Brian the Buddha: Kundalini Master

[ghost]

http://www.cbc.ca/strombo/videos.html?ID=1973693574

Why isn't this headline news around here? Brian says (paraphrased) that the music comes through his pineal gland down to the bottom of his spine then up into his body and arms and fingers playing the keys.



Do I need to point out why this statement is significant for old grandpa Wilson to say so casually? Bill Tobelman, if you're reading, let's get the ball rolling man.

[Dunderhead]

Ghost is Brian Wilson fucking with us.

[ghost]

In that interview Brian says that sometimes the voices in his head say Hey Buddy, we like the Beach Boys.

There you have it folks, demons like the Beach Boys too.

[SMiLE Brian]

I think ghost has set the record for the most posts in the shortest time ever.

[Dunderhead]

I'm all for it. Embrace the madness baby. Let's start the insanity.

[ghost]

Hey, keep it on topic, this thread is for this amazing interview. There's much to discuss.

[ghost]

I hope I have helped some of you relieve your boredom at waiting for news on the SSessions.

Anyway, there are numerous hints to Brian's enlightenment as anyone who has read Bill Toblerone knows. There is a potent aura of purity and love around Brian. Is he not the Buddha?

[Smilin Ed H]

Not a bad interview. I get the feeling Brian is playing with him, but he's pretty good. Pity the thread has a dumb title - some people might not bother with it.

[phirnis]

How do I get this video to play? Not available for us mere Europeans? Is it available somewhere else?

[Myk Luhv]

Obviously Brian is well-versed in his Cartesian philosophy of mind!

[hypehat]

What, do you think he just stared at the ceiling all day as he lay in bed in the 70's?

[bossaroo]

great interview... relaxed, lucid, and revealing. so good to see Brian like this.

[ghost]

What, do you think he just stared at the ceiling all day as he lay in bed in the 70's?

Well no one talks about or facilitates Brian to talk about his 'esoteric experiences' or possible practices. We just get cover ups of his beliefs throughout the phases and are told that he was a crazy guy into tons of stuff. All the credibility is stripped from Brian by us well meaning fans who sometimes treat the man like he was or is a moron. My posts are criticized by people. Are they sillier than Brian having a slide down the stairs? What if silly is what Brian is into? Now I am not holding the golf club.

[Bill Tobelman]

Been thinking about a line from the TIME review of the GV Box in 1993: "The lyrics were as fleeting as a waking dream..."

It's the "waking dream" part of the thing that is of interest. The LSD experience has been referred to as the "conscious unconscious" and a "waking dream" seems like something along these lines.

Brian's Bio talks of an acid flashback after which Brian remembers, "Loren once explaining that hallucinations were comparable to Zen riddles, mysteries full of meaning."

So the basic idea is: is SMiLE a hallucination with the ability to conjure spiritual enlightenment (a la Zen riddles) via mysteries full of meaning?

The spiritual enlightenment motive is contained in the SMILE BRIAN--AND PULL THEM STRINGS article written by either Michael Vosse or Derek Taylor depending on who you believe. Brian explains the reasons behind the promotion of vegetables: "Health is an important ingredient in spiritual enlightenment." By promoting one (vegetables & heath) Brian is promoting the other (spiritual enlightenment).

Brian's explanation of the "Surf's Up" lyrics includes the following, "He's off in his vision, on a trip. Reality is gone; he's creating it like a dream."

Now here's a line from Arthur Koestler's The Act Of Creation.

"Thinking in pictures dominates the manifestations of the unconscious---the dream, the hypnogogic half-dream, the psychotic's hallucinations, the artist's vision."

Let's add into the mix Frank Holmes' comment about the SMILE SHOP front cover: "The drawing is a surrealistic idea; a visual that is not accessible in conscious reality …" Not only do we get the "surrealist" phrase which is close to the hallucination idea but were also get the hint that SMiLE's art is accessible only via non conscious means.

Van Dyke Parks also gets into this picture through his "dream-escape" GV Box set comment as well as his "don't awaken me" comment from the BWPS tour program.

The point of all this is to indicate that SMILE presents us with images in keeping with unconscious processes, just like with the idea of a waking dream, with the possibility of conjuring spiritual enlightenment.

"Dada" can mean the art form which is close to surrealism & the idea of hallucinations. But "da da" is also what a child calls its father as well as anything containing similar attributes. The child's view doesn't discriminate...neither does the dream or hallucination.

And this frame of mind makes one ripe for the spiritual experience.

 

[ghost]

 

The purpose of Zen koans is to break the usual process of thought. What is the sound of one hand clapping? One hand cannot clap, its non-clapping makes no-sound. When you 'get' that there is no answer except openness in mind (or emptiness, as the Zen folk might prefer to say) in a state of not-knowing, you 'get' Zen. What if SMiLE is this simple? Brian's enlightenment is dipping your head into cold water. It's freedom from conceptual spider webs.

After the "Ahhhhh" Eb/F part of Good Vibrations (after the church hymn harmonica part), in that brief moment of shattering reverb, THAT'S the Zen moment.

