John McLaughlin
As a musician I can say that without inspiration I am artistically dead, so I will choose another subject: The Universe.
Since the scientific revolution began there is a common belief that we are the only intelligent life in the universe. This view lacks imagination.
Let me start by applying imagination to our beautiful planet which is bursting with life and has been for millions of years before human life existed.
In my imagination the planet is itself alive, otherwise how could it possibly give birth to such abundance of life. It was born and it will die like every living being.
In addition, our planet revolves around our sun. The scientist tells me that the planet orbits the sun because of mutual ‘gravity’ which is ‘mutual attraction’.
To me this confers awareness to our planet because it is in a direct relationship with our sun. The fact that this awareness may seem implausible is simply a lack of imagination. Our planet may be a lesser goddess but a goddess nevertheless.
And now the living Sun. How can this magnificent God-like being be considered anything less than God-like with God-like intelligence? It is so awesome one cannot look at it with the naked eye. In addition, it performs the most magnificent and noble sacrifice of all: It consumes its own body and in the process gives light and warmth to plant and animal life on earth without which they will die. It is a Being of extremely exalted status.
It also is in direct relationship with all its planets by governing their dance around it. In addition, it has a direct relationship with a Being of even greater exalted status, our Galaxy whose awareness and intelligence are truly Cosmic…
How wonderful to live in a Universe with Gods and Goddesses instead of lumps of rock and fireballs drifting aimlessly around in Space…
John McLaughlin is a guitarist, bandleader, composer, and pioneer of jazz fusion as one of the genre’s most virtuosic guitar soloists who has placed his blazing speed in the service of a searching spiritual passion that has kept his music evolving and open to new influences. Whether shredding on electric or simmering quietly on acoustic, his intensity and underappreciated versatility have nearly always kept his playing vital, and his best moments — whether as a solo artist or bandmember — represent some of fusion’s greatest recordings.
Emu
12 months agoGreat sir ❤️👍🙏
Jago
12 months agoWords of wisdom and hope. Thanks! Personally, I perfectly understand that mankind or part of it, has worshipped Sun as God or Goddess. Elements. Life-giving. More reasonable than cruel Jahve from Old Testament.
Andrey Oksis
12 months agoI support in defining by these precise terms our cosmic harmony universe of my spiritual and musical
King over and over again. He is clear, as high as ever, brilliant and perfect in his high philosophy! Bravo! Thank you for everything!
Jacques Mantica
12 months agoBeautiful and deep as always
James P
12 months agoWe are all here by pure luck. Enjoy it while you can before you go back to there you came from. BTW John, I beleive your one of rhe best guitarist on THIS planet anyway.
😎
john fraser
12 months agoIn the end even the sun will end. And as the last red dwarf burns out, the one thing we can say is we we are here and for now we are. In some ways, the old wisdom is being lost, taken over by the chip. Its hard to find books, especially the classics… Edison, Poe, Shelley, Keats, Shakespeare, etc.. Jazz will be forgotten as an art form, just like the books to be replaced by the cult of celebrity. There will be less people on the quest?….. for? At the back of our brains there is a forgotten blaze or burst of astonishment at our own existence. The object of the artistic and spiritual life is to dig for this submerged sunrise of wonder.
Sean Kelly
12 months agoDear John,
Your music inspired me as a teenager in the early 70s. It’s a gift now to find that we share the same sense of Earth and Sun and stars as living, ensouled, and enchanting beings. If you don’t know it already, you will love the work of my colleague, Brian Swimme.
With gratitude and blessings, Sean Kelly
Niven Ramasamy
12 months agoWow, you were already a level above in the world of music, second to none in the jazz world fusion music. Now I discover another John whose yet on another level spiritually. Your description of our planets is unique and of so highly meaningful. You to my spiritual IQ is a step up. Listening to your Music will elevate me to another level. Many thanks for your years of contribution to Music. 🥰🥰🥰
Scott Forrest
12 months agoLord help us find the tertium quid between serious awareness and unbridled imagination.
As always, maestro, inspiring.
Ludovic Taiclet
12 months agoDharma Sva Dharma.
Music is God.
John Cavuoto
12 months agoJohn, thank you for your wisdom. I have been a listener of MahaVishnu since Inner Mounting Flame was a revelation. And yes, Bagavad Gita confirms that the sun and many other heavenly being do exist. “The Personality of Godhead, Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, said: “I instructed this imperishable science of yoga to the sun-god, Vivasvān, and Vivasvān instructed it to Manu, the father of mankind, and Manu in turn instructed it to Ikṣvāku.” — BG, Chapter 4, Verse 1.
