Sufi Vision and Initiation: Meetings with Remarkable Beings

This is the second edition of the original book published in 1986, with a new introduction by the editor, Neil Douglas-Klotz, who also contributed numerous notes and chapter introductions. A moving personal history of how Sufism and Zen came to America.... The story of meetings with remarkable beings like Swami Papa Ramdas, Nyogen Senzaki, Mother Krishnabai, Pir-o-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan, the Rev. M.T. Kirby and others who sought to bring East and West together through the universality of genuine mystical experience. Political and religious turmoil in faraway lands, organic agriculture and seed exchange for peace, and the great mystics and sages of the 20th century all play a part in this story of an American mystic and scientist's search for truth in the 1920's-1970's. Murshid Sam was surely one of the pioneers in the movement of experiential comparative religion--one that may yet transform Western culture. Andrew Rawlinson, -The Book of Enlightened Masters: Western Teachers in Eastern Traditions 'I have no fonder memory of the 60's than the appearance of this strange-looking man, who said things which made me first laugh, then smile, then later pause in appreciation of a spiritual original, a pioneer.'--Dr Jacob Needleman, author of The New Religions and Lost Christianity 'Every time I remember Sam, I end up laughing at myself. That's pretty good work for a dead rascal-saint.'--Ram Dass, author of Be Here Now and Still Here 'By being spiritual, Samuel Lewis expanded the range of being human; and by being human he deepened the meaning of being spiritual.' Hazrat Pir Moineddin Jablonski (1942-2001) , Sufi Ruhaniat International, Khalif of Murshid Samuel Lewis and author of The Gift of Life 'The Dances of Universal Peace... came to stay, and so does the indelible memory of their pioneer, veteran in the art of carrying the experience of the meditation on the Divine Attributes right into the body.'Hazrat Pir Vilayat Khan (1916-2004), Sufi Order International, author of Toward the One