Sixty Four Recorded Talks of Murshid Samuel Lewis

 This is a collection of talks and lectures given by Murshid Samuel Lewis between 1966 and 1971. A written "index" accompanies each of these recordings which attempts to capture some of the main topics covered. A PDF version of this index is also available.  To listen to a talk, click the "Audio" link beside it.  Many browsers will automatically play the "mp3" file.  Right/option click and choose "Save As" to download the audio file for listening later or offline.  The "Topics" link next to each talk will take you down this page to the "index" for the talk.  Contributions for further and richer indexing of these recordings are most welcome. 

Notes:
—The time locations may vary slightly depending on the audio player.
—HIK in the text means: Hazrat Inayat Khan.

Recordings

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Actual Teachings of the Historical Buddha

Murshid reads from James Eugene Wagner’s writings and teaches about Hinayana Buddhism.

0:00—Murshid reads Wagner.

1:44—Martin Luther King/Mahatma Gandhi’s deaths.

2:20—Continues reading.

2:44—James Eugene Wagner—My spiritual nephew.

2:57—Reads Hinayana text.

4:09—Anti-Jewish movement.

5:09—“We are all out to correct somebody else and as long as we are out to correct somebody else, you are going to have more Martin Luther Kings murdered-assassinated.”

6:45—Buddha’s practices: commentary.

8:24—Lord Buddha’s practice.

11:45—Resumes reading.

14:00—Meeting with Buddhists regarding Lord Buddha’s teaching.

19:30—Lord Buddha’s yoga practice: first three breaths—Love, Joy, Peace (for yourself).

20:50—Then, Serenity breath (for your surroundings).

23:25—“Buddha means the enlightened one, and the difference between Hinayana and Mahayana is this: between the one who can enlighten himself and the one who can enlighten others. When you are at peace, you enlighten yourself. When you have serenity, you enlighten others. Is that clear?”

24:20—Timothy Leary.

25:00—“I have been authorized by masters to see the Dharma is kept pure. I am as opposed to defamation of one religion or as another. And people defame religions until they become popular and they don’t realize what they are doing.”

25:58—“I happen to be on the path at the time being, not of the Buddha himself but of the Bodhisattva Fudo, whose mission I am following which is to keep the Dharma pure, to correct those who defame it consciously or unconsciously. I have earned my stick by that method.”

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Akasha

Murshid comments on the reading of HIK: The Soul Whence and Whither: HIK works, page 327. Along the way, he touches on philosophy, health, Zen practice and several teachers.

0:00—Chanting Allah Hu.

1:07—Commentary on Zikr of different schools of Sufism.

2:05—Commentary on Whirling Dervishes.

3:03—Akasha/space.

4:42—Reads from his notes referring to HIK: The Soul Whence and Wither: Manifestation: HIK works, page 327.

6:50—Murshid speaks about devitalized carbohydrates, white sugar, white starch, white rice.

7:35—About consuming mineral salt.

7:57—Reads and comments HIK: the Soul Whence and Whither: refer HIK works, page 327.

11:43—Ryazat: Mirror mirror on the wall, I’m the fairest one of all.

13:27—Comment on destructive philosophy of Hegel.

13:52—On Thoreau.

14:41—On Maharishi.

15:27—Comments on error of “sitting like statues” practice of San Francisco Zen Center.

16:16—Dr. Chaudhuri: Meditation is drinking in the universe, not getting rid of it.

16:32—“And you begin to realize that Emptiness is not Emptiness, and when you get rid of your own ego-thoughts, you can take in anything, but you don’t become idiots. You become sages.”

17:27—The things we could do before we had “freedom” (commentary on free speech suppression).

19:21—Questions and answers: on indifference/ adjust—Give up one set of discomforts for another.

20:47—Emotional involvement.

22:43—Resumes reading and commenting.

33:47—On Krishnamurti.

35:15—Papa Ramdas.

36:30—Talks about Janet (great soul) and Master To Lun.

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American Buddhist “Free for All,” Part 1

Murshid Sam invited Reverend Neville Warwick to join him in an open discussion at the Church of Mans to speak on Buddhist Dharma. Murshid Sam encouraged the audience to ask questions and engage in conversation, even debate. 

0:00—Preamble.

0:30—Recounts day’s events.

4:17—“What this country fears is not a wicked enemy but truth. We can handle a wicked enemy, we can’t handle truth…. You know who they are afraid of: Gandhi!...the people who control this country are afraid of truth and they are afraid that the generation is going to rise that will be able to tell when another person is telling the truth or not and that scares them more than anything else. And it is beginning to happen.”

7:15—“I’m going to tell you something that you never read, and this is why Allan Watts is my enemy. The word ‘I’ does not appear in the Old Testament except when it refers to God! He (Watts) never forgave me for telling him that because he wanted to inform the public. And we get up and we have a religion and a religion and a religion and Christianity says ‘I believe’ with the (..?..) I walk in and Descartes said ‘I think therefore I am.’ When did the first ‘I’ get in there? Who brought it in, where did it come from? And this is why we don’t understand reincarnation, at least I’m giving you my point of view.”

8:20—“Is this universe a place where a certain fixed entities come and go, come and go, come and go? Or is it a universe where there are billions of seats and where we are promoted from one to another in order until you get to the highest seat? Or are these two things the same? In other words, before we speak for or against reincarnation, you have to take into consideration not the Hindu ‘What am I?’ But where did this idea of ‘I’ come in? The Hindu says ‘What am I?’ He’s already assuming that ‘I’ just like Descartes assumed the ‘I.’ He’s assuming the thing that is being discussed. That’s why even so great a soul as Ramana Maharshi did not produce great souls. And even some terrible Buddhist Zen masters have as successors great souls.”

10:24—Questions and answers.

13:50—Jesus as reincarnation of the Joshua.

14:49—Dr. Warwick speaks.

17:20—Warwick.

20:45—Warwick.

21:40—Jataka tales.

23:05—”Now these stories (Jataka), if you forget the reincarnation element in them, are an excellent means of moral training for children. When I found, and that’s one reason that I have not been much interested in Buddhism, that practically no Buddhist chuch taught them, that practically none of them had a oral training that was of any value. And these stories for me, are the most marvelous values that can be, and if they were taught to children, you wouldn’t have any worry about crime or vice or evil or anything of the kind. At least, this is my point of view.”

26:17—Laws of Karma same as laws of physical and super-physical.

33:23—Warwick on soul (refers HIK).

35:44—Murshid leads meditation.

38:29—Murshid addresses audience and states purpose of convocation.

39:30—Spontaneity, prajna (immediate cognition), love, and compassion.

39:50—“Better to assume there is no ego than there is an ego—not that there isn’t an ego, not that there is no soul but by assuming there is no soul we come together. And assuming there is a soul, you stay apart…. There is nothing to stop every religion from doing the same thing or even all religions from doing it. And it is not a metaphysical argument against an ego-soul. It is a temporary pragmatic ethical argument, that if you put up a barriers between yourself and somebody else, why hold on to that? And if it takes away the barriers from somebody else, isn’t it wonderful? If we would hold on to an ego soul and love each other and counteract with somebody and not think at all of leadership or differences, then the argument would be sustained.”

41:22—“Lord Buddha was not interested in reincarnation, he was interested in deliverance, in moksha, in raising us above suffering. And he gave certain theories, not that they were metaphysically necessarily correct, but so they could bring us into this universe of love and joy and ultimately peace. And if anybody says that Christ didn’t teach the same thing, well they are crazy. He taught exactly the same thing!”

42:00—Comment on Christian church.

43:40—Lord Buddha’s disciples and diversity in Dharma teachings.

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American Buddhist “Free for All,” Part 2

The “Free for All” continues.

0:00—Murshid discusses Buddhist chanting.

1:17—Discusses Nichirin Buddhism.

3:42—“The Western people are people who get up in church and say ‘I believe in perfect faith’ and lie to themselves two minutes later. They don’t believe it, but they think if they say these words, they do. These words are no value. We are damned by our words, we are not by out theoretical sins. For every idle word, ‘ye shall suffer on the Day of Judgment,’ not for thinking that some act of yours is a sin, because you think so or don’t think so. You already spoke, you already acted. Word is an objective thing for which you’ve got to pay a penalty.”

4:28—Universal radioactivity (physics and metaphysics), reincarnation, constant transformation.

10:33—“My own logic is that to understand scriptures, we have to have an overall view, not an analytical view, picking out certain passages, but we have to have a consciousness to take in the whole thing, and be an overall consciousness … and not come to a conclusion which would nullify some other passage. Another thing is, what other words in the Hebrew and Greek that got translated into English soul and have exactly the same meaning? As I said before, the word “I” does not appear in the Hebrew Old Testament. The concept of the individual ego does not seem to have occurred until after the early Christians began preaching to the Greeks. Even St. Paul has been criticized from a purely grammatical point of view and that although he was speaking in Greek, he was thinking in Hebrew.”

11:35—Long dialectic argument “free-for-all” between Murshid Sam and audience member (note: Murshid comments on this exchange in a latter class on claiming “illumination” and claiming “superiority.”)

22:27—Rev. Warwick talks with same audience member.

26:17—Murshid speaks up!

28:46—Warwick.

30:28—Murshid.

32:05—Warwick on “soul.”

33:52—Fr. Blighton engages.

35:59—Warwick on mantra.

36:55—Murshid on guru transmission of mantra.

41:45—“… the Bodhisattvic experience, the ability to empathize with the pain and suffering of others as if they were your pain. Now my disciples who are in this room know that I share their pains and they share my joys. This is my teaching: to share their pains and they share my joys.”

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Bayat Ceremony, Part 1

This evening concludes with Bayat of several mureeds. Murshid reads and comments on HIK: The Path of Initiation and Discipleship, Chapters 1 & 2.

0:00—Pre-lesson.

0:32—Invocation.

0:42—Sobriety and ecstasy, two states of mystics.

1:02—Long commentary regarding Zen and Sufi writers.

2:12—Joe Miller.

4:02—Zen teachers, commentary.

4:47—Master To Lun.

5:51—Rev. Neville Warwick.

10:41—Either love or not love.

11:52—“When you have life, you have love. When you have love, you have life.”

12:32—Reads from The Path of Initiation, chapter 1.

13:32—Mohammed, code of ethics.

14:22—Reads 9^th initiation—Akhlak Allah.

16:22—The majority of Sufis belong to the laborer’s class.

19:44—Discusses the previous evening’s “free-for-all” with attendee—Claiming illumination and “claiming superiority.”

22:12—Continues reading.

23:32—Sobriety and ecstasy.

24:02—Madzubs.

24:37—Murshid Sam’s spiritual journey: Lahore.

26:17—“But then something un … well, impossible happened. Oddly impossible … the madzubs came to me. Imagine, an American. They came to this person, and that’s the greatest blessing you can tell. And I knew what it meant … because I was sent back here to bring you the spiritual teachings to the increase of capacity and experience in love, joy and peace, and this is the basis of wisdom, not content.”

27:06—“If you understand me perfectly and don’t understand yourself, you’ll flunk the course; and if you understand yourselves and don’t understand me, you graduate. What do you think of that for a philosophy!”

28:32—Ritual and vision: comments.

30:02—Warwick: Ritual of healing

.

