Conversations in the Spirit: A Retrospect on Lex Hixon’s Interview with Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan

The New Monastics Podcast (E5): https://thenewmonastics.buzzsprout.com From the Intro: “In the 1970’s, long before podcasts like our own, there were radio shows whose reach was perhaps more limited, but whose impact was still powerful. Among the best of those shows was “In the Spirit” on WBAI in New York City, in which Lex Hixon interviewed some of the best, most interesting spiritual teachers and thinkers of the 1970s—Alan Watts, Tarthang Tulku, Rabbi Zalman Schachter, Ram Dass. But what made the show really special was Hixon himself, a deep spiritual thinker and practitioner who would soon make his own mark, and whose insight and sincere questions made the show far more interesting. In 2016, Paul Cohen of Monkfish Publishing, published these interviews in a book edited by Sheila Hixon called Conversations in the Spirit: Lex Hixon’s WBAI “In the Spirit” Interviews: A Chronicle of the Seventies Spiritual Revolution. We will be using the book, with permission from Monkfish, to look at some of these interviews in the context of where we are today. The first interview we want to examine is from October 8, 1978, with Sufi master Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan (1916-2004), who is the son of Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882-1927), the first Sufi master in the West and the founder of Inayati or Universalist Sufism. This interview, unlike many others, was recorded on-location at the Abode of the Message, Pir Vilayat's Sufi spiritual community in New Lebanon, New York.” Using the interview as a jumping-off point, our dialogue explores the ongoing tension between universalism and particularism, ‘pure’ and ‘syncretic’ religions, and how to honor a tradition, such as Islamic Sufism, in the face of changes in spiritual perspective, some of which are embodied in Universalist Sufism. Along the way, we reflect on the life and legacy of these two spiritual giants, who were both a part of a larger web of figures on the forefront of the 1970’s ‘spiritual revolution’ in America, and its impulse towards interspirituality, unity, and spiritual freedom. To supplement our dialogue and exploration, we use samples from the original recording of this interview, which may be found here.