Diary 1963 - Murshid Sam's Living Stream

Diaries 1963December 27, 1963My dear Vocha:The year is closing with better auspices for the future but the hopelessness of resolving coldwars. The biggest of these is between Snow’s two cultures and if I were to detail all my welcomesand set-backs, you would find a close, very close correspondence between them. I have to writeChancellor Strong who took me to task blaming me for approaches to his professors. The last occasionwas in meeting a food scientist who almost leaped over the table to ask me to call on him at theearliest occasion. And the non-welcome of the social scientists is counterbalanced by the extremewelcome plus overtime from the Alumni Association on exactly the same subjects. I have etched thepoint where a group of us decided not to endow UC in the Asian field, for we all got the same treatment.Last Friday night I became a speaker. No virtue, darling. But I have this awful propensity ofhaving my best friends in hospitals. My whole program is disarranged because your “tween,” MajorSadiq went through the same thing in the same way on the same day—ye gods and little fishes, Imean Pisces and whatever sign was preponderating. And Gavin did not show up, either because ofKing Alcohol, or because his anti-snobbery attitude made him go to the elite instead of ye hoi polloi.I spoke short and when I got a big applause sat down without completing my speech and thenit came out, “That was the best talk Sam ever made” from a lot of people who have never ever heardme talk at all. This opened a door.Then there are my friends, Walt and Magana Baptiste who are Yogis and got married becauseeach won a prize for having a “body beautiful.” They tried “family planning” so successfully thata child was born, a son was given early in the month (just when the signs were right) and we had areal baby to have a real Christmas.In the meanwhile John Wingate disappeared and I thought I would be a good Boy Scout andtreat Emily. Instead she dragged me to a neighbor’s house and ye olde karma worked fine—I hadone of the best Christmas Days ever.The last chapter of my manuscript is on “Peace” and from the mystical point of view there canbe no peace so long as mental gyrations continue—and they will continue. But we can have equilibriumsand stable ones at that. This is the nearest, I believe, to peace. I have just returned from volunteeringto help in an Arab cultural conference early in March. I will advance 10 years in prowess—allI have to do is put on a Sufi robe and that will make me wise, important and news. Whatever elsehas been accumulated will be as nothing, but just put on a robe (like in the picture) and that is it. Youbecome an expert or authority or something.After being buffeted about (I am now enjoying it) on the Palestinian “problem” on two occasionsI met men high on the staff of Gen. Burns and they independently said: “That is the mostsensible thing we have ever heard,” but who is going to take this person seriously? There is no godbut diplomacy and he is ineffable.Well if I haven’t the “body beautiful” I rather surprised everybody, including myself, by performingan Indonesian knee dance on Christmas eve. All that was needed was a few drinks. On thenext night with more drinks it turned out even better. And when one reaches this age and can do aknee dance that is more of a demonstration than….