Gerald D'ambrosio
9 months agoI like to think that the universe is made out of music. There is Harmony and Discord. Sound travels in waves. Our current state of the Art technologies, some would say advance our existence, others a hinderance. Is Mankind’s thirst for Knowledge a rod to beat ones own back? I would rather turn my back on the world and live in a potting shed and listen too jazz and study music theory for the rest of my days than try too reason with the unreasonable. The current high priests of technology believe that material gains is an advance in states of affairs. I on the other hand do not think so. This is a subject I think must be discussed and be entered into discourse. If one states that there is progress, then there must be a finite result, a system of belief, so the question would be, “Is Science a Religion?” A belief system based on finite result, just because the electromagnetic spectrum has been manipulated does not mean that television is a human necessity, or that computers which are a by product of the valve amplifier are required. So science, which uses a system of pyramid selling, it is not possible to gain insight and knowledge of the inner workings of the universe by staring at a few inches of computer screen. I would say the human condition has slipped into a sort of self-hypnosis, shadows in the cave. Where is the discipline? Sometimes, I speak here as a musician. One must cast off and loosen the shackles around our ankles from time too time and not look to the stars for answer. The universe is far too complex for the human mind too Unravel. It is a wonderful thing, but it is not our job, spiritual enlightenment to ease the baggage. Or are we asking the wrong questions? I was once playing the guitar in a music shop and a passer-by asked me how was I doing “that.” I said “I do not know”, it just happens from time to time. There is so much I do not know….I accept this. There is so much I do not understand, so I let it cast off. It is not my job to reason with human condition. Many great minds have tried. I awoke today at 7am, had a coffee, stared out of the window and put Love Devotion Surrender on by Carlos Santana and John McLaughlin. I will restring a guitar. I have many mothballed projects, some take a few hours, some a few days, some will however take years. The future is not set. Things are going too change. Things are going to get better. Let us go into the House of the Lord, and so where would we be without Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Larry Coryell, Allan Holdsworth, Charles Mingus, Chick Corea, and many more? I would have withered away. Without spiritual nourishment that must be replenished on a regular basis, I would of withered away like a plant without water. The importance of these musicians is life-sustaining. The universe needs it. It can not function without these great minds. Jazz will not wither away. Its life cycle will be reborn, take on other forms, and the seeds planted over the last 100 years or so will grow and re-nourish future minds and generations. This current DIGITAL phase is just like the audio cassette, vinyl, 28’s. It too will pass and crumble and wither. Jazz music in its many forms isn’t going anywhere. Us Jazz Poofters are not going anywhere anytime soon. I have listened too Mr. McLaughlin’s music everyday for thirty or so years. Ever since I was passed a record, Between Nothingness and Eternity. This for unknown reasons has had a profound affect on my very existence. So one could ask, “How is it that my whole life which has revolved around music and musicians who whom I have never met spoken to or even seen live had such a profound affect on a person? This sort of thing to me, I interpret as something that is here to stay for infinity. It is in itself a conundrum. There is more jazz music, jazz literature, and access too jazz right now than at any other point in history. I am very excited about what the future of jazz is going to be. There are many of us out there still listening to the infinite skills of Paco De Lucia and those skills go way beyond the edges of the universe. I will not be silenced by the static background noise of the universe. I speak in metaphors, as not all music is noise and not all noise is music. Music is a revelation, a quest it is. “What is going too Happen Next?” put the material real aside for one moment. Why is jazz music not compulsory? Why is it not taught alongside math, science, literature? There is a body and volume of work to justify a Jazz Music Department in every school college and university on the planet. Through education perhaps more jazz clubs will appear, more places for jazz musicians to hang out at and jam, more instruments built and distributed. It’s good for the economy. Children are more attracted to instruments than most other objects. My one-year old son is already picking at the guitar when I leave it laying about the house. Perhaps one day more people will put down there weapons and pick up an instrument. I have lots of guitars. At one point, I couldn’t move without guitars. My belief is always to have a guitar within arms length. Wherever one must go, carry a guitar at all times. Even when I go to the local cafe, I carry a guitar over my shoulder. I have one in the boot of my car. I hang around guitar shops. I have guitar related thoughts. I hear of a band called the Desert Rebel. Maybe one must go and wander in the desert for several years in order to cleanse oneself of the current state of affairs? We Must Travel Beyond the Mirage.
