Diary 1963 - Murshid Sam's Living Stream

Diaries 1963May 10, 1962 [1963?]Dear Saladin:I am both making this diary entry and replying to your postal, which while it is a time-consumeris also a fundamental.The arrival of the manuscripts “Saladin” has been followed by a number of minor miracleswhich I do not wish to delineate here although they would add to the excitement, “glamour” andinterest in the biography. There will be a follow-up Monday of a complex sort.The six conversations with PoM in the Beverly Hills Hotel concerned my three initiations:a. Khidr; b. Hierarchal; c. Wali.PoM wished me to write them up. I did, Finis. They were rejected, the reports of our conversationswere rejected, the movement split up as I saw it would and ultimately the power, if not thesceptre, would be in my hands. The power is mostly mine by default and not by achievement, becausethere is practically unanimous rejection of Khatum: Open Thou our hearts that we may hearThy Voice which constantly cometh from within.The gifts from Khidr are two, and normally so: Poetry and Longevity. Today they are bothmanifest. In regard to the poetry I have written to Robert Graves and sent one of the early effortsto Mendocino where it is going to shock the people who think they are studying Judaism. But theshock comes from being totally unusual, and not from going for or against the Philistinism whichoperates today as “normal religion.”Before writing Graves I went over the copies I have of early works and the prophetic element isabsolutely dominant and it is going to be more dominant, inshallah. Graves repeats Fabre D’Olivet’stheories of inspiration, early Greek poetry, epics, etc. This has already been accepted by Dr. Ghosefrom Santiniketan.The repetition of this initiation on a higher plane was witnessed by Pir-o-Murshid HazratHasan Sani Nizami and confirmed when I returned to Pakistan. So it does not matter in the slightestwhat the remaining initiation-disciples of Hazrat Inayat Khan say or opine (they do not think); muchless than their disciples who are spreading unconfirmed legends which contradict him. In all the detailsI could find from Hasan Nizami or his sons or from the old friends of P.O.M. the whole pictureis clear and I have also a letter to answer to South India from one of his old confreres.The Hierarchal initiation will be dealt with lightly here. It was confirmed by various big but“sudden” experiences both with Zen and Sufi people which used not concern us here.The Wali initiation is the basis of the operations to combat heart-starvation in forward landsand stomach-starvation in backward lands. Either of these are time-consuming and they are the basisof (a) “The Lotus and the Universe” and (b) “How California Can Help Asia.”With regard the former the Universe is helping. Sunday night I was in the pageant as a Rinzaiin commemoration of Wesak and the main sermon was by Brian Goods, disciple of my dear friend,Robert Clifton. Anything he said that bears any relation to the radio, TV, and scholastic isn’t. It is notcoincidental, it isn’t. So far as that was concerned, if anybody else on the panel had spoken—and anumber of sects were represented—there would be little relation to the Phillistine-paff which operateson TV, radio and press as Buddhism, much less “Zen.”