[Mike's Beard]

YAAAWWWWWWWN!! I'm tired. Is anyone else tired?

[Bill Tobelman]

Ghost said:

The purpose of Zen koans is to break the usual process of thought.

This is what Arthur Koestler postulated was the basis of creation.

[ghost]

And to riff on ideas Bill has kindly introduced to the thread...

SMiLE could be seen as a hypnagogic trip through Brian's inner musical landscape, facilitated by Van Dyke Park's old time aura. It's the Beach Boys in Wonderland. It flows by loosely related subconscious associations. That's why the structure of SMiLE is so elusive and why most attempts at structuring it turn out dull. The associations were not even consciously known to Brian in full, they were but vague subconscious fragments of genius. SMiLE is modular - like a hypnagogic reverie, where thoughts become visual subconscious manifestations - wordless symbols from the source of all knowledge, genius, and madness. SMiLE is a collection of musical frames. Perhaps, musical koans. All fall down & lost in the mystery - dare I say the mystery is such because it is incapable of being exhausted by words? It cannot be captured in words. Just give up. Then you'll find it.

[ghost]

Brian Wilson & The Joyous Cosmology.

Alan Watts was an autodidact like all great men, hence he is not respected by many. This, Bill, is problem I suspect you have faced trying to get The Joyous Cosmology any respect in 2011. Alan Watts?! Man, you mean that alcoholic Zen dude who walked around talking to himself? Get outta here...

But, the man brought an infectious enthusiasm to Oriental mysticism & method to the Occidental world in an important time. He was into Zen Buddhism long before becoming a looney tune (as some would imagine) on LSD and other drugs. The Joyous Cosmology is a generalized account of an ancient primordial belief - that the cosmos is a dream in the mind of god. That this is an ecstatic explosion of infinite potential manifesting as creative play out of its own abundance. The absolute is conceived as all that is (as well as 'this') and not separate from it. God is not waiting outside the Universe for you to die and shake his hand. God is the universe. We are it. We're the living truth. Everything is everything. There are no things. Nondualism, monistic idealism... this is the idea here. LSD is one of the primary 'joyous cosmology' drugs. On LSD you tend to feel that this cosmos is a wonderful place. That's all. Brian used LSD, he seems to have had this kind of experience. Hence such books are for him probably more expressive of his own world view than he himself could be with words. If Brian asked for a copy of that book, I'd say there's a strong chance that he thinks quite highly of the perspectives in it and their implications (if one believes them 'as if' now).

[ghost]

There's also a 'Monstrous, Alien Cosmology' drug. I dare not speak its name lest any accuse me of being a pusher around the kiddies.

Cough. Damn my sore throat.

[Bill Tobelman]

If you go back to my incomplete post from earlier today you'll notice that the "mysteries full of meaning" part was never followed up on.

That's because the "meaning" has to do with the LSD experience & folks around these parts have no such frame of reference (especially since they totally discount the accounts in Brian's Bio).

But I would like to present the idea that SMiLE is very much like The Joyous Cosmology (which is Alan Watts presenting his trip experiences) except that in SMiLE such references are hidden.

[ghost]

If you go back to my incomplete post from earlier today you'll notice that the "mysteries full of meaning" part was never followed up on.

That's because the "meaning" has to do with the LSD experience & folks around these parts have no such frame of reference (especially since they totally discount the accounts in Brian's Bio).

But I would like to present the idea that SMiLE is very much like The Joyous Cosmology (which is Alan Watts presenting his trip experiences) except that in SMiLE such references are hidden.

Perhaps SMiLE speaks, musically & lyrically, in the 'twilight language' common to other daring elements within traditional constraints who infuse the ordinary meanings with an esoteric depth? The 'sahaja' yogis within Buddhist & Hindu groups - those whose experiences are direct & transcending the culture or direct lineage. Brian broke free but his freedom was too much to bear. He's a caged bird again but seems content at least.

[Bill Tobelman]

The Shaman speaks metaphorically.

Brian Wilson did speak frankly around the time of his solo album. I paraphrase, "God cannot be conceived so we put him up in the sky." Metaphor.

[Bill Tobelman]

Ghost said: "Brian broke free but his freedom was too much to bear."

This is from The Act Of Creation:

"The re-structuring of mental organization effected by the new discovery implies that the creative act has a revolutionary or destructive side. The path of history is strewn with is victims:the discarded isms of art, the epicycles and phlogistons of science."

[ghost]

Henry Flynt wrote an insightful article on Pandit Pran Nath [I'll let anyone interested do the required research] where he said that if enlightenment is not compatible with ordinary life then ordinary life must crush people and remove all their latent potentials. Pran Nath could only exist in his way within a culture that recognized him within a particular conceptual framework: as a guru representing a pure lineage of classical vocal styling that has its core in mystical mantra & ritual practices [Pran Nath was a 'Hindu' to be vague but a finger lazily pointing to the moon]. Similarly, Brian had to accommodate his outer life to manage his inner life. All the phases Brian has gone through over the years could be seen as attempts by himself & others to keep him safely functioning in his autism. This is necessary - for the ordinary world would crush him.