33:52—“Now there are some things that the teacher does not do. He does not try to change a point of view in politics, economics, generally philosophy, not always. He doesn’t try to change it very much in religion, He doesn’t try to change his point of view in art, and in a lot of things like that. In fact, he may encourage different people who have different points of view so they can expand them. And so, if you look for the teacher’s individual point of view, you may not find it. Or you say: he’s terribly inconsistent.”

36:46—Paul Reps: Meta-language.

42:42—“What is the secret on the part of the Oriental philosophy and the Far East? Your actions and your words are identified. You don’t say one thing and do something else.”

43:49—“For every idle word, you shall suffer on the Day of Judgment.”

45:32—Murshid Sam’s spiritual journey: Egypt.

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Bayat Ceremony, Part 2

Murshid continues with teachings on Bayat. With the break, non-mureeds are dismissed. Murshid then offers Bayat to several mureeds.

0:00—“I don’t know, when I come back to it, whether I met a single sanctimonious spiritual teacher in any culture.”

1:50—Reads from Rumi the Persian by A. Resa Arasteh:  Rebirth of Love and Creativity, an Analysis of Rumi, Chapter: A Quest for Final Integration.

3:55—Questions and answers.

11:06—Break and class for mureeds begins.

11:33—Invocation and naming of Jayanara.

13:35—Ten Sufi Thoughts and Three Sufi Purposes, read by mureeds.

16:35—Bayat of several mureeds.

25:45—Addresses mureeds.

33:33—Saum.

35:15—Questions and answers.

37:38—Salat.

39:21—Talks to mureeds about “walks,” psychic sciences, and backbone.

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Biography of Hazrat Inayat Khan, Part 1

Murshid reads and comments from HIK: Religious Gatheka 17, Edwin Arnold’s Pearls of the Faith, and the biography of Hazrat Inayat Khan.

0:00—Pre-lesson.

2:19—Wazifa practice with Murshid.

6:50—Two forbidden things: empty stomachs and cold feet.

7:30—“We try to limit the prohibitions and inhibitions here to a minimum. If there is something wrong with you, it is corrected through the breath, or sometimes through meditation, and not through sermons.”

9:14—“The church I am going to organize, there will be no heretics. Nobody can be guilty of heresy, and unfortunately, this is always said verbally and part of the way of doing things. How can anybody be kicked out of a communion who breathes. Breathing is the divine communion. You realize that? As long as we breathe, we’re taking in God.”

11:00—Paul Reps’ idea for a school.

11:40—Sri Aurobindo.

13:19—Huston Smith.

15:28—Reads and comments from biography of Hazrat Inayat Khan.

20:46—Murshid Sam’s Spiritual journey: India—Monkey and cat method.

24:44—Sufis in Egypt.

26:24—Murshid Sam’s spiritual journey: his history of meeting the Theosophists, Rabia Martin, and Kabbalah studies.

30:05—Sri Aurobindo’s predictions.

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Biography of Hazrat Inayat Khan, Part 2

Murshid continues reading the biography of Hazrat Inayat Khan and Religious Gatheka 17, teaches “Ya Shaffee/Ya Khaffee,” and talks about the linguistics of Zikr.

0:00—Continues reading and commenting on biography of Hazrat Inayat Khan.

0:28—Ruth St. Denis, the essence of spiritual dancing.

4:25—Sufi music from India: highest I’ve heard from a spiritual point of view.

5:25—Criticizes various points of the biography text, explains connection to chain of Sufis and spiritual hierarchy, rising above distinctions and differences.

11:00—Murshid Sam’s spiritual journey: India, Rihani Kurachi (sp?).

14:24—Reads Religious Gatheka 17.

14:48—“Divine Truth does not belong to any organization. If I organize here, it will be organized under the title of “Islamia Ruhaniat Society.” That is the complete teachings of spiritual sciences which lead to realization of peace. And as I’m working with my colleagues in other faiths, this will demonstrate this. And we are not going to be called Sufis to distinguish us from somebody else. This point, I differ from the several organizations which have disciples who think they are Sufis, a term which they would … which horrified people in the Orient or in North Africa—Absolutely horrified them.”

17:27—Complaint about Western Orientalists.

20:00—Questions and answers

22:38—God’s laws.

23:28—Grace.

26:37—Murshid teaching his mureeds—Ya Shaffee Ya Khaffee.

27:46—Teaching chanting—Zikr: La El La Ha El Il Al Lah.

29:00—His realization in linguistics class.

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Biography of Hazrat Inayat Khan, Part 3

Murshid continues with his Zikr teaching and Zikr linguistics lesson. He also reads and comments on HIK: Mysticism of Sound VIII: Abstract Sound.

0:00—Zikr teaching-linguistics.

3:53—Zikr movements demonstration.

4:27—Hazrat Inayat Khan’s Zikr.

5:00—Murshid Sam’s spiritual journey.

6:49—Reads Mysticism of Sound VIII: Abstract Sound.

8:13—Spiritual sound practice.

9:37—Nada Brahma.

10:35—Saum.

12:00—Salat.

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Christmas Party ’67, Part 1

Party atmosphere with Murshid. He entertains the children with a broom, folk dances and Nasrudin stories. He reads his poem: “What Christ, What Peace?”

0:00—Party atmosphere.

0:50—Sam and broom entertain children.

5:25—Murshid demonstrates folk dances.

7:10—Tells Nasrudin stories.

12: 45—Reads “What Christ, What Peace?” (1942, revised slightly 1951).

15:26—“You’ll see that it is quite possible for man to see into infinity, quite possible for man to see into eternity, and those of you who are my pupils, have learned that I do not teach what I have not experienced.”

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Christmas Party ’67, Part 2

Christmas festivity continues. Murshid concludes recitation of “What Christ, What Peace?” He offers blessings to mureeds and children, and then teaches about his initiations as a teacher.

0:00—Continues reading “What Christ, What Peace.”

13:48—Offers individual blessings.

18:30—Invocation.

18:40—Individual blessing of children.

20:00—Being sought by madzubs.

21:30—On being sent back to this country to teach.

24:00—Sokei-an Sasaki (gift of vision).

25:45—Meditation.

27:20—Lama Govinda.

29:10—I do not get credit for any good deeds, my teachers do.

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Class on Perception

Murshid reads HIK Volume 11, Philosophy, Psychology, Mysticism & The Soul, Whence and Whither. His commentary and teachings offer a wide field of topics.

There is an intermittent hum with some warbling on the recording.

0:00—Murshid reads.

2:53—“Perception is the sign of the wise, and quotation is the sign of the ignorant.”

3:24—Martin Luther and nufs.

3:49—“When you can overcome lust, greed and anger, then you are very strong, and then they become your servants. When you see them outside, so people are always against the devil, they are always against Iblis, they are even against nufs, that’s the insidiousness of the lower nature of man. It verbalizes instead of actualizes, and it makes realities out of words and it goes to war with them and does nothing else.”

7:11—“For this reason, I refuse to accept the Soto Zen teachings, which omit the other two completely (philosophy and psychology). They go directly into mysticism without (?). When I was in Gakuji Rinzai temple, they wouldn’t let most people go in there unless they had a complete background, then they go into the mysticism. Nothing elementary.”

8:37—“Now all of you who are my disciples, I am presenting this for you to do. Make a record of your impressions, your prayers, your desires, your wishes and see when they come about, and how they come about. After a while when you have intuitive character, you will see a directness into nature without the words (“man seeing direct into nature”?)—You’ll have impressions and you will know what to do. Now when this happens, you live in a world of self-understanding and then other people-understanding. When you have that understanding, you will progress because you will develop your own self confidence. We all have this power to be impressed, power to feel, and to have this sort of selfless knowledge. Now some may have it already, and when you have it, you should be encouraged, it should be cultivated. It is better to teach you or to show you how you can see and now you can think, because a good deal of what we call thinking, is an obstacle to understanding.”

10:27—Slum clearance.

14:50—Psychic cleansing from illness.

18:58—Gratefulness for secretaries.

21:00—Murshid Sam’s travels in Egypt: gold.

23:10—Phra Sumangalo.

25:18—Sufi Invocation—Concentration.

29:00—“The hippie problem.”

30:44—“When you have love of man without love of God, you have what we call, roughly speaking, humanism. When you have love of God without love of man, then you have piety.”

32:50—Challenge by Meher Baba disciple.

35:00—Tranquility in storms.

35:35—Forest fire teaching: Listen to God.

39:35—“I killed Nyogen Senzaki.”

40:44—HIK’s tomb.

41:45—“Spiritualism is a limitation, dealing with the finite.”

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Consciousness and Breath

Murshid offers teachings on symbology and breath, “breath is the first lesson,” and guides breath, healing breath, and Fikr practices.

0:00—Pre-lesson: Symbology.

2:00—“When anything wrong happens to you, it’s the teacher’s fault.”

2:09—Discipline.

 2:15—Mr. No Heart.

8:17—“I have no clairvoyance until someone is in opposition, then immediately, I get it.”

8:20—Auras.

9:45—Nancy Fish, goddaughter.

15:45—Invocation.

15:55—Breath is the first lesson.

16:52—Breath practice.

17:25—Comments.

19:32—Breath practice continues.

20:55—Healing breath (Shaffee, Khaffee).

21:54—Comments.

23:00—Fikr breath.

23:56—Questions and answers.

24:39—On retention, don’t use glottal stop.

27:30—Symbology & concentration.

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Correction by Breath

Murshid Sam reads from undetermined text.

0:00—Communicating on seven planes.

1:00—Murshid Sam’s spiritual journey: Japan.

3:08—Miracles.

3:28—“My master told me if you cannot bring a disciple to enlightenment by 5 minute Zen, you are not worth becoming my disciple…. The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

4:40—Tells “a very dirty story.”

6:13—Nyogen Senzaki: too much Manjushree not enough Samantabhadra.

7:14—Murshid Sam’s spiritual journey: Pakistan.

12:35—Tale of Sufi Master Hassan.

15:30—Resumes reading.

20:50—“In our work here, we do not have dualistic corrections. The teacher corrects the disciples through breath practices, not through admonitions. When they are not correct, the breath is not correct. So it is done by adjusting the breathing. This is done in two ways: collective and individual.”

23:00—Recess.

24:30—Disciples chant: Subhan Allah, Alhamdulillah, Allah Ho Akbar.

26:35—Fikr: Ya Shaffee (in) / Ya Khaffee (out).

28:45—Fikr: Ishk Allah (in) / Mahbood Lillah (out).

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Dharma Night, Part 1: “Pre-Walking” Lesson

A short recording before his class begins (Murshid Sam began calling these “pre-lessons” at Moineddin’s suggestion), Murshid tells about some of his spiritual journey

1:00—Commentary on Sufi Invocation.

1:30—Nyogen Senzaki.

2:22—Murshid Sam’s spiritual journey: Lahore.

4:00—Murshid Sam’s spiritual journey: Khalandar.

4:42—Murshid Sam’s spiritual journey: HIK Dargah.

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Dharma Night, Part 2: “Pre-Walking” Lesson

Murshid reads and teaches from his “Ten Lessons on the Walks.”

0:00—Pre-lesson.

0:42—Murshid’s life.

3:00—Lesson on “pre-walks” exercises.

3:54—Backbone with breath.

6:57—Concentrating standing up.

