The Facebook Interview (revisited)

Recently, a Facebook friend named Adam Lee (pictured right) asked me a couple of questions about Facebook. Said he was writing an article on... well, Facebook! Thought I'd share my response with you...

Where do you think Facebook is heading?

Consider the unimaginable ways young people can find themselves becoming billionaires in the digital age: back in the mid-1990s Larry Page and Sergey Brin were 23-year-old computer studies undergrads at Stanford U when they stumbled on a new algorithm for a faster, more free-associating search engine called Google. Today each is worth USD16.7 billion.

Then there's Mark Zuckerberg who started Facebook in February 2004 as an interactive social networking website for the campus crowd while he was in college. I hear Yahoo! offered Zuckerberg USD1.7 billion for Facebook last year - and he turned down their offer. Last I heard, MSN estimates that Facebook is worth USD15 billion.

My point is: these youngsters have been able to turn a simple idea into a complex income-generating engine by identifying two basic human needs, viz., the desire for information and the desire to feel connected. These desires are very much in alignment with the incoming frequencies of the Aquarian Age (the Water Bearer symbolizes the dissemination of wisdom acquired during the Capricornian phase of introspection and consolidation, and the Piscean phase of dissolution and disintegration of ancient taboos).

Today more and more people regard a laptop or tablet (and now smartphones) as an essential personal accessory. Instant messaging, virtually free text-messaging, Skype and a whole array of connectivity tools has been facilitated by advances in satellite communications that would leave our grandparents scratching their bald pates. This is what I call the age of server-assisted telepathy when a planetary mind is emerging from the preceding centuries of technological development. Buckminster Fuller, thirty years ago, called it "accelerating acceleration." By this he meant that quantum advances in technology would soon hurl us beyond the gravitational pull of the tragic past into a comic/romantic future.

Take Facebook's burgeoning popularity: within two years just about everybody I know who owns a computer, tablet or smartphone is on Facebook. My daughters and their far-flung network of cousins are now on my Facebook friends list. For the first time ever, the separate realities of family and friends are merging in cyberspace. And I just saw an interview with Zuckerberg taped in May 2007 where he quoted the figure 45 million as the total number of Facebook users - that was almost 6 months ago. I figure at least 250,000 new users sign up every day. In June 2017 Facebook hit 2 billion monthly users, making it the world's largest virtual community.



Where is Facebook heading? Who da fuck knows? Right now everybody complains that they're wasting too much time on Facebook (and a few months ago I was bitching about the same thing too) - but the reason Facebook is distracting people from work is that they're having more fun just playing with each other in harmless ways (try throwing a sheep at me in real life!) Friends I hardly get to see in real life are poking, tickling, cuddling, and loving me - albeit virtually but it sure feels nice! Hotties I've long wanted to meet give me cheap thrills by appearing in my inbox and adding me as their Facebook friend. Faces I haven't seen in 25 years are suddenly among my Top Friends! Wow... why ask where a party is heading when it's in full swing?

What's in it for you in Facebook? What's your story?

I live a long way from the city. In my younger days I was a real party animal. For me Facebook is a 24/7 party without the hassle of driving 3 hours, finding a parking space, and worrying about not getting laid. On Facebook you KNOW you're not gonna get laid because it's all make-believe, all a buncha pixels - but you can let go and sink your virtual teeth into that plump backside on some hottie's profile photo without getting slapped (except virtually of course)... and you can bite five pairs of buttocks at one go if you like. This is something I've long dreamed of doing. I've stopped cursing Facebook. In fact I've just written Mark Zuckerberg a thank-you note. Hope he responds with a $50-million deposit in my PayPal account.

