Consciousness searches for Ecstasy: Excerpt from a talk by Sripad Bhakti Sudhir Goswami Maharaj

So I turned to my colleague at work and asked him what he did last night. “Oh watched Eastenders, it was really good, then had a couple of beers and went to bed”, was the response. “What did you do last night?” he asked. I paused thinking of how I considered the evolution of consciousness and how it may be subjective, that I sometimes experience life as a sea of existential emptiness and that I ultimately considered this emptiness as a sign that the heart truly yearns for happiness through beauty and love - beyond the superficial demands of the ego for position and wealth - which is of course ultimately unsatisfying - and questioned how I may move beyond this existential wasteland and shifting sands that we call modern life, and ultimately satisfy my inner most hearts yearning for a taste of this Ecstasy.

So pausing for a second I looked at him and said, “Yeah, a couple of beers and a repeat of Sex and the City did it for me”.

But seriously folks. I consider myself very fortunate to have heard Sripad Bhakti Sudhir Goswami Maharaj talk several times about higher things. I found these videos on You Tube and consider them a treasure.

If reading the work of G.K. Chesterton, C.S Lewis , Thomas Merton or Mary Midgely means anything to you and you want more, you will relish this. For a taste of a true philosophical and theological rock experience. Have a look at this.

This talk is one of seven video files. They are all available on You Tube.

Also the full audio file is available from London Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math website

Why I hate facebook [in pictures].

I have an aversion to all things facebook. I got this via Ina O’ Murchus blog Semantic Bits. Love it.

Evolution vs Religion Debate

On the subject of evolution, the science vs religion debate is a deeply
polarized one. However, there was not always this schism between the two. Unfortunately today the more man grapples with trying to understand even a fraction of the cosmos he seems to get no further from the rather basic ‘Is there a God or not?’ debate. A more saner debate may be “This universe is amazing and we seem not really to be able to understand it but lets keep our hearts and minds open” - discuss.

Examining something very complicated and still coming away with the conclusion that we cannot understand it does not mean it has no creator. Rather it is better to realise we have limited capacity to understand things that are by their nature, much bigger than us with our empiric methodologies.

Maybe we do not have the appropriate devices to see God, as we are not looking through the eyes of faith, but merely a blunt microscope?

Why then do we still then expect to see Maha-Vishnu at the heart of the atom - using only these crude instruments?

I guess, the theory of evolution is half right but this is where it is dangerous. As Mary Midgley pointed out in her excellent book ‘Evolution as a Religion’ where she calls the theory “an inert piece of theoretical science”, the elevation of this theory into the domain of canonical fact has obscured some of the real issues.

Personally I believe in God, and I also believe in evolution. in the sense that life does, in a general sense, progress and move forward. However when we talk of evlotion we are talking about the evolution of what?

Is it mere atoms or dead matter?

There is no place for the eternal soul in this scientific evolutionary equation but the soul is what is actually missing from this equation. As an aside many scientists seem to want to push God out of the equation and fill that gap with themselves.

This is modern scientific atheism. Everything that is created in this world has a designer or architect. Cars, computers, operating systems and planes don’t make themselves. It is therefore sensible to abstract this knowledge out by saying that this observed logic can also apply to our universe and everything in it. Even more so when science shows us just how complex, elegant and astounding our world is. It is therefore more reasonable to say we don’t understand the architect, rather than there is no architect.

As a final note. I also don’t believe that the architect left us abandoned in this world with no clue of who he is or how to get back to him. But each buys in the market in accordance to what he can afford. We must therefore with faith move from baby infants before higher things can be understood. The state of our world is surely a plain indication of just what class mankind is currently in.

This post was sent to the Pat Kenny show during March 2008 in response to a discussion on this topic.

[Please note that I generally view doing this kind of thing as the premature onset of middle age.]

Postcards from the Hedge

I have recorded a new album. For more see below. It will shortly be available for download on many of the usual service but it has appeared first on Emusic. You can download “Postcards from the Hedge” here.