9:45—Concentrating on straight lines.

10:33—Two types of straight lines: up and down.

11:31—Identifying with straight lines.

13:50—Questions and answers.

14:15—Concentration on incense stick.

15:25—Life up the spine.

15:45—“Complications may be wonderful to some people but what do they mean..? Is it real?”

16:35—Force up the spine and down the arms.

17:10—Murshid Sam story: Tree removal.

18:48—Breath exercise up and around.

20:00—Questions and answers.

21:10—Actualizing: identifying actions with your life.

21:45—Air breath practice.

25:20—One rule about walking: thou shalt not get tired.

26:41—Lifting from bow.

29:00—Invocation.

29:07—Reads Murshid Sam’s “Ten Lessons on the Walk 1.”

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Dharma Night, Part 3: “Pre-Walking” Lesson

Continuing with reading his “Ten Lessons on the Walks,” Murshid follows with comments on various subjects.

0:00—Continues reading.

1:30—Ryazat: Magnetism through the feet.

4:45—Linguistics: Hajj (pilgrimage).

8:08—Commentary on Tai Chi.

10:56—Paul Reps.

13:49—Aesthetics: Frank Lloyd Wright.

15:15—Emily from Mill Valley.

15:59—Comments on art.

19:30—Contemporary music.

22:00—Murshid Sam’s social dancing.

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Dharma Night, Part 4: Lord Buddha’s Practices

The evening continues with Buddhist meditation and readings from Ramdas.

0:00—Om Sri Ram chant.

2:07—Reads Ramdas.

4:09—Mother Krishnabai.

8:25—Lord Buddha’s practice.

12:06—Zen stick.

12:50—Lord Buddha’s Jhanas (meditations).

19:40—Questions and Answers.

20:30—Nyogen Senzaki.

21:13—“Religion is the means of organization to nullify the teachings of the man they claim to be worshipping.”

23:00—Murshid Sam’s spiritual journey.

25:00—“More power comes from two things: love and peace. These are the two things that give you power. Don’t think that anything else gives you power. They don’t! They give you a loan which looks like power which you have to pay back to the bank of life.”

25:33—Dr. Ravi Krishna.

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Dharma Night Part 5: Rasa Shastra-Celibacy

The evening continues as Murshid reads and comments from HIK volume XIV: Rasa Shastra: Life’s Creative Forces, Celibacy.

0:00—Music, modern, play in three speeds.

3:00—Rasa Shastra reading.

4:53—Lord Byron.

5:48—Celibacy.

11:54—Fasting.

20:34—Abstinence.

21:30—Sufi student story/seclusion.

25:00—Mirabai.

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Dharma Night Part 6: Rasa Shastra cont. & Q&A

The evening draws to a close, with a question and answer period.

6:15—Phra Sumangalo.

7:50—Whitman, Walt-quote.

8:50—Past lives.

12:40—Khan, Ali Akbar.

15:15—Paul Reps.

23:40—Zen Flesh Zen Bones exercises.

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Dot and Circle Concentration

Murshid offers a class on breath and concentration. He teaches Lord Buddha’s breath practice with the class concentrating on Murshid’s eyes.

0:00—Talks with mureeds.

0:40—Invocation.

1:13—Lord Buddha’s breath exercise (while watching Murshid Sam’s eyes).

4:22—Dot and circle concentration.

9:10—Mentions breath healing for a student with mental problem.

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God is the Only Teacher

Murshid reads HIK: Love, Human and Divine, 1—Philosophy, and HIK: Mysticism of Sound: The Silent Life (ether), (HIK works, page 458).

0:00—Pre-lesson: Murshid talks about his schedule.

5:14—Reads: HIK: Love Human and Divine: 1—Philosophy.

6:50—“If we could only realize God is the only teacher, that when we open ourselves, He speaks to us.”

7:30—Story about Russian love poetess.

8:34—Story: Murshid the trickster and Nijinsky.

11:53—Story: anti-communist Murshid at a party in Asia.

15:50—Mureed’s class starts.

16:00—Backbone exercise meditation: become aware of your backbone … practice this at home before a mirror, breathe in like it is going up.

17:49—Class stands and forms two semi-circles in the room.

18:34—Saum.

20:24—Reads and comments on HIK: Mysticism of Sound: The Silent Life (ether), HIK works, page 458.

24:48—Leads Ether breath using Ya Salaam Fikr.

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Jhanas, Part 1

In a Dharma Class at The Church of Mans, Murshid touches on a number of subjects: Jhanas (meditations), the Mind of Christ, and offers Lord Buddha’s breath practice.

Audio is recorded at a distance with hiss noise and room reverberation.

0:00—Tremendous difference between Christianity and Christ & Buddhism and Buddha.

4:45—What must “I” do to be saved? Error in Christian practice “I.”

6:50—Scribes and Pharisees.

7:30—Reads from latest publication from World Buddhist Federation with commentary.

10:50—Teachings on Jhanas.

12:20—The Mind of Christ.

13:00—Nyogen Senzaki on closing of Zen center in San Francisco.

14:18—“What happens? The difference is this. You realize when Christ said “I am the vine and ye are the branches there of,” that is when this happens, this is the Hridaya. And when you get into that state of the beating heart … the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, the body is the temple where you can recognize your light.”

19:40—Breath and health.

20:50—Breath practice—Lord Buddha’s Yoga.

25:09—Questions and answers.

26:38—“Everything is within us in one sense or another, when you get into this Mind of Christ, when you get into this state of the deep meditation.”

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Jhanas, Part 2

Dharma Class at The Church of Mans continues with Q&A, comments on Zen, Christianity and ego.

Audio is recorded at a distance with hiss noise and room reverberation, then the sound improves somewhat.

0:00—Questions and answers continue—Murshid speaks freely about moving out of symbology into realization, about living experience, not symbols.

3:00—Grace.

3:20—Spiritual transmission: letting go of ego and the teacher.

5:00—Sam comments about using Zen authority with pupil.

5:44—On Kundalini energy.

6:50—“Now, in the Buddha Hrdiya state, is to transform love, and compassion and even mercy to all people, and this is effective. And this is called, when it is effective, Dharma Transmission—not intellectual gospels, not philosophy, not speculation, nothing that separates anybody from anybody else. Just as the Bible says the rain shall fall on the just and the unjust, so we all breathe that same kind of air, we go through the same kind of weather,”

9:00—On Christian symbology—Fish and cross.

12:25—Questions and answers.

12:30—Father Blighton—Repentance.

14:35—On Mind and ego.

15:50—Thinking and individuality.

16:20—A deeper mind within the mind.

16:40—Thinking is increased when you get rid of ego.

18:00—Father Blighton.

19:05—Limitations.

19:35—“The object is to get the Mind of Christ, and then we find that the mind can grow and grow and grow and grow, but if we have to keep our own mind, we’ll depend only upon our own instincts, our own experience, our own common sense and we won’t get to the super-sense, which is right there in front of us all the time, when we let go.”

20:10—Father Blighton.

22:00—Sam and Alan Ginsberg.

24:40—“We all can learn life from all kinds of things, we are all restricted by that damnable word: freedom.” Murshid Sam continues to expound on “freedom.”

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Life and Love and Eternal Laughter, Part 1

Murshid Sam reads Ramdas stories.

Audio has an intermittent slight hum.

0:00—Om Sri Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai Ram.

2:20—Swami Ramdas.

2:48—A real master can scrub dishes and wash floors.

3:15—Meher Baba’s disciple.

4:15—Ramdas—Read from Equal Vision.

8:34—Lord Buddha’s yoga.

16:15—Buddha.

17:48—“If you didn’t believe in angels, you were damned; but if—You believed because you had an experience with them, you were doubly-damned.”

18:43—“When the pupil fails, the teacher’s at fault … and there’s no nonsense about that.”

19:00—“You don’t tell the pupil what you don’t do. You go and give them the chance to go with you.”

20:00—Eugene O’Neill—Lazarus Laughs.

21:00—Life and Love and Eternal Laughter.

23:12—Nyogen Senzaki—Seven forms of laughter.

23:40—Nyogen Senzaki—given Eighth form of laughter by Murshid Sam.

25:05—Vietnamese, story about meeting a real…

27:00—Vietnamese abbot.

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Life and Love and Eternal Laughter, Part 2

Murshid teaches HIK: Rasa Shastra, chapter 8, The Awakening of Youth and chapter 9, Courtship.

0:00—Rasa Shastra.

2:00—Marriage-commentary.

3:12—Maharishi.

3:27—“I don’t charge $35 or even 35 cents for my super penta-cosmic yoga.”

4:45—Aura.

6:15—Rasa Shastra, chapter 8, The Awakening of Youth Chapter 9, Courtship.

8:20—Business in love.

8:57—Continues reading.

14:50—Questions and answers.

16:40—Krishna visualization and auditory meditation.

22:15—Murshid Sam spiritual journey.

23:20—“Each religion has its own ideals, its own teachings, its own way of expressing and all of them are right in my book. There is no such thing as a wrong religion.”

25:35—“Show which person here whom God didn’t send to be my spiritual teacher.”

27:50—Reads Zen literature: A smile in his lifetime, talks on Zen.

31:18—Murshid Sam’s spiritual journey: Zen in Japan.

34:00—Murshid Sam’s spiritual journey: in Egypt.

35:41—Resumes reading.

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Look Into Your Own Nature, Part 1

Murshid reads Ramdas stories and offers Lord Buddha’s Yoga meditation.

0:00—Questions and answers.

00:14—Question: have you any answers? Answer: “I have all the answers. I always have. You don’t know me very well. My IQ is 50.1, and I know very few questions, but I know all the answers. I wouldn’t dare say that unless I knew that, exact opposite of what generally takes place.”

1:10—Tranquilizing the mind.

2:15—Lord Buddha’s meditation and teaching.

12:10—Ramnam chant.

15:17—Pronouncement/ announcement.

17:09—“The chant I just gave you is practiced in India by Ramdas, whose stories I’m going to read now. Ramdas didn’t do exactly what I do—Give you love, joy, peace. He starts peace, joy, love, and if you want to make a difference of them why you can do so—I don’t know any religion that doesn’t teach them but the only objection I have is which religion says it is the only one that teaches them. Islam always starts off: God is compassion and mercy. Forget it! I don’t you see, so I’m not a good Muslim. I like the compassion and mercy. And I have two lessons to the Christians which I can get throw out. The Bible definitely says one place that God is love and another place God is breath. And I think that’s the lesson you just had, isn’t it—Didn’t I give you a lesson on breath and didn’t I give you a lesson on love, huh? Exactly, that’s all religion is and that’s everything. I’m a little afraid we like some kind of theology, some kind of metaphysics. Ah, and I think that’s right, I do too, so I’m not going to object, but I never get fooled that that’s going to bring me enlightenment. Nevertheless, you have to say something afterwards, so you say those things, why not? “

20:00—Reads Ramdas story: Imitation is not the way.

22:56—Reads: Give up pride to attain God.

27:50—“… difference between Hinayana and Mahayana…. In Mahayana, the doctrine is in the heart. That is all. That is all—the doctrine is in the heart. This is going to put a lot of professors out of business.”

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Look Into Your Own Nature, Part 2

Murshid gives Hazrat Inayat Khan’s teaching on the five different planes of love. He also speaks about human relationships. In conclusion, he speaks about his relationship with Alan Ginsberg, and in particular, reads what Murshid communicated to him.