On re-reading the above in February 2018, the whole world has shifted into a different set of probable timelines. Recent revelations have unearthed the distinct possibility that digital megacorporations like Google and Facebook may well have been created by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, an offshoot of the US Department of Defense). In effect, they could be products of the "Deep State" designed to effortlessly keep humans under electronic surveillance while our behavioral patterns are closely monitored by ultra-secretive agencies like the NSA, CIA, MI6, Mossad, ASIO and so on (ultimately these covert agencies transcend political ideologies and national boundaries and they all serve the same Central Nervous System (variously called Yahweh, Allah, God, Ialdabaoth, Artificial Intelligence, or the Archons of Fate). 

To me, Google and Facebook serve as useful tools - and tools are either benign or malevolent, depending on who uses them and towards what agenda. If you're paranoid, as many of my friends are who refuse to use social media and insist on sticking with email (even though they must realize that even text messages and phonecalls can be routinely intercepted and stored in gigantic databases like Prism (and now Palantir) - indeed, it is now known that software giants like Microsoft and Apple are ultimately extensions of DARPA and they all come with sneaky backdoors into their operating systems, allowing personal computers, tablets and smartphones to be turned against their owners as spyware.

[First posted 28 October 2007. Reposted 7 February 2018]

UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS DECLARATION (reprise)

Universal Human Rights Declaration
by Antares

There are two very basic human rights that are often overlooked. These very basic rights have far-reaching implications affecting the way we look at reality.

THE RIGHT TO LIVE

This right has historically been completely disregarded when those who wield hereditary power have decided to wage war. The military solution to economic, political or ideological conflicts is very rarely justified.

Warmongering is an infringement of humanity’s right to live by its highest ideals. All those involved in war activities - which includes the development and manufacture of death-dealing devices - must be regarded as potential killers.

Their thought-patterns and behavior can be classified as pathological. I would extend this classification to those engaged in commercial and industrial activities that have deleterious long-term effects on the environment - because the right to live implies the right to a healthy natural environment.

The Death Penalty is a vestige of moral barbarism and I urge that it be abolished throughout the world.

THE RIGHT TO DIE


Now let’s look at another basic human right: the right to die. All forms of drug addiction may be regarded as subtle ways to commit suicide. And although we do what we can to discourage people from terminating their lives prematurely, the final prerogative belongs to the individual.

We must respect the right of others to die, if they no longer wish to live. Therefore, I propose that all forms of drug addiction be decriminalized, and that drug addicts be regarded as potential suicides - and since the suicidal tendency is essentially a pathological condition, treatment or therapy must be freely provided to those who seek it.

I would like to see Malaysia’s mandatory death penalty for drug offences abolished. Stringent drug laws only serve to make the illicit drug trade more lucrative for criminal syndicates. Supply will drop dramatically – and, most likely, so will the demand - when addictive substances are available over the counter at regulated prices with the same quality controls as other consumer products.

Drug addiction may not disappear completely, but decriminalizing it will definitely relocate the problem where it belongs - in the medical, sociological and psycho-spiritual context.

[Drafted in December 1990 as a paper to be read out at a Human Rights Day event organized by the Universiti Malaya Law Faculty. Unfortunately, the organizing committee decided to drop me from the list of invited speakers at the last minute, after consulting with their lecturers. First posted 17 March 2010, reposted 29 October 2015 & 4 April 2017]

AISODONOLAH ~ another Manglish poem by Antares (repost)

Aitelyu ah, every year laif getting harder,
Not like lastaim so seemple one.
You remember ornot dat taim we all in skool
Honda Cub five hundred dollar can buy.
Now how much oridi? Five tausend over!
Becos of INGFLATION wat, dey say…
So whatever happen to INFLASI SIFAR hah?
Dis mins debladigarmen’s kempen for “Zero Ingflation”
Only add up to NUTTING pulak…
But aisodonolah…