Laurence Charles Williamson
9 months agoDear John, its Greenmoon here, I had a session with you once, you asked me to play the A and B chords. I finished editing my book I have circulated with you at times since the beginning, it took 18 years. Well now I have my own plans to carry you music forward on SciCBN.com and I here nominate you and close students to take part in the first Community Assembly for musicians and lyric-writers. I have a near perfect response to your article that is a synopsis of a UGE I/II that needs a musical version if your students want to engage. Garry is my man ther who you could c.c. this to.
Protocols in ‘DynamEq Lexicon Templates from text: ”Dialogs: DynamEq [& EQnimity], of Inner&Outer [BranchScience] Peace-building” [594 word]
Synopsis of UG Extended working hypotheses UGE I/II Two related challenges as perennial interwoven curricula-calls of Chomsky are Universal Grammar UG to decipher deepest interdependent properties common to all languages, and a Galilean Challenge: concerning unsolved problems … deepest questions of a 2500 year history of linguistic thought (since Aristotle and Gautama): to decipher core principles of profound contrast from a finite number of symbols {beginning inklings of ie.eg.{varieties of others with Pramana &spec. Qi variables}} to infinities of generative thought expression (constructs of the intelligible world emerge): with elucidation forwarded in this textual context by explicate principles of practical structure reflective to a psychophysical substrate of consciousness: -{with its own kinds of innateness parallel to that embedded in physical-apparatus of the visual-organ} viewed as co-extending relevance-theory, previously responsible on principle revisions for branches of science (physiology, psychology, quantum physics, etc). The above infinite explanatory gap as extraordinary interactions among minds, was context enough for Galileo, Descartes, and contemporaries to be in AWE: that in the actually (author’s contention) were really ‘solved-unsolved’ problems to the present day. A related proposition is that cognitive systems e.g. audio and visual sense-fields, are originative due to innate and genetically-determined capacity: a causal implicate phenomenon underlying the plasticity to develop most complex tasks, ordinarily having connotation of being activated by means of external stimuli. Such explorational qualitative-responsibility is of human-functional Mind & Cognitive branch-sciences; and in turn, topics for a nominee independent journal root-compilation of ‘DynEq’-Lexicon empirical statements, testable-hypotheses, phenomenological ciphers, and protocols (UGE I). Fulfilling these purposes is a pioneered-forefront of several defined root-branches, as the broad-bandwidth mainstays of corroborative experimentation; topically defining -{foundational praxis and empirical tracts in consciousness studies as working-hypotheses}.
As resource to integrative cultivation of Special and General Theories of Ontological Relativity, are established-bases of D.Hoffman’s pioneering work on mathematical models of consciousness, with a relational branch-science worldview of its discovered dimensions; and these are already integrated extensions to 3Dimensional science of International [DynEq] Shamatha Project working-hypotheses; for empirical-nurture of interdependently-innate psychophysical, mental, cultural and psychological flourishing: -{core consciousness studies by way of -{outer-sciences of inner science as CogSci foundational relations}}. These relevance-theories even saliently extend to nominated substantive-revisions on “new Magna Carta” (UGE II), and as such are peripheral parts of journal definition, substantiation of which is provided by H.Atmanspacher’s terms of official reformation on institutional transdisciplinarity: parts of a longitudinal and overdue emergent-renaissance in mind and cognitive sciences, as crucial integral supports for the many kinds of flourishing.
In style of both Eastern and Western formulations of the epistemic-explicate referent is : ‘oral and aural languages as Hermeneutic Circle: a whole common-language able to define its parts; parts defining the whole’. The professional documentations include Energy Arts tutorage as primary-sources (I&II); likewise, for unified-dynamic Parasympathetic System performing arts and science (UGE II), and technical neuroscience scrutiny-aspects (UGE I), is E.Thompson. These most-longitudinal researches from core paradigmatic traditions, represent methods investigating the phenomenological matrix of {ET:} Mindfulness Related Practices From Enactive and Movement Perspectives for the mindfulness movement: qualified by three generic-standard medical and epistemic traditions. Further scientific input and output is a Mind Training Academy mentorship, adjoining Olympic-Sports Academy interfaces of founding-input to international local training-networks and other grounds and goals: initialising the band-bandwidth mindfulness research-intensives between 2010-2015, ongoing: fathoming non-formulaic syntheses/applications of curricula.