0:00—Love in 5 different planes (HIK’s teachings): animal, human, genius, angel, and Divine.

2:20—“I’ve tried to point out, I’m not telling any of you not to indulge, but to only respect the other person with whom you have relations. And if you can’t be as respectable as your mate, as the fox, or the eagle or maybe even the crow, then you have something to learn.”

5:15—“Because, the indulging in the life of a genius doesn’t mean the abandonment of the body but it takes on a totally different significance. It doesn’t become the aim. It becomes part of a game.”

6:05—“Now we come into another area, the angelic love. And there, people love because they love, or if you want to add, they love because they love because they love. And you either love or you don’t love or you have quantities of love … but that’s all there is. Nothing but that. Nothing else but that. That’s the higher heaven where … that’s the devalokka. It’s made up of love, but it’s hard to explain what this is because you make an explanation, that’s an explanation that’s something intellectual.”

7:04—“Divine love, there is no other self, there isn’t you and me and God, and there is you and me and God. Only which is which? That’s the Divine.”

7:25—“Now I’m not telling anybody to do or not to do. As I said before, the essence of Zen was to look into your own nature and understand yourself, and in giving this talk is to help you look into your own nature and understand yourselves. And when you understand yourselves, you establish your own codes. And as you may or not be of different ranges of evolution, you may not all have the same codes. I myself think that a lot of you are of the same range of evolution; and I myself think you have influences of the planet Neptune which cause you to act differently and yet understand each other—And you have one strong thing in your favor: you understand each other and your critics don’t understand each other and don’t understand you.”

8:36—Questions and answers.

11:33—“Now when I was younger, I was very staunch believer in right against wrong. Now I don’t know what is right and what is wrong. First place I sometimes tell you, I’m not “fuzz,” so I’m not sure what is right. But I will tell you what is right and wrong from another standpoint: when your eyes glow, it is right; and while they are dull, it is wrong. Now this gives you a chance to find out something. And I think there is a lot behind this: when your eyes glow it is right, and when they are dull, it is wrong. And you can find this out by yourself…. I’ve got two or three other ways of doing this too … the way that you can measure yourself … the plane of your activities according to you, not according to another person telling you something, understand? And if you feel dull, you’ve been wrong. If you feel joyous, you’ve done right. And if you are neither dull or joyous, the thing was neither right or wrong.”

16:06—“Every now and then I fall in love….”

16:26—Story about Murshid Sam and Alan Ginsberg.

17:33—What Murshid Sam read to Alan Ginsberg: “When the universe became out of Himself, there was nothing but He and Love, which if it be totally unconfined, remain so unrequited as to cease. So the eternal in His vast magnificence promulgated polarities of love earthly love enshrining them with a luminous enclosure, where they could dwell with utmost felicity, Yet joy cannot experience itself as joy unless there is some sort of contrasting state, nor can the lover enshrine the Beloved’s heart before knowing the discontent of separation. To appreciate to the full of bliss of union, so it was from the very beginning of life that the primal Adam and his consort Eve who symbolized reflections of completeness, and yet are the very emblems of discontent. Adam became aware of the divine mercy, differing in essence from the surrounding angels who are immersed in their perpetual praise that good and evil appear alike to them and confirmations cannot be distinguished. Yet mercy manifests in a multitude of garbs, the first of which is that supernal bliss which atmospheres the paradisial garden where Allah first sequestered man and woman offering them the wonders of vibrant love, there love and the love learn all its facets both on the outer forms and inner jubilations. Where through the timeless periods apple and cherry and almond don their blossoms so some are always in budding or in bloom. And all the other trees followed this program. Nor is even an instant when some flower does not perfumize and color surrounding space. Where the turtle’s voice is ever present and all those entities which later appear in nature feast eye and senses as well as the pulsating heart. Where self-being persists in continual ecstasy without the hazards of monotony or dullness until some purpose calls it from that place.”

20:00—Ramnam chant.

22:16—Ramdas appeared in vision.

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Meeting Time with Murshid

This is a recording of an organizational meeting with mureeds over dinner. Naturally, spiritual teachings are intertwined. Murshid emphatically comments on the use of “backbone” in Walks and Dances.

0:00—Contributions toward secretarial compensation?

3:50—Discusses finances.

5:00—Sufi delight (one dish on the menu).

6:00—Meal time.

6:30—Scheduling teachings.

7:20—Discusses teaching Walks/Dances.

9:00—“And yet, as I’ve mentioned before, they’ve got to use the backbone. Almost anyone coming to me and asking me to teach them spiritual dancing that hasn’t been disciplined in backbone, is out of the question. Absolutely out of the question. But those of you who are dancing as a career, if there is slightly wrong with the backbone, I will give you the lessons in how to get it proper.”

10:58—“God has given me a very definite mission.”

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Mercy and Compassion and Fudo, Part 1

Murshid teaches the Message Volume 1: The Soul Whence and Whither—The Two Forces. He also teaches from The Quest of the Overself by Paul Brunton.

0:00—Buddha has the words and the silence.

1:00—Chanting and meditation: Ar-Rahman, the Merciful.

3:30—Ar-Rahim, the Compassionate.

5:17—Al-Malik.

7:35—Al-Quddus.

9:15—Murshid speaks.

10:15—Worst disciple I’ve got.

10:50—Reads: The Soul Whence and Whither, The Two Forces.

11:35—Talks about rock in Fairfax.

13:54—“The difference between the mystic and the psychic is that the psychic has to go into a trance. The mystic does not. This is the essential difference. The mystic does not have to go into a trance, he stays awake, even more awake.”

15:58—Continues reading.

18:05—Nyogen Senzaki: took over and speaks through Murshid’s body.

18:24—“Because when you are free from your ego, you are free of your body. Your life is not affected by the body; the body which serves you can serve God, let’s speak. He did this twice that I know of … but I didn’t have that faculty of being able to interrupt people and always set them into confusion because they didn’t know what they were talking about.”

18:55—Diatribe on American Zen writers as fiction writers.

19:15—Ruth McCandless: relationship to Murshid Sam and Senzaki. “And when the Day of Judgment comes, she will be called up and have to answer what right did she have to make a pseudo-fame just by putting up money.”

20:17—“You see that stick up there. That’s a real stick, and I didn’t get it just because I have an ugly face.”

22:50—“Mercy and compassion doesn’t mean negative namby-pamby. I’m not Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.”

24:56—“You know this word nirvana means nothing but no limitation.”

25:43—Practice (demonstration) not theory, metaphysics, nor philosophy.

26:47—Recess.

27:00—Paul Brunton: The way of the eye, breath and heart.

27:33—”Quest of the Overself (Brunton) which I definitely recommend.”

30:50—“The general meditation I have here comes from Jesus Christ: I am the vine and ye are the branches thereof—one life penetrating all of us. The teacher must be aware of the life of everyone of his pupils, he’s not separate from them. He does not have a separate life. He is a separate form but not a separate life…. You see, we make all these divisions. Senzaki used to use this and used to use Abdul Baha’s words “People of the world, you are as the branches of the tree and leaves of the branch.” Used that in Zen meditation. He didn’t give you blankness, tell you our subject is to keep away from blankness, so you go meditate on how to keep away from blankness and see where you get. You don’t, but that’s what they do. He didn’t do anything like that. You don’t think at all, you slide out of thought. You get into the world of feeling, you get into the world of love.”

32:17—“With all respect to all of the yoga systems I know, I find Buddha’s yoga is the best I ever found: the shortest and quickest and most efficacious.”

32:30—“The difference between Sufism and Buddhism is that we do not practice celibacy. Buddha put the sangha for monks, we do not have monkhood. That’s the difference, we teach anybody.”

33:02—“Well you can’t come from lectures, you have to come from effort, from trial. I do not give too many silences. I’m urging people to go especially to To Lun for meditation, to Rev. Wagner here for Buddhist theories, and for transcendental Buddhism to Rev. Warwick…. We will have a school someday, I’m not going to teach their subjects, I’m going to teach my subjects. I am above Warwick and he is above me … in Sufism I am one grade above him and in Buddhism he is one grade above me and we don’t think anything about it.”

37:07—Buddha not opposed to sex, but to blindness/passion/excitement.

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Mercy and Compassion and Fudo, Part 2

Murshid reads undisclosed Sufi poetry, then ends one class and resumes with a class for disciples. He offers Buddha’s Yoga in a “Darshan” form, offers “dot and circle” concentration, and breath practice.

0:00—Murshid continues.

0:33—“… Difference, they take Mohammed as the last one of these great divine messengers. Now last in a certain sense. There’s always a representative of divinity on earth in some form always. Sometimes he’s known, most he isn’t known. If he told people, they wouldn’t believe him anyway so it doesn’t make any difference. They’d want a miracle from him. A miracle would be to change the political order my particular way.”

1:30—Reads Sufi poetry.

3:22—Sufi Invocation.

4:30—Schedule of teachings/questions and answers.

14:31—Class for disciples starts (others excused)—Sufi Invocation.

15:25—Buddha’s yoga (attuned to Murshid’s eyes).

19:20—Dot and Circle concentration.

21:50—Discusses difficult student earlier in the evening.

23:30—Swami Ramdas.

24:10—Warning; this (symbol) is a feeling concentration.

25:14—Breath practice: There is no God (out) / but God (in).

26:20—Ryazat: identify with the breath and look at the body.

27:18—Murshid Sam’s spiritual journey: Lahore.

28:10—Murshid Sam’s spiritual journey: Ahmadabad.

29:00—Sings Rimsky-Korsikov’s song of the Khalandar.

30:00—“I‘m going to talk and be damned, tonight I don’t care, because you see, there are no barriers; people make barriers where they don’t exist. And this line between this world and the next, the only way I’m going to take you into it—through the breath, build up your immortality. And the next thing, is God willing, you have communion with the saints without traveling…. That’s why I want to teach you, and show you how to get there, by these breathing practices, because love and joy and peace belong to immortality, they don’t belong to mortality.”

31:35—Khatum.

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Misrepresentation of Buddha’s Teachings, Part 1

In a Dharma Night class at The Church of Mans, Murshid speaks on the alteration of Lord Buddha’s teachings and on healing.

1:12—“Now, the first thing you learn from Buddhists is that Buddha taught that every doctrine that he taught was subject to review and rationale, and if you didn’t agree with it, you had a right to challenge him. And in all my nearly 50 years of studying Buddhism, only once has this ever occurred, and I myself was the one who did the challenging. Nobody seems (prepared?) to challenge anything! If a man got up, he is an authority. And so anything is taught as being Buddhism. And so with all good respects to any religion of Lord Buddha or any organization, how can a religion which teaches absolutely anything control the world? Second thing is, Lord Buddha spoke against the persistence of ego-substance. And 90% of the so-called Buddhists will argue there is no ego-substance and act like there is, and act more like there is than a Christian will.”

4:27—Reads Buddhist text (?) (Professor Von Plotz?) Subject: union with Brahma.

9:51—Buddha’s Yoga practice.

13:10—Father Paul (Earl) Blighton speaks on practice.

16:51—Murshid Sam: speaks on salvation and liberation.

24:22—Speaks on awakening of joy.