De udder day my son come home from skool,
Say he nid computer.
Defler form one only, man,
Oridi want to so high-teck!
He say, nowdays got standard six buggers
Using word plocessor – Oi! Mamasan 2020, yutingwat!
So like a bladifoo I take de rascal to the IT Expo
And buy him two tausend linggit computer,
Summore got "Intel Inside" one.
Now defler as soon as he back from tiewshun
Oridi sitting like hunchback wid new video game: Taa-taaaa-taaaaaaang! Zoop-zooooop!
Waaah, got STEREO sound one, pulak:
CIA, James Bond and Mossad versus Al-Qaeda and Al Gore!
Arfturds I go and see how de bladi ting work...
And de ungratefoo chap, ah,
He tell me to go away!
Never gif his old man chan to play…
Aiyoh, chewren dese days ah, watusay,
Aisodonolah…

Hweeyoh, doan tok to me about TRAFFIC JAM, brudder,
See my blood pressure oridi shoot up!
Lemme arsk you ah: got so many so-call iconomicks expert,
How come dey kennot add up how much
Taim, petrol, energy and payshuns wasted
In de bladi name of Progress, hah?
And how come de Otorities seemply allow
Dose gawdam devilopers to build high-rice condo
Even where got only kampong road?
Tingking of da FUTURE, da tick-skin flers say.
WHOSE FUTURE, I arsk you? Their own lah!
Two, tree housing projek oridi can retire,
Get free condo summore…
Cheh! Aisodonolah…

You want to hear a good joke ah?
Why garmen awfis orways got Piles of Work?
Becos dose buggers sit on their fat backside all day long
Till dey all kena PILES pulak –
So dey say PILES OF WORK is Ockupayshunal Hazard lah, haha!

But now ah, I hear dey will be UPGRADED, man:
Every seevil servant will get computer and internet
Under da Smart Awfis Plan -
Mins da furniture smarter than deflers who work there lah!
Dat’s wat MULTIMEDIO SUPER CURRYPUFF is all about lah:
From Mediocracy to Mediacrazy – waffor, man?
We only arsk dem to bekum NICER HOOMIN BEANS –
No nid for all sorts of ackspensif e-kwipment lah.
Aiyoh, so many kampong steel got no paip water
Or letrickcity; nearly half da bladi pawpoolayshun
Kennot read or rait (nemmain their speling lah)…
Steel sumflers want to ackshun only,
Awfer Bill Gates CON-SULTAN JOB IN POOTRAJAYA.
Yuting we kennot awford ah?
Twenty million a month oso no ploblem, man!
But where de heck da money coming from?
Oso, where de fuck de money going?
Aisodonolah.

Tok tok tok tokkok only!
ISO dis and ISO dat,
Aisodono wat.
Everywan and Kompeni going GREEN nowdays,
Mins wat? Learn to PLAY GOLF ah?
SARS-TAIN-ABLE EVERYTING…
Including GREED.
Watudu, booshit is manure - and manure good for growth wat,
You better shurrup and main your own affairs.
Any ploblem call Gurmit or Karpal Singh lah!
But who will do our Dirty Work for us, hah,
Wen dose flers retire or die?
Aisodonolah.

Oridi everyting PRIVATIZED and PIRATIZED,
Now no more Public Sektor lor!
Survival of the Fattest, yutingwat –
Dontch know your Charles Darwin ah, brudder?
“Aiyah, CARI MAKAN lah,” some say,
But ackchwurly ah, CURI MAKAN only.
Sneak around wid bags full of LOOT,
When caught REDHANDED wid pants down
Like dat oso never get de BOOT!
Ackshun spik lauder than words, dey say,
But in dis kiasu-kiasi so-sigh-ty ah,
You tok too laud you get DETAINED;
Kip quiet only, you bin DEBRAINED…
So waffor I tok to YOU ah?
Aisodonolah.


[Written 29 January 1997; revised 4 March 2007 and 13 October 2011; doodles by Antares; reposted 2 November 2015] 

Unpublished interview with a walk-in named Antares (updated)

In October 2011 I was without home access to the internet. We are all creatures of habit and I continued sitting at my computer, sorting out the contents of my personal folders so I could save useful documents on a pen drive. This exercise yielded some interesting discoveries from the recent past - like this hitherto unpublished interview (dated 14 September 2003) conducted by Joeanne Foo, a mass communications student whose assignment was to write a magazine profile on any "colorful and unusual" personality. She began by sending me 13 questions...



