Name Samuel Lewis | Education Columbia University | |
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Books This is the New Age, in Person | ||
Samuel L. Lewis also known as Murshid Samuel Lewis and Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti (October 18, 1896 – January 15, 1971) was an American mystic and horticultural scientist who founded what became the Sufi Ruhaniat International, a branch of the Chishtia Sufi lineage. After a lifetime of spiritual study with teachers East and West, primarily Hazrat Inayat Khan and Nyogen Senzaki, Lewis was recognized simultaneously as a Zen master and Sufi murshid (senior teacher) by Eastern representatives of the two traditions. He also co-founded the Christian mystical order called the The Holy Order of Mans. His early interest in international seed exchange and organic agriculture also established him as one of the pioneers of green spirituality. His most enduring legacy may be the creation of the Dances of Universal Peace, an early interspiritual practice that has spread around the world in the 43 years since his passing.
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Life
Lewis was born to Jewish parents. Lewis' father Jacob Lewis was a vice president of the Levi Strauss jeans manufacturing company. His mother was Harriett Rosenthal, the daughter of Lenore Rothschild of the international banking family. To his parents' dismay Lewis showed a keen interest in religion and spirituality from an early age and later rejected their attempts at as business career for him.
In 1919 Lewis entered a Sufi community in Fairfax, California where he met Murshida Rabia Martin, a student of the Sufi teacher and musician Hazrat Inayat Khan. A year later he began Zen study with Nyogen Senzaki, a disciple of the Rinzai Zen Buddhist Abbot Soyen Shaku. The twin spiritual influences of Sufism and Zen were to remain central to him throughout his life.
Lewis remained in the Fairfax Sufi community through the early 1920s. In 1923 a vision of Hazrat Inayat Khan lead Lewis into initiation by the Pir-O-Murshid. In 1926 he collaborated with Nyogen Senzaki, a Rinzai Zen Buddhist monk, in opening the first official Zen meditation hall (zendo) in San Francisco.
Lewis continued to study Sufism and Zen, as well as yoga, the latter with Swami Ramdas of Anandashram. He also developed an interest in horticulture and promoted seed exchanges internationally. He was also an adherent and promoter of the General Semantics approach to psychology, language and translation begun by Alfred Korzybski.
In 1956, he visited Japan, India, Pakistan and Egypt, seeking the company of other mystics and teachers. In 1960-62, while visiting Pakistan, he reported that he was publicly recognized as a Murshid by Pir Barkat Ali, founder of Dar ul Ehsan. In 1966, after further Zen study with, among others, Sokei-An Sasaki and Sagaku Shaku, Lewis was ordained a "Zen-Shi" (Zen Master) by Korean Zen master Dr. Kyung-Bo Seo.
In 1967, whilst recovering from a heart attack in a hospital Lewis reported that he heard the voice of God say, "I make you spiritual leader of the hippies."
For the remainder of his life Lewis traveled around California developing and teaching new forms of walking meditation as well as the Dances of Universal Peace, which draw on all the spiritual traditions he had encountered. Lewis' work in the Dances of Universal Peace was also inspired by his time with American dance pioneer Ruth St. Denis, whom he acknowledged their "grandmother." In 1982, the organization now known as the International Network for the Dances of Universal Peace was founded by Saadi Neil Douglas-Klotz and Tasnim Hermila Fernandez for the purpose of promoting Lewis' vision of the Dances as a form of "peace through the arts." The organization subsequently published many of St Denis' previously unpublished writings on spiritual dance and the mysticism of the body.
In the late 1960s, Lewis began initiating and training students first under the banner of Zen and then of Sufism. Just before his passing in 1971, Lewis formed an esoteric organization now known as the Sufi Ruhaniat International to help carry on his Sufi initiatic lineage in the Chishti Sufi tradition. Lewis died in January 1971 as a result of a fall one month earlier. Before his passing, he appointed his as his successor his Khalif Moineddin Jablonski, who directed the organization from 1971 until his own passing in 2001. Jablonski was succeeded by Shabda Kahn as Pir of the lineage.
Dargah
When Samuel Lewis died, he asked that his body be buried at the interspiritual community of Lama Foundation, near Taos, New Mexico. The grave (called a "maqbara" in the Sufi tradition) became a pilgrimage site and was rebuilt several times in the intervening years. In August 2017, work was completed on a new building, called a "dargah," surrounding the gravesite. It is designed to facilitate visits by pilgrims in the same way that Sufi dargahs in other parts of the world do.