26:23—Beatitudes are based on the existence of joy in us.

27:00—Father Blighton speaks.

28:02—Murshid Sam defines “supernatural.”

29:52—“Comfort ye my people … and it is on this point that I find myself in total opposition to practically all evangelists. You don’t scare people into anything connected with God. You can scare them out of certain irrationality; you can scare them out of certain vices with no more or no less effort (…?) than you do certain treatments of the insane.”

31:07—Doctor Ru.

34:17—This is not a school of comparative theology.

35:00—The Beatitudes are realities.

36:40—“What cancer is: envy, jealousy, malice, ill-will, complicated of course a little by wrong dieting and lack of exercise.”

37:00—“Ramakrishna took upon himself … the suffering of the people all around him.”

37:55—“To get rid of cancer in humanity, I’m suggesting we practice some of the things I’m saying: joy to the world, the Lord is come.”

41:15—Jesus the Savior and Healer.

42:00—About his mother’s ill-will.

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Misrepresentation of Buddha’s Teachings, Part 2

Murshid continues teaching about the alteration of Lord Buddha’s teachings and on healing.

0:00—Murshid Sam continues speaking.

2:33—“When we have that peace, we have the freedom. The peace will bring the freedom. The freedom may not necessarily bring the peace.”

5:11—Questions and answers.

8:48—Lotus Sutra—brief commentary.

12:05—Devotional aspect and depth value of religion.

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Murakkabah, Part 1

Instruction is offered in Murakkabah and readings are offered from HIK: Gatha 1: Kashf Insight 1: Safa & Gatha 1:2: Tat Twam Asi.

0:00—Planning with mureeds.

6:00—Murakkabah instruction and practice.

21:00—Practice ends.

21:45—Gatha 1: Kashf Insight 1: Safa.

27:58—Paul Reps.

29:18—Gatha 1:2: Tat Twam Asi.

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Murakkabah, Part 2

The class continues.

0:00—Continues reading Gatha 1: 2: Tat Twam Asi.

5:11—Heart concentration practice and commentary.

8:15—Murshid Sam’s spiritual journey.

9:20—Volume 12: The Vision of God and Man, The Mystery of Telepathy—reading and commentary.

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Murakkabah, Part 3

Murshid continues.

0:00—The Mystery of Telepathy, continues reading and commentary.

3:30—Recess.

6:00—Resumes reading.

8:45—Concentration teaching.

13:58—Khatum.

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Murshid at Lama

Recorded at Lama Foundation in New Mexico, June 1970. Murshid talks about awe and devotion as spiritual obstacles.

The audio recording quality is muddy and distorted.

0:00—”Well, what can you do? Well, maybe I can do nothing, but it happens that I happen to have in my possession this passport. So, I came to this strange conclusion: that those people from whom he has gotten money deserve to have it taken from them…. And when the whole thing went over, I had people ship the money back, I earned the respect of the Maharishi and not the respect of the people I helped … the situation. He respected me because I was working for what I considered a moral standard, but those other people were not that type. Now, the result is that the Maharishi has, although I haven’t seen him, highest respect for me personally which I never asked from him, because I dealt with him dualistically on that plane. But then the question came up in the meeting at the University of California—What is transcendental meditation? The answer came—all meditation is transcendental. This is the answer, not, and the objection was from his point of view, not what the Maharishi was doing but anything but words. Now, the Maharishi was not doing any wrong in the world except in the implication of words, that you had a meditation that was transcendental … now this is an implication and it was never said this way. Now, we have in this world, I will give you the reverse side, an idea of awe, awesomeness toward a lot of people who have come from India. I am not going to speak about this for or against.”

2:00—Attitude in India towards Baghdadi Jews.

2:10—Attitude among the “outcastes, towards Christian missionaries … an awe to the strange, an awe to the unusual.”

2:30—“Certain types from India have used this awe to further their own selves, but it is also true that some from this side, other people have done the same thing going into other countries.”

3:20—The downgrading of Jesus Christ by this strange awesomeness to other things.

3:40—Murshid’s experience in Christian monasteries: The Franciscan Fathers and then the Benedictines.

4:10—“Because in going to Christian churches in India, I was so astounded by the wholesomeness and devotion of the people in those churches.”

4:45—Church in Bombay.

4:54—“We would not have had the Indian revival of learning which took place in the 19^th century, came as a reaction on the part of the Hindus when they found out that the Jesuits were going to give the Upanishads to the Western World. So they got out quick, and began translating everything.”

5:30—“We have that capacity for awe and reverence, but we have a tendency to also see it in the stranger and not into the one close at hand.”

5:45—Murshid’s interaction with a Jesuit in a conference in Switzerland—covering devotion with intelligence.

6:58—“All the reverence and awe we have towards certain types of Hindus does not give us more knowledge which is in the Upanishads, of going through the grades, of increased ananda in our own selves. Then I would be dualistically wrong if I did not … that’s one of the reason I am going into this music and dancing, to increase the ananda, not the awe of another person, towards another person, but the ananda in your own self. And when that comes out, you begin to find this God within, and you do it through an experience.”

7:33—Question about Murshid’s forthrightness.

8:50—About endless poverty in Calcutta and Karachi: “Feed my sheep, feed my lambs has stood out as such a contrast … I was never the same … I just went mad … this tremendous poverty, contrasted, not just poverty, but contrasted with the most obvious wealth and ostentation … there’s no Jesus Christ to denounce the money-changers.”

10:40—In a debate with a Hindu—Murshid saw this body as the temple of God and the Hindu saw only the highest body as the temple of God.

11:40—Another question about “feeding people.”

11:55—“When you plant a single seed, spiritually, you are feeding the whole of humanity…. When you put up the smallest place of devotion … you are building the most magnificent temple of God. When you do the smallest thing, you are doing the greatest thing. But when you build an “awe” around it, it lures (?) people or makes them intoxicated, you are not doing it.”

14:30—Murshid’s respect for the Catholic church.

15:20—Catholic Church’s sanctifying of saints and Sufi’s method of building up tombs.

16:00—Patriarch of Zen—attuning to the teacher, becoming them actually (tasawwuri) and conscious realization (Tat Twam Asi) of that person.

17:18—“Now I make a show of it, which is sometimes accepted, that I am the reincarnation of Marpa, the teacher of Milarepa. And … I’ve got an awful lot of Marpa in me, not very much Milarepa. That is my Dharma in this world to behave in that way, but also is the response (?) of Dharma, to produce incipient Milarepas, and if I don’t produce them, I fall. And if I do, it becomes justified. So having a Marpa function, when I go in the other functions, I always (fall/fail/follow (?)); when I take the Marpa function, it is more and more successful.”

18:04—“In Japan, especially in esoteric Buddhism, they make a division between Fudo and Kwan Yin. Now Fudo is a fierce nasty bastard who beats everybody, and Kwan Yin is always love and gentility, but this is a mask over reality; because no one can be a complete Kwan Yin unless she has some Fudo quality; and no one can be a complete Fudo, or be anybody unless he has the greatest love and reverence for them.”

19:24—“I’m not a namby-pamby negative person”—talks about family legal issues with brother and change from Gandhi-ite to new approach.

20:30—“La Illaha El Il Allah—The extreme case and the phonetic case is: begin to recognize God more and more and don’t put too many gradients over you. You have the right to put only one person above you, and that is your guru. And not just other people because they put an awe there; and until they’ve opened you, then you become intoxicated by form; but when your guru gives you the directive.”

21:00—Murshid Sam’s spiritual journey: India.

22:00—Question about Tat Twam Asi.

23:14—I am the vine and ye are the branches thereof.

28:06—Murshid story about his return from Orient.

30:00—“Inayat Khan spent more time with Murshid Sam that other mureeds, and that aroused jealousy … and Murshid couldn’t function.”

31:00—“I reached that point where it was possible to sit down with people and by breathing with them, by looking at their eyes, or holding their hands, to feel not only their obvious pain but to feel the pain beyond that pain; and then do something about it. And I am very glad, because if you’ve got any awe about me, I’d go mad. I’ve made mistakes, I’ve dropped dishes in the kitchen, I’ve burned the rice, I didn’t … any more nights, and all of this would happen. And so, I’ve asked God not to be perfect, to function with all my faults.”

32:00—“I said: God, if you give me a just punishment for my sins, then that’s all I want, a just punishment. I don’t want forgiveness; I don’t want any magic…. And I asked God then: please don’t make me perfect if it establishes awe.”

33:00—Salat prayer.

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Murshid Sam’s Spiritual Journey

Murshid in a soft voice, as he says “I’m not often too subtle,” shares some of his spiritual journey while reading HIK: Gayan—Boulas & Pearls from the Ocean Unseen.

0:00—Pre-lesson.

3:00—Phra Sumangalo.

5:58—Gayan: Boulas.

11:00—Sri Aurobindo.

11:50—Murshid Sam’s spiritual journey.

19:57—Pearls From the Ocean Unseen.

28:10—Anyone have a problem?

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Naqshibandi & Nostril Breath

Murshid teaches HIK: Naqshibandi/Symbology 4—The Two Forces.

There is some intermittent humming on the recording.

0:48—Invocation.

0:55—Reads Naqshibandi/Symbology 4—The Two Forces.

2:15—Plans with mureeds for Naqshibandi training.

5:20—Ryazat (right and left nostril) and follow-up questions.

13:00—Resumes reading.

18:00—Khatum.

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New Year’s Eve 1967, Part 1: Teaching Methods

The evening begins with a class on breath practices and expands into various subjects.

0:00—Murshid discusses his teaching method.

2:25—Breath practice.

3:34—Yoga exercise.

6:30—Paul Reps—Breath practices of Zen Flesh Zen Bones.

10:20—Questions and answers.

12:27—Real Sufism.

14:44—Playing modern music at different speeds/on modern music.

16:50—Maharishi.

17:00—Nyogen Senzaki and Buddha Hridaya.

17:55—Talks about Father Blighton and Church of Mans.

19:42—About visiting psychiatrist Dr. Baker.

20:15—The teacher seeks nothing, gives everything.

21:21—Ramdas: the greater capacity for love, the greater for joy, the greater for joy the greater…

21:40—“Don’t give for the sake of sentiment, you have to have strength in order to be able to give properly or you give foolishly. You have to feel you are right, and you must never never bring giving and getting together. They must be independent in every way, otherwise it is commercialism. Jesus said ‘freely give freely receive.’ You are giving to God and you are receiving from God, but the particular man or men, you don’t make an equation, you understand?”

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New Year’s Eve 1967, Part 2: Journeys to India and Pakistan

As the evening continues, Murshid talks about his travels on his spiritual journey.

0:00—Class listens to Indian sitar music.

4:15—Music in India.

5:20—Krishna/Gita Govinda.

7:30—Murshid Sam’s spiritual journey: India and Pakistan (Murshid the trickster).

9:58—“One of my unspoken commandments is: Thou shalt not starve … if I don’t let others starve, they won’t let me starve, and that has certainly been the case.”

10:22—Murshid Sam’s spiritual journey: East Pakistan.

14:15—Talks about inequality “equal law.”

15:55—Vedantists.

18:21—“I believe God is in the high and the low, the rich and the poor, and everybody and the nobodies, it’s all the same.”

