“Introduction to My Study of – Eastern Religions and Western Thought – S. Radhakrishnan – Chapter 7 – Greece, Palestine, and India
Ed Reither
Greece, Palestine, and India
Eastern Religions and Western Thought, S Radhakrishnan (India’s first Vice President)
I can’t remember exactly, but it was at a time when I was immersed in the study of Eastern spirituality. What I do remember was it gave me a deep and strong feeling as I read the first 50 pages that I had come across an extremely powerful bridge crossing Eastern spirituality and Western philosophy. I came across S. Radhakrishnan book ‘Eastern Religions, and Western Thought’ in a library at Tulane University where I huddle in a small corner on the second floor for two years studying as much as I could about Eastern spirituality. His book is a compilation of lectures S. Radhakrishnan gave between the years 1936 – 1938.
Forty-four years later I was gifted with Peter Kingsley’s book Catafalque which re-awakened my interest and therefore my study of Western philosophy (not the academic kind). With this new awakening and examination I return to S. Radhakrishnan ‘Eastern Religions and Western Thought’ with Chapter VII, ‘Greece, Palestine, and India.’, a very timely chapter for this day and age.
Chapter VII – Greece, Palestine, and India
” “The Original Foreward to The Knee of Listening – Alan Watts and Franklin Jones (Adi Da)”,”
Beezone Interview with Aniello Panico – November, 2019
Franklin Jones and Aniello Panico, 1973
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BEEZONE: How did you get involved with “”Franklin”” (Adi Da) and The Knee of Listening?
ANIELLO: I became a devotee of Adi Da Samraj in 1972. I immediately became involved in producing His first books, “”The Knee of Listening“” and “”The Method of the Siddhas””, because I had worked in publishing for 15 years.
From 1959 until I met Adi Da in 1972, I worked in publishing as a sales representative for Simon and Schuster and later Macmillan and Co., both on the east and west coasts. After I retired from full-time sales work in 1970, I opened my own bookstore in Los Angeles and continued to work for major publishers on a freelance basis.
BEEZONE: How did “”Franklin”” become aware of your background in publishing?
ANIELLO: In the earliest days, there was a small number of devotees with Adi Da. We knew everything about each other, as did Adi Da, as He worked directly with each person. He included me in His inner circle at the time.
Over time He said, why don’t you take on the ordering of the bookstore scene, because you’ve run a bookstore? I said okay,
He originally used to keep an inventory control card on every book in the store. There weren’t many and He’d note the distributor, the title of the book, the price and so forth. After I took over, for the first two or three times He would go over each order with me. He was instructing me — about what to buy, what not to buy, how many to buy and so forth, until I took it on. And then He said to me, “By the way it would be good for you to start reading some of this Spiritual literature”. He said, and if you want any books for yourself you could take a forty percent discount.
BEEZONE: What were some of the books you read?
ANIELLO: Adi Da (Franklin) would point out books, like The Gospel of Ramakrishna, Ramana Maharshi’s books, some Tibetan books, all really good stuff. Real traditional type of literature. That helped me a great deal, made me understand what I was getting involved with, who He was. I don’t know how to describe this, but
BEEZONE: Working that close with Adi Da must have awakened something in you, no?
ANIELLO: Yes! I knew something was going on immediately. It didn’t take me too long to know this was unusual. In fact in a very short period of time I started calling Him “”Guru”” because Franklin didn’t seem adequate, you know.
BEEZONE: Who were the individuals “”Franklin”” was interested in?
ANIELLO: He didn’t give us any names to contact. He left it up to us. He considered that our public work.
BEEZONE: So, how did the idea of getting Alan Watts to write the foreward to The Knee of Listening happen?
ANIELLO: In 1973, we were preparing The Knee of Listening for a paperback edition, brainstorming about how to get a Foreword from key people in philosophy and religion, like authors.
BEEZONE: Who were you considering?
ANIELLO: Besides Alan, Israel Regardie was coming to sit with the Guru. I spoke with him and his wife several times. He was our only known name. Adi Da said to take out a little monthly ad in a magazine that Regardie was associated with. We were also in dialogue at the time with Paavo Airola, the nutrition author, about developing the right life diet for devotees.
BEEZONE: How did you contact Alan?
ANIELLO: One devotee, Craig Lesser, was a friend of Alan Watts’ son, Mark. and we asked him to facilitate contacting Alan about writing a Foreword to the book. What better authority in 1973. After a time, we were able to get in touch with Alan, and he received a copy of The Knee of Listening.
BEEZONE: Do you remember the date?
ANIELLO: Early 73
BEEZONE: At some point you actually met Alan, prior to working on getting him to write something, right?
ANIELLO: Yes. I was planning a trip to San Francisco from Los Angeles in early 73. We contacted Alan.
BEEZONE: How did you contact him?
ANIELLO: I probably made the appointment with Alan through Craig Lesser, who was in touch with Alan’s son and was the communicator.
BEEZONE: What was the circumstance?
ANIELLO: It was arranged as a lunch in Mill Valley at Rancho Sausalito, his home at the time. And so we met. It was a lovely day in Mill Valley, north of San Francisco.
BEEZONE: How did you introduce yourself?
ANIELLO: As a devotee.
BEEZONE: What did you talk about?
ANIELLO: Alan’s first comment to me was “Tell me about your Guru’s practice”. I told him I could not speak to the Guru’s practice, I could just speak to my own. So he started asking me questions that turned into a 3 hour conversation. We discussed that more and more people were dismayed by traditional religion, that there was a resurgence of spiritual practices happening, and that Americans were responding well to his writings. I might have taken notes on our conversation, but I didn’t. It didn’t seem to fit. Alan had received The Knee of Listening but had not read it yet.
BEEZONE: How did you describe “”Franklin”” to Alan?
ANIELLO: For one thing, I was full of the Guru’s Siddhi. When we would sit with Adi Da, I would feel His Presence strongly. I had “visual kriyas”, where the Guru’s face would change into other Realizers, like Satya Sai Baba, Swami Nityananda, Swami Vivekananda, and Ramana Maharshi, and then my own face as well. So I told Alan about these experiences. I wish I could remember more.
As I was leaving, Alan said “Neil, remember this people judge a Guru by His devotees. By the way, what are you doing tonight?” I said I was in town with two other friends; he was having a party and invited us to attend.
The party was a lively time. As we arrived, 6 drummers were outside playing these fantastic rhythms, really wailing. I was told the poet Gary Snyder was there. We mingled in the crowd. I spoke to Alan briefly and he said he would read the book and get back to me about writing a Foreword.
When I returned to Los Angeles, I asked to see Adi Da. I went to His house to tell him about meeting Alan. I said it would be great if he would be willing to meet Alan in person. I knew Alan would like that very much. Adi Da declined. He said “I don’t meet people from the public or have casual social contact. You just want to sell books.”
BEEZONE: Was he interested at all in your meeting with Alan?
ANIELLO: He had me describe the meeting in detail. Three weeks later, a brief letter came from Alan after he had read the book, agreeing to write a Foreword. We were thrilled. We posted the letter in the bookstore window, ahead of publishing the book.
BEEZONE : Is this Alan’s full foreward to The Knee of Listening?
ANIELLO: Yes, this is the foreword as Alan wrote it and as it appeared in The Knee of Listening