Samuel
L. Lewis (1896-1971) was probably the world’s first Guru-Roshi-Murshid. He was
recognized as a Sufi murshid by the Sufis of eight orders in Pakistan, India, and the Middle East. He was also a Zen roshi,
recognized by both the Soto and Rinzai Zen lineages in Japan and Korea. He also spent a long time in an Indian ashram to study
Hinduism, until his Hindu guru of the bhakti yoga tradition, Swami Papa Ramdas, confirmed Lewis' ability to enter Samadhi.
Many Christians respected him as a teacher of the message of the Bible.
Lewis
was ahead of his time as a proponent of universal religion and the idea that mystics of all paths share a similar vision.
As a soil scientist and horticulturalist concerned with feeding the world’s hungry, he endeavored to improve the quality
and quantity of food production planet-wide by promoting organic gardening, seed exchange, sea water desalinization and desert
reclamation.
Murshid
Sam was born on October 18th in San Francisco and began reading the Bible at the age of three, but he dismayed
his parents by showing religious interests outside of Judaism. His later studies included world religions, non-Euclidean geometry
and mathematical philosophy.
At twenty-three,
Lewis began living and working in a California Sufi community, embracing the teachings of Hazrat Inayat Khan; a year later
his studies of Zen Buddhism began. At twenty-seven, Lewis received spiritual initiation from Inayat Khan, who also appointed
Murshid Sam “Protector Of The Message” three years later.
When Murshid
Sam was thirty-four he received Dharma Transmission from the Zen teacher Sokei-An Sasaki. In 1945, at the age of forty-nine,
Samuel Lewis was awarded a Certificate Of Service by Army Intelligence (G2) for top-secret clairvoyant work. Eleven years
later he carried out a seed exchange during a voyage to Japan, India and Pakistan. On this trip he was appointed “Fudo,
Protector Of The Dharma” in Japan and, in India and Pakistan, was initiated into various Sufi orders, including Chisti
and Nakshibandi.
In 1960,
during his second trip abroad, Lewis was initiated into the Rafai and Shadhili orders in Egypt and in Pakistan was publicly
recognized as a Murshid. In 1966 the Korean Grand Master Kyung Bo Seo ordained him “Zen-shi”.
Murshid
Sam founded the Dances Of Universal Peace while living in San Francisco in the late 1960’s. With the peace dances he
managed to bring drug-addicted people off their drugs, because they felt "high" after dancing with him. The Dances were inspired
by Ruth St. Denis, famous contemporary avant-garde dancer, who amazed spectators by embodying goddesses, and Hazrat Pir-0-Murshid
Inayat Khan, who brought Sufism to the west.
During
his last year on earth Murshid Samuel Lewis founded the society and initiatic order now known as Sufi Ruhaniat International
to represent and oversee the spread of his work in the world.
