Samuel L. Lewis

Samuel L. Lewis also known as Sufi Sam and Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti (October 18, 1896 – January 15, 1971) was an American mystic and horticultural scientist who founded what became the Sufi Ruhaniat International, a branch of the Chishtia Sufi lineage. After a lifetime of spiritual study with teachers East and West, primarily Hazrat Inayat Khan and Nyogen Senzaki, Lewis was recognized simultaneously as a Zen master and Sufi murshid (senior teacher) by Eastern representatives of the two traditions. He also co-founded the Christian mystical order called the The Holy Order of Mans. His early interest in international seed exchange and organic agriculture also established him as one of the pioneers of green spirituality. His most enduring legacy may be the creation of the Dances of Universal Peace, an early interspiritual practice that has spread around the world in the 43 years since his passing.

Lewis was born to Jewish parents. Lewis' father Jacob Lewis was a vice president of the Levi Strauss jeans manufacturing company. His mother was Harriett Rosenthal, the daughter of Lenore Rothschild of the international banking family. To his parents' dismay Lewis showed a keen interest in religion and spirituality from an early age and later rejected their attempts at as business career for him.

In 1919 Lewis entered a Sufi community in Fairfax, California where he met Murshida Rabia Martin, a student of the Sufi teacher and musician Hazrat Inayat Khan. A year later he began Zen study with Nyogen Senzaki, a disciple of the Rinzai Zen Buddhist Abbot Soyen Shaku. The twin spiritual influences of Sufism and Zen were to remain central to him throughout his life.

Lewis remained in the Fairfax Sufi community through the early 1920s. In 1923 a vision of Hazrat Inayat Khan lead Lewis into initiation by the Pir-O-Murshid. In 1926 he collaborated with Nyogen Senzaki, a Rinzai Zen Buddhist monk, in opening the first official Zen meditation hall (zendo) in San Francisco.

...
Wikipedia