| Artist: Sam M. Lewis |
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| Wikipedia: Samuel L. Lewis |
Samuel Lewis (October 18, 1896–January 15, 1971) was an American mystic and dance teacher who founded the Dances of Universal Peace movement. He was also known under his Sufi name Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti and was addressed by his mureeds and others as Murshid. This is an arabic word that means, "Exalted Teacher." In the popular press he was sometimes known as Sufi Sam.
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Lewis was born to Jewish parents. Lewis' father Jacob Lewis was a vice president of the Levi Strauss jean manufacturing company. His mother was Harriett Rosenthal, the daughter of Lenore Rothschild of the international banking family.
To his parents' dismay Lewis showed a keen interest in religion and spirituality from an early age and later rejected their attempts at as business career for him. Lewis studied mathematics at Columbia University in 1916.
In 1919 Lewis entered a Sufi community in Fairfax, California where he met and was influenced by the teachings of Hazrat Inayat Khan an Indian Sufi teacher and musician . A year later he began Zen study with Sogaku Shaku, a disciple of the Rinzai Zen Buddhist Abbot Shaku Soyen. The twin spiritual influences of Sufism and Zen were to remain central throughout his life.
Lewis remained in the Fairfax Sufi community through the early 1920s and achieved deepening mystical experiences. In 1926 he collaborated in the opening of the first official Zendo teaching Zen Buddhism in America in San Francisco.
Lewis continued to study Sufism and Zen and added yoga to his studies. He developed an interest in horticulture and promoted seed exchanges across the world.
In 1956 he began travelling the world visiting Japan, India, Pakistan and Egypt, seeking the company of other mystics and teachers.
In 1967 whilst recovering from a heart attack in a hospital Lewis claimed that he heard the Voice of God speak to him and say, "I make you spiritual leader of the hippies." For the remainder of his life Lewis travelled around California developing and teaching the Dances of Universal Peace which draw on all the spiritual traditions he had encountered. The movement he created continues today in a formal way as Sufi Ruhaniat International, as well as informally through the wide adoption of the Dances of Universal Peace by many other Sufi and non-Sufi groups.
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