1) Who is Antares?

A possible walk-in phenomenon, perhaps, wherein a multidimensional entity (from beyond the 3D Matrix) has effectively fused with the human personality known as "Kit Leee" - or else Antares is a temporary User ID for surfing the zuvuya (what the Maya call the intergalactic, interdimensional memory network). All names, all labels, are essentially part of the return journey to our original and ultimate Ineffability (meaning, the perfect state of Namelessness, or the Tao).

2) What would you consider the biggest achievement(s) in your life?

Remembering the Source of Life and reconnecting with It. On a more modest scale, getting my mother to spell my 3D name, Kit Leee, with 3 E's was exceptionally gratifying. She finally accepted my Third E only after seeing the name printed on the cover of my first book, ADOI! I am also extremely proud of the fact that I quit my last full-time job on 1st April 1977 and have been gleefully "unemployed" since!

3) You talked about having an awakening, what is that all about?

During the 13,000-year long Galactic Night when our Solar System was aligned in the opposite direction from the Milky Way Center, all life entered into a deep sleep and became more and more mechanical in its functions (this has been depicted in allegoric terms in popular folklore, e.g., the legend of the Sleeping Beauty). All through this period of reduced consciousness, which Hindu cosmogony calls Kali yuga or the Age of Darkness, individual souls have awoken to the true nature of their beings from time to time, but were often viewed as avatars (divine incarnations), messiahs or prophets (in effect, put on a pedestal and worshiped, but their message was ignored or misconstrued).

As we approach the dawn of a new Galactic Day, this process of Awakening will happen to more and more individuals until a critical mass is attained, at which point humanity as a whole will remember its true destiny and no longer be enslaved by fear, ignorance, and false beliefs. My individual awakening in 1969 continues to be the central motif of my life - and my determination to never again forget my reason for being has given me the inner resolve to persevere against all odds. (If you genuinely wish to explore this theme further, I suggest you read my long letter to a friend now accessible online.

4) Many people see you as a rather eccentric person, do you see yourself that way?

My understanding of the word "eccentric" is that it describes an orbital pattern that is "off-center" or differently aligned than others. In certain areas I behave just like everybody else, while in others I am completely unique. In short, if people enjoy describing my inclinations as "eccentric" they are free to do so, but their opinions have little impact on my inner reality. I certainly don't view myself as "eccentric" - if anything, I am "centric" or at least "concentric."

5) If you could turn back time somehow, would you choose to live your life differently?

Absolutely not. Well, maybe I'd change my mind about incarnating on this planet - but then I'd be missing all the fun. Who knows? I didn't plan a single day of my life - and thus far the results have been way beyond my wildest expectations.

6) Would you consider yourself a celebrity?

Anyone who even takes the word "celebrity" seriously needs to be reformatted! Why? There's no real meaning or value to being "famous" – the more people that "know of" you the fewer close friends you actually end up having. No doubt in my younger days I enjoyed being admired, recognized, praised for my work. I guess I still do, but I will no longer do something just to get my picture in the weeklies. Sometimes I can't help thinking it could be quite enjoyable to be completely anonymous and have access to a multibillion-dollar numbered account in Switzerland - but that's just on really bad-hair days.

7) Tell me more about your involvement with music.

Music is among the major sources of pleasure for me - whether making it or merely listening. The word derives from "Muse" (inspiration, being moved by Spirit) - which shows how crucial music is to raising our consciousness, lifting our spirits, sensitizing us to aesthetics (the appreciation of beauty, harmony, truth).  Furthermore, music can only occur in real time - and is therefore the most elegant way to experience and enjoy Time. My musical taste is what you might call "eclectic" - I am attracted to the singer, not the song; in other words, if the musician/performer has integrity and originality of expression, I find it appealing. I am not particularly interested in musical genres, as such. If a piece of music inspires me, it matters little whether it is classified jazz or classics or pop or avant-garde.