20:00—“I was the first simple citizen in history to be a guest of honor at the Imperial Cemetery before the ashes of Lord Buddha on the top of the holy mountain, and finally at the imperial grounds themselves where neither vice president Humphrey or vice president Nixon were invited. For this, the State Department has never forgiven me, and this is my history, this is my history. I still don’t know how it happens, but this is my history.”

20:50—Murshid Sam’s spiritual journey: Egypt and Nasser

21:54—The power of the word.

24:15—Difference between a Christian minister and a Vedantist.

28:25—On meeting spiritual teachers.

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New Year’s Eve 1967, Part 3: Krishna and Salat

The evening continues and Murshid offers an aural invocation of Krishna and offers commentary on the prayer “Salat.”

0:00—Church of All People.

4:00—Invokes Sri Krishna.

6:05—God in All Forms.

7:54—Salat commentary.

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New Year’s Eve 1967, Part 4: Travel Tales and Party

The evening draws to a close with tales of Murshid’s spiritual journey, storytelling, recitation of children’s poems (Gay Stories) and “Happy New Year!”

0:00—Murshid Sam’s spiritual journey: England.

2:00—Murshid Sam’s spiritual journey: Vietnam (Phra Sumangalo): “The way I was killed by the Vietnamese.”

5:55—Cloak and dagger comment and general banter.

8:19—Mentions his “Siva! Siva!” poem.

8:55—Murshid Sam’s spiritual journey: India.

11:55—Mentions Taj, local restaurant.

12:25—“That’s the way I’m treated abroad, and that’s the way I treat people abroad, by respecting what they respect.”

15:50—Nasrudin.

17:34—Persian Nasrudin story.

18:32—Persian story.

20:44—Talks about his poetry.

20:57—His children’s poems (Gay stories) written for Gay Albanese.

25:00—Talks about poem: The Black Avatar.

27:14—Talks about a book Why Marriage and about psychologists in general.

29:45—Tells story about talking with nun about Jesus.

32:00—Happy New Year! And party atmosphere.

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One Guest at Dinner—God, Part 1

Readings are from Ramdas Speaks.

Audio has intermittent minor hum.

0:00—Pre-lesson.

2:30—“There is no such thing as logic anyhow. Logic is the consistent way of trying to prove you’re right and the other fellow is wrong. I make a statement every now and then that the fun difference between men and women is that men are logical and women are not, and this is very unfortunate for the men.”

4:20—Murshid Sam’s spiritual journey: Cairo (American University: talks about mantram.

6:22—Anti-defamation.

7:15—Swami Ramdas.

8:18—Paul Reps always trying to convert me.

9:06—Paul Brunton.

9:39—Chant Om Sri Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai Ram.

11:07—Talks about Papa Ramdas and Mataji Krishnabai.

13:30—Nyogen Senzaki started speaking in pidgin English masking his intellect when he started his zendo—PhD, master in six languages—the real masters never behave like masters.

15:24—Ramdas’ last days.

17:11—“We only have one guest at dinner, God. He comes in various guises, and various stomachs, and various looks, and so on. It’s only God and He multiplies Himself when—He sits down at the table and it’s all over. Every meal here is as if God was the guest.”

17:39—“There’s only two things we forbid here: cold feet and empty stomachs.”

18:00—“I don’t care how many superiority complexes a person has, But when they have inferiority, we get rid of them.”

18:50—Reads Ramdas.

21:20—Lord Buddha’s breath practices (healing cold feet).

28:24—“These are the practices which Lord Buddha taught, and which the world has developed using the word ‘Hinayana’ in contempt. And I have never found these practices failed. And I have found many of the practices have been substituted for just worthless trash...made worse by them using contempt to those things which succeed. Now these are written in books, anybody can read them, but my efforts to read Buddhist scriptures to Buddhists has been hopeless. However, therefore, I read Buddhist scriptures to others. When Master who gave me this came here, he found I was the only one who knew his mantram, and the only one who knew his scriptures. Oh, we had lots of advanced Buddhists alright, all over the place. This is Lord Buddha’s method that he taught. We later on have the method which he learned. This is the one which he taught. And he constantly said if your method doesn’t work, use another one. No good Buddhist would do that! When the method doesn’t work, you develop an inferiority complex, and you blame yourself, never blame the method. Some of our greatest scientific discoveries have come about when the men had gumption enough to blame the method instead of themselves and tried something else, found something that’s working. I find this works, ‘cause we can develop on it, we can spread serenity and that’s going to be the only way we’re ever going to have peace. Peace for yourselves, this is what I call Hinayana Buddhism, which is not fair of course. Peace for others is what I call Mahayana Buddhism, but the same practices of Lord Buddha. Now if you do these practices, you will find yourself better self-control.”

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One Guest at Dinner—God, Part 2

Readings on Ramdas Speaks continue, with talks on a number of subjects.

0:00—“Ramdas wouldn’t let me sit in any posture at all. He came along with a stick and would sweep the floor until my feet were one foot up from the ground, and to all good and bad Zen Buddhists, that was the fastest method I ever had for having Samadhi, under him, the fastest! But this is against the rules, so mustn’t be taught like this, even if you get Samadhi. Oh I went up to Ramdas, and I found myself I was Ramdas, I was no longer Samuel Lewis. So I said, time to go, he said time to go, so I just disappeared. Didn’t say good-bye to anybody. Rang up a taxi and left. Nobody saw me go.”

1:50—“I don’t cast intellectual questions. I don’t ask you what scriptures you’ve read. Who was your false teacher? ‘Cause I’d be a false teacher. Oh it is unfair because if you want to know who I think are true teachers, this of course is very unfair, that is: Rev. Wycamp, Rev. Warwick, Rev. Miller, and Rev. Iru Price, and Master To Lun—I consider them true teachers. I think that’s enough.”

3:13—“You don’t graduate by taking a course. I never got any course from Ramdas. I never got any course even with Inayat Khan in the ordinary sense. Of course there were courses. Of course, they were good, but when your heart starts to jump ahead of your mind, what are you going to do then? You hold it back? You see, what we need in the West is “heart culture.” There are two types of heart culture, I say, I don’t say I’m right, which I call sober culture and ecstatic culture. And in ecstatic culture, you get high. In sober culture, you get intuitive.”

4:30—Lord Buddha’s yoga practice.

6:15—Ramdas in Europe.

6:40—Reads Ramdas.

7:50—Murshid Sam’s youthful curvature of the spine.

9:06—“Well, neither Nyogen Senzaki nor Inayat Khan and certainly not Ramdas recommended the Lotus Posture, and all of them reached their spiritual attainment.”

11:00—Reps and Murshid Sam—Slowed aging.

11:40—Eating flowers.

12:45—Resumes reading.

24:07—Murshid’s rules (too busy to enforce):

  1) a: people who sit in chairs pay $1

     b: people who sit on stools or benches $.50

     c: money collected is divided for those who sit on the floor

  2) those who come in late have to pay a fine for coming late. This is very unfair, because those who are my disciples I can’t scold, those who aren’t I can.

25:15—Resumes reading.

25:50—Gina Cerminara, (introduction and talk with).

27:09—Murshid on money (ethics).

27:44—“The only collections I have are voluntary offers and they go to the secretary. They don’t go to me, and if the secretary gets rich, the money will go to the Vietnamese. So, I don’t touch it.”

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One Guest at Dinner—God, Part 3

Murshid closes the evening with more Ramdas Speaks readings, comments on various topics, and offers an aural meditation on Krishna.

0:00—Reading.

0:33—“You notice what I told you from Buddha…. What Buddha ultimately practiced was love and joy and peace and serenity…. We have this as experience. I hope some of you are getting this as experience. It is my duty to raise your experience in this field. It is not my duty to give you moral injunctions or commandments on this or this or this. In extreme case, this is done but I’m afraid I’m a very lazy guru because I don’t like to waste time doing that. I’d rather waste time as sometimes I say from ‘Alice in Wonderland.’ Let’s have some more tea.”

1:15—“When I came back from my trip around the world and wanted to tell Nyogen Senzaki what happened. I asked him a single question and in that question was all my experience. And soon as I asked the question, he knew what it meant: he said, ‘Let’s have some tea.’ And with that was communion.”

1:38—Murshid’s inheritance of Senzaki’s things.

2:26—Watching Nancy Fish on TV game show.

5:35—Music/sound meditation: Krishna.

13:40—Questions and answers.

13:50—Karma.

16:12—Murshid’s Buddhist robes.

19:20—Correction of breath.

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One Practice Fully Concentrated

Audio has some phasing distortion and some buzzing.

0:00—Reading undisclosed text.

6:00—Question: What’s going to get us there first? Answer: “One practice fully concentrated no matter what it is.”

9:20—Paul Reps.

10:39—Continues reading.

13:00—Ryazat and commentary.

14:35—Slum clearance.

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Path of Initiation and Discipleship, Part 1

Murshid teaches and comments from HIK: The Path of Initiation and Discipleship, Chapter 2, the Meaning of Initiation.

0:00—Allah Chant.

0:42—“You see, the Sufi teacher’s a little bit different from the other teachers, the teacher and pupil are not separate. They are part of the same one big personality, and the success of the pupil is the success of the teacher, and the success of the teacher is the success of his teacher, not of himself. So that the only way one can succeed is by seeing his pupils succeed.”

2:30—Cretona (center of the Pythagoreans).

3:24—Jeffrey Hodgson.

5:08—“Of course I belong to a school where if you’re found imitating yourself, you get a crack in the wacker.”

5:23—Reads: Path on Initiation and Discipleship.

7:07—Talks about his God-daughter Nancy Fish’s appearance on TV game show as relevant to reading.

9:10—Richard Halliburton.

9:50—Resumes reading.

11:10—Murshid Sam spiritual journey: Initiation as spiritual teacher of the hippies.

12:34—Resumes reading.

13:20—Talks about his initiations.

14:30—Reads a short section of Message of Spiritual Liberty—God (a slight variation of the text?)

15:38—“I’m not giving a theoretical theological God, but One which is full of those things which belong to man.”

16:40—Paul Reps.

19:03—Murshid Sam attuned to occultism.

20:39—Talks about working with a pupil.

21:40—Disputes with a spiritual teacher is never any good.

23:50—Methods of correcting bad behavior.

25:55—Talks about “Darood” and Invocation: Toward the One.

27:22—Guided meditation “Toward the One” Darood.

29:11—Peace brings you the power.

30:40—Refers writing to Art Hoppe and pessimisms in papers.

32:16—“The only things I would teach them would be patient breathing, No Mental Suggestions! I don’t even want to give you out of my past experience. I want you to have your own and build up on it. It would be better than my past but on the same principles.”

33:00—Paul Reps/akashic records.

35:05—Murshid Sam and circle of peers initiations.

36:35—Reads from Hazrat Ali: Remember the limited few of the Upper Class will never answer your call in the hour of need. They will endeavor not to follow the path of justice and equacy but demand more than their lawful share and will not be grateful for the good done to them. In adverse times, they will be perturbed and worried but will not repent of their mistakes. It is only the common man who is the backbone of religion and the country. He is the one who fights the enemies; therefore, remain close to the public and keep their welfare always in mind.  Murshid Sam: “This must have been Mao Tse Tung in some former life.”

38:30—“If you want to be a saint, you have to get your fingernails dirty.”

