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Truth
Rock 'n' Roll Style
by
Swami Beyondananda
Ever
since I can remember, I've been asking
questions. At first, they were very simple
questions like: "Could you change my
diaper?" and "Can I try that other
breast for a while?" But as my natural
curiosity about the world awakened, I began to
ask deeper questions: "When did time
begin? When will it end? Do you turn the clock
backward or forward for daylight savings time?
Do we have any time-outs left, or will the
clock just keep running?" And, of course,
I pondered the meaning of Life. Did life have
any true significance, or were we simply the
Comedy Channel for the Gods?
And
so I began my search for someone wiser than
myself, which was pretty easy in those days,
for I was a young Oklahoma farm boy still wet
behind the ears (this was before guys used
hair dryers). I knew enough to know I didn't
know much but not enough to know how much I
didn't know. I developed a ravenous appetite
for knowledge, and had eaten nearly half the
philosophy books in the local library when my
first mentor, the great Native American shaman
Broken Wind, took me aside to tell me I was
going about it the wrong way. "Your
hunger for knowledge is admirable, young one,
and it must be preceded by the thirst for
wisdom."
I
was on the verge of giving up seeking entirely
and just getting a regular job at the local
karma wash when I heard about a spiritual
master who used rock 'n' roll to teach life's
great truths. Perhaps you've heard of him, Baba
Oom Mow Mow.
In
Baba Oom Mow Mow, I found an individual whose
spiritual journey could inspire my own. Born
Zach Lee Wright in Knoxville, Tennessee, he
was the son of the noted preacher Soul Wright.
After
leaving home, he drifted from one rock band to
another leading the honky-tonk life. One
night, Zach was playing at a bar in Louisville
as lead guitarist for the heavy metal band
Meaty Ochre, (not to be confused with the even
more obscure Cajun Zydeco band "Meaty
Okra"), and he accidentally slobbered
some beer onto his amplifier cord. The
resulting shock blew all of his circuits, and
for once his lack of ability saved his life.
Had he been a better conductor, he would have
died for sure.
Life
was never the same after that. As Zach would
say later, "Some folks have been touched
by the hand of God. Me, He knocked upside the
head." Then and there he gave up the
smoky bar scene and foreswore hard drink (easy
drink he still partakes of, however). He moved
to a simple cabin made of earth and wood (his
friend Johnny B. Goode had recently left it to
go to the city) and began to formulate what he
calls the Golden Rule of Rock 'n' Roll, which
can be summed up as "Do wop unto others
as you would have them do wop unto you."
Taking the name "Baba Oom Mow Mow",
he is known for composing and performing
popular tunes that leave no chakra unturned.
His best known hits include: "Love Is
Like An I Ching In My Heart",
"Everybody Needs Samadhi Sometime",
"B'hai B'hai Love," "Swami Said
There'll Be Days Like This", "Zen He
Kissed Me", "Yanni Get Angry",
"You Ascend Me", and "Hang On
Sufi".
By
the time I met Baba Oom Mow Mow, he was living
in semi-retirement devoting most of his time
to putting the Akashic records on CD. The rest
of the time he and several other old guys were
playing in a 50's revival band called
Ancient Grease. When I told him I was seeking
the answers to Life's Great Mystery, he
scratched his pompadour and said, "You
know, once at a Fabian Society meeting,
Georgie Shaw told me if you repeat a question
enough the answer will come." He excused
himself and went into his archives of 45's.
He came out with a copy of "Who Put
the Bomp In The Bomp-Ba Bomp-Ba Romp?"
and instructed me to listen to it until I
discovered the Meaning of Life. Three weeks
later, after nearly 10,000 spins, the record
was worn out and so was I.
I
stumbled into Baba Oom Mow Mows sanctum and
babbled the mantra that had worn a permanent
groove in my consciousness: "Bomp-ba-bompba-bomp,
rama-lama-dingdong, dipda-dip-da-dip,
boogety-boogetyshoo."
"That's
it," said the Great Master. "You got
it."
"That's
it? 'Bomp-ba-bomp-ba-bomp, ramalama-ding-dong,
dip-da-dip-dadip, boogetyboogety-shoo' is the
meaning of life? It just doesn't make any
sense.
"Exactly
right", he nodded. "That's the
brilliance of rock 'n' roll. In a society that
hasn't made any sense for at least two
generations, rock has given us the language to
tell it like it is. I mean, imagine you're a
kid back there in the 50's and you're
in school and they're having a shelter drill
where you put your head under your desk and
that's supposed to save you from nuclear
attack. Do you see where 'Sha-na-na-na,
sha-na-na-na-na' or 'Yada-da-da-
da-dada-da-da-do sh-boom, sh-boom' might make
more sense than anything your teacher might
tell you?"
I
couldn't argue with his logic, and yet there
was something missing. "Well," I
said, "if life's meaning can be summed up
in a series of nonsense syllables, does life
have any purpose? Is there any reason why we
are here in the first place?"
"Well,
that's a slightly different question," he
said. Baba Oom Mow Mow once again went deep
within his archives and emerged with a dusty
LP. "Here you will find your
answer," he said, handing me a copy of Liberace
Plays Little Richard.
I
listened to this obscure album religiously for
months. And then one night it came to me, just
as the Prince of Glitter was putting a final
glissando on "Tutti Frutti". The
secret of life is astoundingly simple. Every
human being secretly wants to be a great piano
player.
To
test my hypothesis, I asked everyone I knew.
Sure enough, each and every one would have
given their last Haagen Dasz bar to be another
Arthur Rubinstein, Bruce Hornsby, or even a
Fats Domino. Excitedly, I rushed into Baba Oom
Mow Mows quarters to tell him of my discovery.
I had to wait in silence until the
"Hullabaloo" re-run he was watching
was over, and then I spilled it. "Oh,
Hollied One," I shouted. "I have
found the secret of life, I've found the
secret of life! See, every human being wants
to be a great piano player!"
The
grizzled rocker looked at me with quiet
bemusement and said, "Calm down, calm
down. Your discovery is nothing new. Sigmund
Freud came up with the same thing back in 1905.
He called it Pianist
Envy."
This
was a shock to me since I'd always heard Freud
was hung up on sax. Guess I'd have to go back
and listen to my Pink Freud ("Obviously,
a Floydian slip! - Ed.") albums. At any
rate, I sensed that my time with Baba Oom Mow
Mow was coming to an end. This suspicion was
confirmed when he played one final record for
me, "Hit The Road, Jack."
"Well
I guess if you say so," I said
reluctantly, "I'll have to pack my things
and go."
"That's
right," he said. And he closed the door
behind me.
Reader's
Comments, click
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The
above was excerpted with permission by Steve
Bhaerman, and is from Swami Beyondananda's
book, "When You See A Sacred Cow, Milk It
For All Its Worth"; ©1993, published by
Aslan Publishing, P.O. Box 108, Lower Lake, CA
95457.
Read also:
"Who
Is Swami Beyondananda"
and
more
articles from the Swami
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