Pop Stars & Philosophy

Been streaming JJJ all day today and just stopped by the webpage to have a gander. Found an interview with Bee Lee that I really liked - it's super long but this bit in particular has me navel gazing this arvo & thought I'd share (I know, I know: an under-fed, over inflated celeb has inspired me to question my intrinsic perceptions & values - I'll hang my head if you promise to shake yours). Ben is in Italics.
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I was talking to someone the other day about the film Kingdom of Heaven. Have you seen that?

I haven't seen it.

Well, it's really not that great.

Is this the one about the crusades?

Yes, and all the different warring sides were going to war saying, 'God is behind us', and 'God wants this war'. And I just started thinking in the middle of the movie about how, especially today, everybody uses God on their side. All these war-makers say, 'God wants this, this is God's will'. And I thought, that's the entire problem with mankind; we consider ourselves arrogant enough to believe we know what God wants. Surely, if you were a believer, in the face of God you should be humble.

That's true. One of the big contradictions that people face talking about this subject or thinking about it is that the language of the universe is a language of paradox, and it's full of contradictions. I believe God does want each of us to find our truth. I studied the Eastern perspective, where everything is fate, it's already been written. So in a way, if war has to happen, it has to happen - it is what God wanted. When peace happens, that's also the natural flow of things, right? But to say God only wants what you want isn't right, because then God also wants what your enemy wants, you know what I mean? People can't handle the paradox; they can't handle that it's not about getting what you want. It's an ego perspective way of looking at spirituality. Even now, the cult of yoga and all these things, often the way it's sold is the idea that you should do it because it's going to just make you healthier and your life longer and you'll be more in shape. But where does the idea of service come into that? All of that is about stuff that you can get out of it. My interest in spirituality is: where does it transform people to actually stop thinking about themselves and actually start thinking about how they fit into the bigger picture?

From an Eastern point of view then, how does that leave us in terms of feeling helpless in the scheme of what's set out in front of you, if it's already destined to happen?

Yes, you are helpless. One way to look at it is you're helpless; but another way to look at it is you're totally taken care of. You're helpless in terms of you getting everything your ego wants, but you're very supported in terms of being part of the bigger picture. One of the really interesting comments on Eastern philosophy and thought in our pop culture world was The Matrix. It was all about waking up from an illusion; it was all about fate, and all those ideas of destiny. At one point he asked the Oracle a really interesting question. He said, 'If all my decisions have been made, what's the point? What's the point of going through it?' And she says, 'All your decisions have been made; you came here to work out why you made them.' When you really get into Eastern thought, they say it's not the decisions you make, it's the intention you make them with.

How does it work, then, for the six year old with leukaemia?

How does what work?

Well, that idea of the path that kid would have - he might die at only six.

You might say he comes back again, and we all go around and around, and some lives we suffer, some lives we don't. On my spiritual journey, a lot of it has come with the idea of letting go of the judging what I know to be right and wrong. At some points I've been through things in my life that people are like, 'How could you go through that? That's so awful.' We've all been through this. I went through that with breaking up with Claire and then my dad dying; all these things happening, leaving Grand Royal and everyone was like, 'Oh my God, it's so awful.' And I was, like, 'Awful?' These were the most liberating things in the world because they gave me the inspiration to go deeper and work out who the hell I am.

So how did you arrive to even start thinking about this stuff? Does that mean that you never get depressed?

Oh no, no. That's just emotions. Emotions go up and down, they go crazy. I mean, the real shift for me had to do with the question, what am I doing this for? With Breathing Tornadoes I had a really big record in Australia, and then Hey You, Yes You didn't do as well, but I was totally unaffected by it because I felt no desire to pursue more power just for the sake of getting more power, do you know what I mean? You look at certain people, like huge rock stars, they seem to get off on the thrill of it just getting bigger and bigger and bigger. But, for me, I'd already gotten a bit of that and I didn't feel like I needed more because I didn't know why I wanted it. In a lot of ways my music was like a diary entry, the way I used it as a teenager, and I didn't feel like there was a purpose to it. It didn't connect me with people. So the search wasn't a search for the meaning of life; that was too abstract, I just wouldn't know where to begin. For me it was, 'Why am I doing what I'm doing? Why am I making music? Why am I on tour? Every day I'm in a different city. What for?' It was it was totally practical. That's why on one hand you can look at it and say that it's such a hard question to ask, but on the other hand it was the simplest question to ask. Why should I bother?