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Path of Initiation and Discipleship, Part 2

Murshid continues with the reading on The Path of Initiation, Chapter 2, The Meaning of Initiation.

0:00—Reads from Path of Initiation.

2:45—“See, there’s only two things we don’t allow here … empty stomachs and cold feet.”

4:34—Pir Dewwal Shereef (spiritual journey and initiation in Lahore).

9:50—“Every guest here is God.”

11:55—Murshid Sam’s spiritual journey: Lahore.

15:16—Question and answer.

19:45—Papa Ramdas.

20:10—“And this is making God the Only Being, not a philosophy, not a theology, not a dogma, not a creed—a feeling, a recognition. I said last night God made man in His image, and we’ve had some terrible things creep into it. Where did hell get into the picture? Where did sinner get into the picture? Where did all these things come in? How did they get there!? They came when man became ignorant.”

22:12—Magnetism and healing.

23:22—Murshid Sam on healing: put beads over place of pain (stomach, headache) and chant Allah (20 times).

25:44—Initiates’ class begins. Murshid asks for impression regarding Ya Rahman.

26:24—“I want to know what you felt, not what you think…. As the feeling grows, so you grow.”

28:42—“What you are doing, not thinking is Ya Rahman.”

28:55—“As soon as you intellectualize it, you miss it.”

30:00—Ya Malik.

32:22—“Now, anybody here that thinks they are suppressed or frustrated by personalities, they can repeat this.”

33:24—“God works in all kinds of ways, and they are not always mysterious, but we make them so because we like to make it that way. Very practical, right in front of us.”

34:00—Zikr: La El La Ha El Allah Hu and Le El La Ha El Il Al Lah Hu.

36:14—Linguistics lesson: origins of “Yahudi.”

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Pearls from the Ocean Unseen

February 26, 1968. Murshid reads HIK: Boulas, Pearls From the Ocean Unseen (HIK works, page 3418).

0:08—Pre-lesson.

3:03—Mentions getting Moineddin’s name.

3:22—Phra Sumangalo and Asian scholarship.

6:17—Reads and comments from Boulas (HIK works, page 3418).

12:22—Murshid Sam’s spiritual journey: Dacca, Pakistan.

14:37—Intellectual aspect and mystic aspect.

14:57—Nancy Fish.

16:37—Question (Vajrayana) and Murshid answers on concentration and symbology.

19:12—“This is not an intellectual school, and the way in which you first thing is to get an appreciation, not a realization, and you may take a symbol and have a totally different type of realization as if the symbol were a key, not the end in itself.”

20:51—Reads and comments from Pearls From The Ocean Unseen—Sufism (HIK).

21:27—Talks about symbol of swastika.

25:55—“But it was Inayat Khan that took me on the path of the Bodhisattva after he had been initiated by Nyogen Senzaki. You see, mystics don’t follow the rules laid down in books.”

28:07—Tells principle on how to see into the future: “you’ve got to be scrupulously and absolutely honest with yourself.”

27:22—“How many of you have problems?”

30:12—Recounts HIK story about man pursuing a horse.

33:41—Difficulty in getting people accept Lord Buddha’s scriptures.

38:12—“The sacred names of God which can solve your problem … you would help bring about your own release … the teacher never interferes with the relation between any person and God, rather he must assist them, not get in the way.”

39:24—Refers to spiritual walks and Ramdas and HIK.

41:02—Attunement to teacher by breath.

43:51—Invocation and silence and Darood teaching.

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Pre-walk Instructions

Murshid reads from his own writing on breath and yoga walk.

0:58—Invocation.

1:06—Reads and comments on one of his undisclosed text on breath and yoga walk.

3:56—Comments on backbone.

9:07—Example of cooking chicken.

10:00—Introductions in the circle.

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Purification of the Body, Part 1

Murshid says reads HIK: Gatha I: Everyday Life: (#9 & 10) on Sobriety and Fasting. Along the way, he offers lessons from his spiritual journey.

0:00—Pre-lesson, talks about teaching schedule.

1:34—“Spiritual development means breath development.”

1:42—Murshid discusses his development of a teaching method—Four ways to teach: by breath, by heart, by eye and by atmosphere. The last two methods have just come to him.

3:20—Paul Reps.

3:45—More regarding the growth of Murshid’s teaching activity.

5:26—Reads and comments on undetermined text explaining Sufism.

9:10—Discusses symbology of dot and circle.

9:44—Talks about meditation under noisy circumstances.

11:40—“When you know yourself, you know God.”

13:17—“Therefore, I have never objected to people taking up Hatha yoga, but when they stop there, they’re limited. From Hatha yoga, one should go into raja yoga which is supposedly for the mind; or reversing it, from Zen, one goes into the arts. But now, the arts can hold (?), have retained more Zen than the Zen schools have. Archery, painting … your ceramics and so on have lots more Zen in them then the Zen temples have. But we are not going to worry about that, the point is that it is preserved.”

14:43—Identification with the breath—leads guided meditation.

16:44—Facing problems with Wazaif and Nayaz.

17:40—Meditation on Nayaz.

19:38—Murshid offers healing practice/meditation.

21:45—Invocation.

22:09—Reads Gatha: Sobriety.

22:30—Psychedelic drugs.

23:30—Effect of food (diet).

26:00—Murshid’s personal breaking of habits—On not laying down dictums.

26:30—“The purpose of what we are doing here is to increase your areas of joy, love, peacefulness, and vitality. And induced by personal practices and group activity; and one thing I consider very much worse than (how many?) drugs and alcohol, and that’s what I call the false conscience complex of people who do things hypocritically. This is much worse. Hypocrisy is much worse than partaking of anything wrong.”

27:20—Murshid Sam’s spiritual journey: Lahore.

28:09—Sokei-an Sasaki.

29:49—Edible botany.

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Purification of the Body, Part 2

Murshid continues the class with the Gathas on fasting and lessons from his spiritual journey.

0:00—Edible botany continued.

1:55—Reads Gatha: Fasting.

3:25—Comments on sexuality.

4:53—Sex and marriage.

9:18—Murshid Sam’s spiritual journey/history (questions and answers).

9:20—Lama Govinda.

9:44—Iru Price.

10:36—Paul Reps.

10:57—Dr. Neville Warwick.

11:40—Phra Sumangalo.

12:32—Maharishi.

13:05—Iru Price.

13:42—Murshid on his organization of teachings.

15:02—Comments about “G2” (his WWII activity).

16:34—Meher Baba and followers.

16:05—Ivy Duce.

19:10—Rom Landau/American Academy of Asian Studies.

20:55—Eugene Wagner, Master To Lun.

21:35—Denunciation of Meher Baba and his disconnect from chain of teachers.

22:19—“What I am trying to do is to get you to build up your bodies, through right breathing, right feeling, right atmosphere, right joy, right bliss, right love, not right philosophy. I don’t care what the philosophy is, understand me?”

23:45—Going to theater with dance partner to watch dancing and Murshid Sam’s projection down into the dancers on the stage.

24:12—“So I am doing this with the disciples … you succeed through them, you don’t try to stand in the way, gosh. A trunk of a tree doesn’t try to bring out the flowers.”

25:25—Indonesian dance humorous demonstration.

28:30—Eugene Wagner: Levitation.

28:55—Nijinsky and balance.

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Ramdas, Buddhism and HIK: Passion, Part 1

Murshid reads Ramdas, Buddhists scriptures, HIK: Rasa Shastra: Passion, and comments on sexual relations.

0:00—Chanting Ramnam.

1:50—Talks about Ramdas.

3:00—Reads Ramdas stories: Think only about God.

5:33—God Alone Provides.

6:10—Comments about “God is Great” and Israelis.

8:00—Senzaki and student in mental hospital.

9:00—Murshid’s story about Margaret and Rose (trials of earth, water, fire, air and ether).

14:25—Grimm’s tale of “One Eye, Two Eye, Three Eye.”

16:24—“You don’t have self-realization by making divisions. I don’t even like to stop to defend injunctions: Love thy neighbor as thy self. That’s for the old people. They have to have injunctions because they won’t do it. But I don’t think we need a lot of these injunctions anymore. We are the injunctions!”

17:49—Commentary on American Buddhist churches/teachers/methods.

21:46—Assigns meditation on “special tree.”

22:00—Lord Buddha’s yoga meditation.

27:15—“Now, if you can do these things, you can go into Buddhist temples and be welcomed, whether they speak your language or not. You don’t have to have any briefing by any State Department, and be welcomed. And, I would say, you would be more than welcomed. Go in and don’t talk, just do these breaths, and they will recognize it. But don’t give any of the hog-wash that’s called Buddhism in this country or anything out of books. If you do that, you will be welcomed.”

28:00—Questions and answers.

30:00—Real freedom.

30:25—Refers to Paul Brunton.

31:57—“Breath is one, and that is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the breath and no “hocus-pocus” mis-translations are going to change that. The kingdom of God, the Holy Spirit are within you and it is the Divine Breath which is the Holy Spirit, we all breathe it in and breathe it out and don’t know it. When we get to know it, we get closer to liberation. It’s very simple. If we don’t want to be like little children to gain the kingdom of heaven, we want to get good and complex, and that’s lots of fun—I don’t object to that, but what have we got when we got?”

34:15—New Age Morals and self-understanding.

35:34—“At least I’ve had the impudence to have had self-realization in the presence of many masters, contrary to what is written in books by people who have never had any discipline.”

36:28—Reads and comments: Rasa Shastra: Passion.

39:05—“This is my point of view. I have never said to any of you either to have or not have sex, but to regard the relation as a sacred one. Now again I don’t mean that means you have to have sex to produce children. Actually, if I went through the Kama Sutra … there’s all kinds of way of using sex without bringing about children. And some day, I see no reason why this couldn’t be a part of our general education. But, the Western world refuses to accept devotion, refuses. And all this was done under what they call divine guidance. The Sufi teaching is not to do this and not to do that, but do everything as if God was present, which is quite a different thing. And God is not “fuzz,” and God is not the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, he’s not the Super International Banker or any of this nonsense that we are getting rid of. These are dualistic attitudes, and God has put faculties into us for us to try or not try, and when you get to it, He’s going to say: did you have a good time? You’ve got to answer him honestly, because He’ll know the answer. If you say “yes,” good! If you say “no,” well let’s see what we can do about it. Maybe this is anarchistical, maybe it’s wired (?) radical, maybe it’s conservative, I haven’t the slightest idea. Not the slightest.”

43:05—Murshid Sam recounts personal story and proposal tragedy.

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Ramdas, Buddhism and HIK: Passion, Part 2

Murshid continues and reads HIK: Rasa Shastra: Passion and Beauty. He also reads Paul Reps’ Zen stories. Along the way, he comments on a variety of subjects.

0:00—Continues reading Rasa Shastra: Passion.

1:30—HIK’s falling in love.

2:10—HIK’s children.

3:09—Questions and answers.

6:05—Rasa Shastra: Beauty.

10:10—Murshid’s story about challenge from Lillian.

12:40—Resumes reading.

13:27—Comments on Mohammed and women.

18:29—Concentration of Sri Krishna.

19:06—Murshid’s aural Krishna meditation (short).

20:00—Murshid banters with class.

22:35—Paul Reps (“I have decided that Paul Reps and I are going to control the Western world.”)

25:06—Reads Paul Reps’ Zen story.