To try and figure out my life I needed some useful imagery. I figured that my life is a lot like my relationship with plants and nature, some may say that is a lazy metaphor, a cliché. I don’t really care. Even if truth becomes hackneyed and worn, it is still truth. Rather like Chauncey Gardiner, in Hal Ashby’s brilliant ‘Being There’, he played the part of a man who was a childlike cipher for things that may or may not be true, and people were so empty they saw something in him that filled their own need. So I think, the hedge is a good metaphor, and in this context it represents the world or my perception of that world. As Bishop George Berkeley postulated “The world is in the mind, not the mind in the world”.

My life has also been a winding and rather spiral type affair, non-linear, lateral.. so now as an aging Punk Rock Hippy.. I am now settled for the first time in my life. More happy in my skin than I have ever been and this album is both a look back and a look inwards, over the years that have brought me here.

So back to the hedge, after spending many years either under the hedge, out of the hedge, fighting with the hedge, living at the hedge, and now in general trimming the hedge - here are some songs about my experiences.

The album ‘Postcards from the Hedge’ is about many things. The search for identity and the divine. Madness, alienation, finding love, as well as travel and cows.

It has taken nearly 15 years for some of these songs to finally see the light of day. I do hope some of them resonate with you in someway. They catalogue my journey and an honest and genuine desire to figure out life, or at least my small place in it, and deal with some of the big questions. I don’t care how daft and uncool it is to say that out loud, but I am not a very complex man, so why not be clear and voice what I think in a simple manner?

The quest for identity and meaning is a valuable one and in many ways the most important journey we shall ever undertake. Without it we are nothing more than rocks lost at the foot of the mountain, seeds on the breeze or empty ciphers transfixed and hypnotised by pretty pictures beamed into our home. Oh dear.

I am not interested in shallow and superficial appraisals of what this record is or is not, and in a sense I am not really concerned about how this record is received, as I kinda made it for myself. I feel now like I have been freed somewhat and can move on and explore other things. Making this record has been like giving birth to a small talented elephant or like watching a mountain rise a couple of millimeters a year.

I am, as a result of all that, vainly presenting the songs to you for a listen if you care to take a glimpse inside a strangers head.

Many thanks to Robert Waterhouse for his great double bass playing on many of these tracks. I play all of the guitar, drums and some bass and its me warbling throughout. Also big thanks to Alun Smyth who engineered and helped me produce the record.

This album is dedicated to my friend Aodhan O Gormain who has sadly left us for a higher world and we are wanting in his absence. Slan go foil a chara.

Om Tat Sat

Josh

Summer Lovin’

Oh boy - This is my first post of the year and that is just terrible. I shall try and and assuage the guilt by telling you a little about what has been going on. I have officially become a nerd. It has been on the cards for some time but I may as well step out of the closet and face the music - there I feel better already.

Its been an eventful year on the nerd front, I joined the Web Standards Project ILG www.webstandards.org and also the HTML 5 Working Group, where people argue a lot about the nuts and bolts of how to structure, future proof and make backwards compatible - online content. My job is to restate that it needs to be accessible, online content.

On the non-nerd front. I have finished the recording of my new album, which has taken nearly 15 years to finish. I would compare it to an elephant birth but I guess its more like giving birth to a herd. So I can put that behind me and I will add more info when I get the whole process of mastering and design etc finished. Many thanks to my old muccer Alun Smyth for all his patience and expertise in this process.

Speaking of all things musical myself and my better half Lorraine have been to see loads of great music this year. It all kicked off with EST, the jazz trio in the new arts centre in Navan, Solstice. It was a great gig and I had never seen a double bass being played a la Jimmy page before. We also saw Debashish Battacharya play some lovely ragas and genuinely uplifting and astounding music. He was accompanied by an expert tabla player who frankly made most rockin’ drummers look like amateurs.

Next up was Terry Riley in the Drogheda Arts Centre, which was a nice gig. Its the best way to describe it really. He also played some nice ragas - being influenced by all things Indian and Vedic etc. The setting was the Church of Ireland in Drogheda which is a beautiful church and perfect for meditational music to be played. I was not unfortunately captivated by Terry Rileys performance and was there out of respect to him really (The Who track ‘Baba O’Riley’ is a sort of homage to him). While I am a fan of pieces like Poppy Nogood, and really appreciate his contribution to modern music, the height of the night for me was when Lorraine (who had never heard of him, as most haven’t) found out that one of the pieces he was to play was 25 minutes long. I will never forget the look in her eye… fortunatly the night was saved by a quick glass of vino across the road and the rather engaging sax quartet who supported played bizarre repetitive, and oddly semi syncopated tunes. Terrys’ son also played some lovely improvised modal jazz guitar.

