|
Franklin Fowler Wolff was an American philosopher, mathematician, and sage
who combined an extraordinary intellect with profound mystical insight and
authenticity.
 Born
in 1887 in Pasadena, California, he was raised in San Fernando as the eldest
of three children. His father was a Methodist minister, and he was home-schooled
by his mother until the age of nine.
Dr. Wolff received his Bachelor’s degree from Stanford University in 1911,
graduating Phi Beta Kappa with a major in mathematics, and minors in philosophy
and psychology. He went on to graduate school in philosophy at Harvard University,
having been particularly impressed by his study of Immanuel Kant's Critique
of Pure Reason. By this time, Wolff was “convinced of the probable existence
of a transcendent mode of consciousness that could not be comprehended within
the limits of our ordinary forms of knowledge.” After a year at Harvard,
he returned to Stanford to teach the mathematics courses of a professor that
had taken a year’s sabbatical. Mulling over the offer of a permanent
position in the mathematics department, Wolff surmised that he must “reach
beyond anything contained within the academic circles of the West,”
and he left his promising career in academia to engage in a spiritual quest.
In 1920, Wolff married Sarah Merrell Briggs, and they joined
their original surnames as ‘Merrell-Wolff’ to symbolize their
partnership in a shared spiritual work. Sarah studied with Alice Bailey, and
was given the name ‘Sherifa’ by Inayat Khan, the great Sufi mystic.
In 1929, Wolff received permission from the U. S. Forest Service to build
an ashram (a place of religious retreat) on public land in Tuttle Creek Canyon,
which is nestled in the Sierra Nevada Mountains near Mount Whitney at an altitude
of eight thousand feet. This project—a stone building in the shape of
a balanced cross—took over twenty years of summer work to complete,
and Wolff and his group held yearly conventions on the site. In his later
years, the convention was moved two thousand feet below to a retirement home
Wolff built on some four hundred acres of land.
After twenty years of seeking, Wolff’s quest had included
deep engagements with the Theosophical, Sufi, and Hindu traditions. Wolff
had always found himself drawn to the philosophical works of the Indian sage
Shankara, who founded the Advaita Vedanta School of Indian philosophy. It
was while in deep contemplation of the teachings of Shankara that, in 1936,
Wolff's efforts culminated in two “Fundamental Realizations” that
would provide the foundation for his philosophy. While the first Realization
confirmed the perspective of Shankara's philosophy, the second Realization
was unexpected and opened Wolff's philosophical view beyond his understanding
of Advaita Vedanta. Wolff’s books, Pathways through to Space
and The Philosophy of Consciousness without an Object, provide a detailed
record of his realizations and a lucid discussion of transcendental philosophy.
The State University of New York Press publishes both books, as well as a
critical analysis of Wolff’s philosophy authored by Ron Leonard. Wolff's
long life was spent writing, lecturing, teaching, and working the land. He
spent his retirement years on his ranch at the foothills of the eastern Sierra
Nevada near Lone Pine, California and died there in 1985 at the age of ninety-eight.
Dr. Wolff with Kenpo Karthan Rinpoche
|