The difficult thing about that conversation and the difficult thing about using the word 'God'. If you look at it from a scientific level, from a quantum physics level, we've already reached the frontiers of science, and they've said we're all connected, we're all part of this one organism. The blink of an eye could cause a tidal wave on the other side of the world. There is one thing, and you see that in a lot of psychic things that happen some people are more open to it than others, but there are definitely psychic connections that people have throughout the world. I had a dream my dad was going to die a few months before he did. A lot of people have these stories, because we're connected. So if we're one thing, what is that one thing? I call it God. But I don't look at it as a guy with a white beard. I don't personify it. For me, if anything, the personification that I feel comfortable with is more of the mother. 'All-powerful', 'all-knowing' these are masculine, patriarchal images that we have of the divine.

Often God is depicted as very punishing.

Exactly, and it doesn't work for me because, essentially, at the end of the day, it's not fun. All my experiences that I've had in my life have shown me that joy is the key to connecting with God. So that's why the spiritual content in my music is so not dogmatic, you know? I would never say to someone, 'You have to be a Jew, you have to be a Buddhist, you have to go to India', none of that stuff. I can talk about my path, but the only real spiritual content of my music is the acknowledgment that there's a bigger plan going on than meets the eye, and the fact that we each have to find our truth.

I can't handle the whole, 'We must have greater meaning!' spiel of people such as Oprah Winfrey, mainly because I think it's all tied to our own egos, and useless Western anxiety. I'm sure that some starving person in Ethiopia isn't thinking about their greater meaning - they're probably hoping for food.

I totally understand what you're saying, and when it come to faith there's very little you can actually talk about. The one thing I would say to you is to stop worrying about that starving person in Africa, who you haven't even met. You're just imagining them. They're a projection of you, you know what I mean? If you can tell me, 'I have a friend starving in Africa who feels like this', then that's a very valid thing to bring up. But right now, you're just using that as a defence for a reason to not have faith.

I guess I just don't feel the need to have any faith outside of the day that I'm living right now.

In terms of you being on your path, whatever that is, you're on it. There's no right or wrong way to do it. I can only say what works for me and you can only say what works for you, and we can both exist being right - even if we've got different answers. If people could develop that ability to hold the paradox in their mind, then there might be less conflict in the world, where it's not that one holy book is right more than another holy book. It could be, wow, isn't this world diverse and amazing and brilliant? We do not need to try and convince each other to change.

Absolutely. It's the whole three blind men and the elephant story. You can't ever get the same point of view about the same thing.

The important thing about that story is that they are all having an experience; they are all feeling an elephant, even though they can't describe it. A lot gets lost in the translation and in them trying to convince each other, but there is something there. For me, what's interesting is talking to people about what ever it is that gets them through the day. From the limited amount I know you; I know a huge part of what I would call your 'faith' is in music. There are no real atheists. A real atheist believes in nothing. If you believe in music; if you believe in art; if you believe that it's worth talking about; if you believe in sharing your emotions, these are beliefs, you know? And it's the act of having faith in the belief that gives you power, it's not the thing that you believe in. If you love music, if another guy loves soccer, if another guy loves Jesus, it's very similar - it's going to bring them joy.

The people who I think my music is speaking to, it's not like they're looking for an answer but I feel like there's a lot of people in the world who are hungry just to believe that life could mean something to them. A lot of people have had that beaten out of them, and they really just want to share the experience of knowing there are other people that believe they can make something of their life; that life could become better, that they could love in a pure way. These things aren't talked about as openly as maybe some of us would like. I think those people are the ones who I really have something to say to.
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Yeah, probably a little too deep for a Saturday but these introspective moments rarely schedule themselves conveniently ;-) Really starting to feel bad about downloading his new album (Awake Is The New Sleep) gratis off the internet though!