Terry Riley has a reputation of playing for the entire night and often did that in his heyday, splicing up repetitive loops to use as sonic mantras long before sequencing software, so he is a true pioneer, and an expert pianist so I really respect him. His experiments are not mere posturing like much of the talentless twaddle, disguised as art, that we see today.

Another top gig was the Australian Pink Floyd. Loved them. Go see. Also hats off to the lone mentalist who insisted on showing his belly to the crowd.

Peter Gabriel was frankly disappointing. I am a big fan and feel a real connection with his music, so I guess that it’s easy to feel like that when expectations are high. He just didn’t seem into it at all. There was no real theatrical element to the performance either, and I love the ‘Secret World’ DVD when he came out of the phone box pulling the phone with the really long flex and doing lots of silly dancing. The music was great however, if a tad downbeat. He did bust a move for a few tunes, like Sledgehammer and Steam (one of my faves) but it seemed a little lacklustre. I also didn’t like being a part of the ‘warm up’ tour. Thanks Peter, are we not ‘real’ enough?

Finally, Al Green and Joe Cocker who were both deadly. Loved it. Go see before either of them shift off this mortal. The day was miserable and wet - we were outside Malahide Castle in puddle of mud - but they were both really into the music and gave it loads. Peter take note.

Also hats off to the lone mentalist who was doing the crazy dancing and repeatedly falling on her ass. She was annoying at first as she obviously thought she was the show, but strangely endearing towards the end.

Finally, I wish to mention my partner Lorraines’ gig. She has joined a choir (she has a lovely voice) and I just wish to re-state my sincere and humblest apologies for leaving too early before the best tunes at the end of mass on that fateful Sunday. I shall make it up to you..

Why do the Irish passively facilitate genocide?

Oh, they are not droppin them atom bombs on me!

Oh, not yet.

Oh, they aint pointing them guns at me!

So, I shall look the other way.

Old Irish Proverb

New Fuzzy Systems download available

Two new tracks from the Fuzzy Systems album “Samsara Blues” are available now from the Technica Curiosa website. The two tracks are called “Light and Fire” and “Air and Ether”, they are the latest instalment in the international collectives experimental musings. The two tracks are completely live and improvised and feature the fantastic emotive guitar playing of Tony Murray. They are meditative pieces which conjure up images of sunsets and oceans in different galaxies as well as inner journeys of reflection.

For more see the Technica Curiosa website and go to the discography area.

Sine Exchange Collective Photos

Here are some photos from the first Sine Exchange Collective gathering in the Solstice Arts Centre Navan (Sept 2006). We had a great time and thanks to everyone who came down, there will be another gathering at the end of October. Big shouts to Alun Smyth and Dorian for bringing their vibes to the experimental improv and thanks to Delphine for the photos.

Would you like Salsa with your Bagel? Shakin’ a leg at the Festival of World Cultures

I witnessed a unique and beautiful thing today. A couple of hundred sober Irish people engaged in the communal act of dancing. It was glorious! I was a member of the crowd and I clumsily shook both legs and whatever other bits were kind enough to co-ordinate, in my awkward attempt to master the 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 rhythm. The sounds were great, lovely dubby baselines got you in the solar plexus and the clack, clack of marimbas and nice jazzy cords made the whole Salsa experience go down really easy. I am hungry for more and will dust off my latino fusion tunes and bust a groove in the front room of my house regularily now.

