” This couldn’t happen here, of course.
Or the time some Americans took me to a Sufi saint. “What do you want?” “I have come to teach you.” I did, we embraced and I have the picture. But evidence is not evidence before people who do not want to learn and I have to take some of Inayat Khan’s things back to Asia because Americans and Europeans not only will not admit I have knowledge, they won’t even admit I have manuscripts.
I have open house on Monday and Friday nights but am discontinuing the Friday night and will probably open on Wednesday and even Saturday. The young are beginning to come, and a few old friends. Teach anything—Kabbalah, Sufism, Rinzai Zen meditation, and Mauna Yoga which is the discipline Lord Buddha went through before Enlightenment. Have piles of manuscripts which have become secret because metaphysicians say they are secret, and am sharing them with the young. Next effort will be Ojai, but have become totally indifferent and quite happy.
A Young physicist came here and it did not take long to show him the relation between mystical realization and present teachings of physics. The greatest Sadhu I know is an Islamic professor of Physics and Electrical Engineering at Peshawar University.
I don’t live in a cave. I can teach 5-minute Zen and live in the midst of society. I can teach instant Sufism and live in the midst of society. Beatniks live in caves and I want to live in the sunshine.
After 30 rejections I am still going to try with my manuscripts. Don’t care anymore. We prefer war to listening to American-eye-witnesses of “Sarkhanians.” I am still fighting for the right of Buddhists to be Buddhists and will take this up next week.
I have been thinking of you—don’t guess why. A lady has come back into my life after many years, and where does she live? On Jackson St. Her name is Mrs. Helen Crombie. She used to be interested in theosophy and occultism—years ago. She will be retiring—in March. I have some dates with her coming up.
Happy New Year,