26:23—Fairfax rain story.

27:02—The line between magic and grace.

27:40—Murshid Sam’s spiritual journey: Pakistan.

29:57—Murshid Sam’s spiritual journey: another story.

31:03—Another Zen story.

31:58—Murshid Sam’s spiritual journey: Japan.

32:30—Question and answer: difference and will power regarding grace and miracles.

34:18—“After all, we can overcome these material obstacles and we try all kinds of ways. The only thing I do not permit, and don’t think it is anything like you’re going to guess, nothing at all—fatigue—Isn’t that right? That’s all, it’s my fault if anybody is tired, not theirs.”

Student: “Gee Sam, you’ve sinned terribly.”

Murshid: “Oh well, why not, look at the fun I’m having.

34:57—Rabbi Glazer.

36:49—Another Zen story.

39:20—Murshid Sam story about debate between a Cardinal and Jews.

40:59—Meditation.

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Secrets of Life and Health

Murshid speaks on health, longevity, emotions and healing. (This is a class fragment, possibly from 2/19/68?)

0:00—Murshid Sam’s spiritual journey: India.

1:35—Pir Vilayat and mentions rejection of Six Interviews.

4:25—Elixir of life and other health/Sufi related topics.

5:13—Secret of longevity in plants that live long.

5:55—Mentions Daniel Hoffman, his book, and talks about plant and metal psychology.

9:24—The New Testament: three witnesses-water, breath and blood—All the secrets of life.

10:45—Emotions as the cause of disease: Poisons in our bodies (greed, anger, envy).

14:24—Healing by the Presence.

18:05—Story of goddaughter Saadia and Julie Medlock and conference in India.

19:49—Sufi Barkat Ali.

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Sunseed Out-takes

Audio remnants from the film “Sunseed,” with “beeps” and sound artifacts. Murshid leads Dances, prayer, and offers commentary.

0:00—Julie speaks and Murshid answers: faith in America—I love my country.

3:40—Talking about Ruth St. Denis.

7:20—Saum.

9:14—Murshid leads As Salaam Aleikhum Greeting Dance.

15:00—Murshid leads Zikr.

19:00—Murshid leads As Salaam Aleikhum Greeting Dance.

21:40—Leads Bismillah Partners Dance.

27:30—Snake Dance.

30:25—Murshid speaks.

33:12—On the war in Vietnam.

33:57—“Respect ye one another.”

35:45—True saints.

37:00—“What nation permits vision?”

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Symbology, Mystics and Politics, Part 1

Murshid offers HIK: The Symbology of Religious Ideals: Symbology (HIK works, page 1693) & Gatheka 12: Sufi Mysticism 1: The Mystic’s Path in Life.

0:00—Murshid answering questions.

1:52—Reads and comments: HIK: The Symbology of Religious Ideals: Symbology (HIK works, page 1693).

3:30—Naqshibandi Sufis.

5:57—Ankh—Egyptian.

6:25—“We’ve started here tonight, our actual journey into immortality. When we identify ourselves … instead of with the body, we are going to find gradually pass through the gate of life and death until it has no meaning to us, won’t scare us anymore. We identify ourselves with the body; someday we are going to lose it. If we identify ourselves with the breath, we are not going to lose it that way.”

6:55—Meditation: there is no God (breathing out) but God (breathing in).

7:50—Story about Sufi teacher and commentary.

9:40—Continues reading and commenting: HIK: Symbology of Religious Ideals: the Flute of Krishna.

10:44—Appearance of HIK to Murshid Sam: become a flute—Comments on his mystical dance.

13:26—Shemayem.

15:44—“When you identify yourself with the breath instead of the body, you’re on the first step into your heavens. The body will pass away, the breath will continue.”

16:45—Reads and comments: Gatheka 12: Sufi Mysticism 1: the Mystic’s Path in Life.

20:00—Floating, flying and Nijinsky.

21:00—Story about party with Kyra Nijinsky.

22:18—“When your inner eye begins to operate, you do all kinds of things unconsciously, you never think, you don’t think, oh God no, no thinking. You just know what to do and you go and do it. Soon as you start thinking, you become an ego person and you know better; and, I assure you, that time I was quite a failure at being an ego person, I can tell you that.”

24:28—“In the presence of your friends, you must be absolutely harmless. Be ye wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove. You’ve got to be, this is not philosophy. You’ve got to be that way! If you mix the two up, you’re hopeless, just absolutely hopeless.”

28:26—Ramdas and money.

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Symbology, Mystics and Politics, Part 2

Murshid continues to read Gatheka 12, offers a commentary on politics and offers some of his spiritual journey.

0:00—Continues reading.

0:15—Murshid begins long commentary on politics.

0:19—Robert Clifton (Phra Sumangalo).

1:45—Eugene Wagner.

2:04—Julie Medlock.

2:25—Murshid in the Himalayan mountains before invasion of Tibet.

2:52—Cause of war in Vietnam.

4:40—Murshid in Pakistan.

6:40—On Vietnam.

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Tales of the Dervishes, Part 1

While reading Tales of the Dervishes (Idries Shah), Murshid leads Lord Buddha’s breath practice and answers questions.

0:00—Speaking with mureeds, Murshid Sam’s trip to Seattle.

0:40—Shamcher Beorse.

1:28—Ramnam practice story.

5:15—Tales of the Dervish (Idries Shah): The Three Truths.

9:20—Murshid tells joke.

10:15—Nyogen Senzaki.

11:00—Keeper of Senzaki’s papers.

12:30—Bulla Shah.

15:35—Heaven is wherever we are.

15:45—Amir Khusrow, robe in vision.

17:40—Murshid reads HIK: Ragas.

18:09—Oracle use in interviews.

20:50—Questions and answers.

21:00—Attachment to seeing visions in Zen? “Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven and all else will be added unto you.”

22:00—Question about righteousness.

23:00—Path of Breath, Heart and Light.

24:00—Zen koan as practice.

25:56—Lord Buddha’s practice.

29:20—Three moral laws in Sufism: Reciprocity, Beneficence, Renunciation.

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Tales of the Dervishes, Part 2

Murshid continues the class with teachings on the moral law of the Sufis, Divine Breath, and his spiritual journey.

0:00—Continues: Moral laws of the Sufis.

2:50—Divine Breath.

4:28—Spiritual side of motherhood.

7:25—Yoga studies.

8:05—“One of the first things I learned from my teacher: never answer what you do not know. I do not give speculative answers. I tell you forthright I do not know.”

8:34—Ramdas and Mother Krishnabai.

10:00—Lama Govinda.

10:45—“This place is like a Zendo. Why, this place is a Zendo.”

12:20—Murshid Sam’s karma yoga.

15:00—Paul Reps is my spiritual twin.

15:30—Murshid Sam’s spiritual journey.

21:34—“Whatever I’ve been trained in, I’m giving to the world because I’ve passed my majority. Since I’ve passed 70, I’m not holding anything back. I don’t know how long I will remain in this world. And only the Sufi teachings I keep secret—all the other teachings I’m giving out.”

28:20—Murshid Sam as stenographer of HIK’s lectures.

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The Meaning of Initiation & Communication with God

Murshid teaches HIK: Path of Initiation and Discipleship, Chapter II, The Meaning of Initiation & HIK: Sufi Message Volume 12, The Vision of God and Man, Communicating with God.

0:00—Meditation.

1:44—Peace brings you the power.

2:27—Reads Path of Initiation, Chapter II, The Meaning of Initiation.

5:07—Paul Reps.

7:36—Lama Govinda.

8:55—Reads from Hazrat Ali.

10:20—Krishnamurti.

10:36—“If you want to be a saint, you’ve got to get your fingernails dirty.”

15:15—“Only two things we don’t allow here: empty stomachs and cold feet.”

17:00—Murshid Sam’s spiritual journey: Pakistan.

24:05—Murshid Sam’s spiritual journey: Lahore.

27:25—Questions and answers.

28:06—Recess.

28:10—Invocation.

29:45—Reads: Communicating with God, Volume 12, The Vision of God and Man.

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Three Ways to Act, Part 1

Mostly concentrating on Buddhism, Murshid Sam touches on a variety of teachings.

Audio recording has some phasing distortion.

0:00—Three ways to act.

2:20—Nyogen Senzaki.

6:10—Murshid Sam’s spiritual journey: Egypt.

8:00—Phra Sumangalo.

8:19—M.T. Kirby.

8:25—Reads Phra Sumangalo.

11:10—Instant Zen.

12:00—Mahamudra meditation.

19:01—Breath practice.

21:37—Om Sri Ram Jai Ram chant.

26:15—Begins koans from Reps/Senzaki Zen Flesh, Zen Bones.

26:20—How Grass and Trees Became Enlightened.

27:50—Murshid Sam’s spiritual journey: Japan.

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Three Ways to Act, Part 2

Continuing, Murshid mostly concentrates on Buddhism, offers practices from Reps/Senzaki’s Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, and talks about his transmission from Hazrat Inayat Khan.

Audio has slight phasing distortion.

0:25—Iru Price.

5:15—Senzaki: Universal Buddhism.

5:50—Murshid Sam’s bashfulness.

7:25—Kissing as blessing.

8:15—Transmission from HIK.

8:27—Paul Reps.

13:19—“Sufi Delight/Sufi Surprise: every meal is cooked as if it were a Divine offering.”

20:20—Zen Flesh Zen Bones practices.

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About These Recordings. Editors' Comments:

Murshid Sam (Samuel L. Lewis /Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti) teachings and talks were recorded between 1966 and 1971. The original recording media was tape, mostly cassette tape recorders, so that the sound quality is not professional. The tape media was transferred to digital mp3 format. The editors of this archive received 117 mp3 files.

All of the material already published as “Talks on Saint Paul’s Letters to the Corinthians” (ten lectures) was culled from this collection. This material is available in a separate offering. The transcription of those talks can be found in the book “This is the New Age in Person.”

There were many duplicate mp3 files, some with better audio quality than others. The lesser quality duplicates were also culled. Some of the duplicate recordings were not exact duplicates. One recording of the same class may have started earlier than another. The recording that started later may have caught the ending of the class. In that case, the editors “spliced” the material together to make a full document of the evening. These new files were labeled “mod” (modified). There were very few of these “mod” files created.

The source materials for these edited “mod” files, as well as the other culled materials were placed in a “shelved archive” for future reference. The remaining material was collected in a “core archive,” and is presented here as the “Murshid Sam Audio Archive.” There are 64 mp3 audio files in this collection.

The audio of these talks has not been altered sonically. There is no aural processing, nor have conversations between students, clanging dishes, pre/post-class conversations, sound/recording artifacts, and street noises been removed. The editors felt that the atmosphere of the community around Murshid was important as well. Murshid is always audible in these recordings. Headphone listening can be helpful.

The “Guide to Murshid Sam Audio Archive” was created to give the listener a resource document (general framework) for study of these teachings. Titles were given to the classes. Following each title, there is a brief description about the material. After the description, there is a “time location and subject index.” In some cases, there are transcriptions of Murshid Sam’s talk; in other cases, there are topics, references or themes listed. It was not possible to transcribe each word of these teachings. It is the intention of the editors that this “Guide” be “upgrade-able” and “correctable” by the community of listeners. This may be done through the Sufi Ruhaniat Archivist.