Trans Global Underground are playing tomorrow and I hope to make it, I am a big fan and love the stuff they did with Natasha Atlas. I like dancing. I have adapted my own kind of silly dancing that makes me feel good. It has its own unique rhythm and style and there are no rules. Works for me. My missus (who is naturally a great dancer) thinks its hilarious and reminds me of how daft I look at every opportunity, so I get self consious and don’t dance

But nevermind, I am not one to cow tow to the critics, so dance I shall and to hell with the consequences

I could not help but notice how great many of the dancers at the Festival of World Culture, in Dun Laoghaire were. Its all in the feet and the hips, if you can free your toes the rest will follow, never mind your mind or your ass, its all in the toes. Your feet send signals to the rest of you and act as a kind of conductor telling the rest of you what to do. I was also wondering (while joyfully shaking my thang) if animals dance? There was a lady who has a small King Charles Spaniel that seem to have synchopated its tail in time with the funky rhythms, is this co-incidence or do animals bust a groove?

Answers on a postcard please.

Flying with Scary Girl at 30,000 feet

What fun we have had in Argentina!!

The land of tangos, exotic women, beautiful breathtaking scenery, coked up taxi drivers, bag snatching, and visits to Argentinean Police stations where we met very friendly and helpful police men and women. But the zenith of the whole thing, in a rather perverse manner has been our airline going bust, and then not, as VARIG has been bought. Then we heard VARIG have stripped their service and are laying off 8,000 members of staff, which is awful. But then no!! They are not stopping their service and we may be able to get home, hurray. But we are very suspicious, and do not trust Lufthansa, who have not been very helpful through all this.

It seemed to us that we really could be stranded in South America, but we did feel reassured that our (extra) travel insurance that we took out with VHI in Ireland, may help us. No chance. We found out that we are only covered for the last leg of our flight home (Frankfurt, Dublin) but not for situations such as industrial action, withdrawal of service or any damn thing that might actually happen to you when traveling. Useless. We did learn that ACE insurance is the best as it covers you for any eventuality, so we are wiser and it is best to be philosophical at times like these (after the waves of anger and frustration have subsided. of course)

To add to fun and games, over the Andes, we have had some of the worst turbulence I have ever experienced. I should explain that I am not a nervous flyer. Over the years I have made peace with the simple fact that I have to completely surrender my control when I step inside an airplane. This was not an easily won state to achieve, as I feel that a fear of flying is a rational thing. You are in a tin can flying at vast speeds and the wings of the plane don’t even flap, so in this instance, what’s irrational about being afraid? Anyway, I can deal with it and it’s statistically safer than driving etc now we are all assured, right? No way.

I challenge any man to sit beside my beautiful lady wife Lorraine during a moderately bumpy flight, and not, by casting one glace at the anxious terror in her eyes feel the cold creep of fear and doubt about the whole thing enter your heart. She will fidget in her chair, claw the arm rests and sip water from the ever present bottle of Ballygowan in such a nervous manner that the simple act of drinking can become a matter of life and death.

And then there are the pre-flight rituals.

She wont touch the plane before she gets on, nor will she look into the cockpit lest the the sight of the “Wizard of Oz”, will cause the whole machine to fail. Maybe she is right, however, and it is sensible to be afraid. I listen to devotional Bengali music, and she wrestles with the bottle of water. To each their own. But the Andes, oh the Andes.

We have all had some bumpy flights. Once coming back from Nepal we had nearly an hour of gut wrenching bumps, but this 5-minute white-knuckle ride put that into sharp perspective. It was so bad the plane seemed to fly sideways and the wail from the engines as the pilot desperately tried to fly lower fast, was deafening. I actually think the pilot lost control of the plane. Now I know why we have seat belts as most of us would have been scraped off the ceiling of the plane without them.

It was over very fast, but it was intense, also watching the movie “Alive” in an attempt to “face the fear” didn’t help. Thanks Hallmark!!

Afterwards in a great little Italian restaurant in Buenos Aries, called Broccolinos, we had a chat with a very nice Texan who told us not to worry about turbulence as he had taken a turbulence class, being a nervous flyer himself. Its thunder storms you gotta worry about. He plane was hit by lightening going to Miami once and the storms near Japan can be very bad. The pliots have storm detectors so they can weave in and out of storm hot spots.

In the wake of the new terrorist attack fears, I feel so sorry for Lorraine who now may have to give up the simple consolation of her bottle of Ballygown. Doesn’t seem fair.