Meditation, Music and Social Vision
7000 years ago, or so, Sadashiva, the founder of yoga, said that one of the seven secrets of spiritual success is to have a balanced mind.
What does this mean? One should not have a superiority complex, nor should one have an inferiority complex. Everyone knows that a big ego is an impediment to spiritual growth. However, just as the “umbrella of ego” can prevent you from feeling the rain of spiritual grace, an inferiority complex can cause you to stop striving for perfection. Continue reading
I would like to wish everyone a bright and happy New Year. I believe that I will be very busy in the New Year. My memoir, From Brooklyn to Benares and Back has just been released and I will go around the country promoting it. If you would like me to give a book reading in your locality, please let me know.
I wrote new songs in the past year and this year I hope to record them properly. I also have plans to do my podcast (at www.dharmacast.com ) on a more frequent basis in the coming months. All of this will keep me busy and I hope it will also provide you with good material for your reading and listening pleasure.
While reading The Myrobalan Seed blog I saw an article about Sadvipran or spiritual Hip Hop music and it reminded me of the attempt that I made to mix spirituality with American Doo wop music.
Doo wop is the name given to rock ‘n’ roll vocal group music that began to emerge in the early 1950s. At the time it was called rhythm and blues and then finally rock ‘n’ roll. The genre got its name because the groups added vocalizations like doo-wop, dits, shoo bop, and other sounds which are akin to the scat singing in jazz where the vocalists sing wordless syllables to set the beat
.
A good example of early doo wop is The Crow’s “Gee” recorded in 1953. It begins “Dit, dita, dit, dita, dit, dita, dita, dita” and then the lead singer launches into the lyric proclaiming his love for a girl named Gee. The critics of rock ‘n’ roll had a field day with these songs. TV variety show host Steve Allen got a lot of laughs when he would read out the lyrics of rock ‘n’ roll songs including all the dits and doo-wops. The teenagers of the day were not laughing but dancing and grooving with this new kind of music that liberated them from the crooners their parents were listening to. Continue reading
I first heard about the hippies (though the word wasn’t coined then) in June 1967 when my best friend urged me to go with him to San Francisco. He said there was something happening on the streets. It didn’t sound interesting and I went to Massachusetts for a summer of social work instead. However, I could not escape a counter cultural torrent that was flooding America. There were psychedelic drugs, the mystical music of Donovan, and the Beatles’ “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” In 1968 I read Edgar Cayce’s On Prophecy and was convinced that we were on the cusp of the Age of Aquarius.
It didn’t work out exactly as I envisioned it, but it is fair to ask whether the hippie world view of the 1960s makes any sense today. Continue reading
About a month ago I entered my song “No More Blood, No More Tears” in the Songs for Peace contest sponsored by the Rotary Club of Vero Beach Florida. My song was placed on their website www.songsforpeace.net and people were able to listen and vote for it. The contest will be decided by votes from Internet users as well as by a panel of judges. In the last 24 hours there has been a surge of support for my song and the song is now in second place, just a few votes behind the leader. If you haven’t done so yet go to this link and listen to the song, and if you like it please vote for it. It takes only a few seconds to vote (nothing complicated). If you have already voted, Thank You!
Dada’s Podcasts© 2025 Dada Veda
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