8) You seem to be mentioning a lot about 'rainbow' in your website. Nelson Mandela used the word to describe a multiracial nation. Do you use it in the same context?

The rainbow is a universal symbol of perfect harmony - of the essential unity of all pluralities (the 12 colors of the spectrum are essentially a transcendental, colorless wholeness, represented by Light). Darkness is not an entity unto itself, merely the absence of Light - which manifests in rainbow colors as many languages, many tribes, many forms, many approaches to self-knowledge. So, in response to your question, the rainbow means more than just multi-ethnicity to me - it encompasses a magical quality of awesome splendor, of innocence and openness to all manifestations of life in the entire spectrum of possibility. The rainbow carries the frequency of joy, celebration, divine ecstasy.

9) What are your future plans?

The future is how I feel at any moment. How can I plan the way I feel from one moment to the next? Life would cease to be spontaneous! In other words, I do not plan my life - although under specific circumstances, e.g., when I want to travel or manifest a public event, I have to do a certain amount of preparation, deciding what to pack, what form of transport to take, or where and when to stage the show and who to invite. Apart from that, I prefer to be fully present in the moment - and thus able to respond instantly and wholeheartedly to any given situation.

10) You have explored many religions, which one do you find the most fascinating and that you hold on to in life?

All religions have a certain fascination or they would have no followers at all. In general, I find the older belief systems a great deal more mature and acceptable - and a lot less divisive - than the younger ones. Although I have at various times experimented with pretending to be "hindu" or "buddhist" I have found myself gravitating towards the most ancient of belief systems, which some call paganism and others Gnosticism. But even so I do not consider myself a practitioner of any specific belief system, not even scientific pantheism (which closely describes my basic attitude towards existence). As John C. Lilly (a pioneer researcher of altered states of human consciousness) once said: "Belief systems are like clothes. The harsher the climate, the more clothes one wears. But in paradise, under ideal conditions, one doesn't need clothes." In other words, if you want to live in heaven, befriend the naked truth!

11) Do you feel like you have total control over yourself and what you believe in or do you find yourself sometimes lost in your own eccentricity?

Total control? I certainly don't have that - and doubt I would want it. If you mean, do I have total control over my thoughts and feelings - the answer is "no way!" A certain degree of control, of course, is necessary or else one couldn't master anything, especially oneself. But I don't view self-mastery as being equal to self-control. Self-mastery means no longer seeking outside approval for one's being or behavior. Self-control means not desperately seeking to always impose one's preferences or truths on others, to shut up when no one wants your opinion - a mental state not at all easy to sustain.

12) Lightning, scary or fascinating? Mind explaining?

Lightning is always fascinating, even exciting, to me. It's a visible manifestation of electricity as it moves through the atmosphere - and to me electricity is my true father (and magnetism my true mother). We are, in truth, interesting byproducts of electromagnetic flux!

13) What's the difference between Antares and Kit Leee? Why emphasize on being Antares?

This question has been answered right from the start, but I'll answer it again, a bit differently. "Antares" is a name I "received" during a meditation, while in a lucid and mature state of mind (I had orbited the Sun 42 times). "Kit" was a name assigned to me at birth by my paternal grandfather (it means "hero" in Chinese, as in the Mandarin "Jet"). I like the name "Kit Leee" very much - but at a certain point it ceased to define my focus in life, which became less and less personal and more and more transpersonal. In effect the entity called "Kit Leee" was a human personality anxious about being liked or disliked, eager to become rich and famous (like everyone who lives under a tempurung is programmed to be). However, "Antares" serves to anchor my consciousness in concerns beyond the merely human, beyond the physical, egoic level where "survival" seems to be the central focus. "Antares" is a galactic tag which gives me access to galactic intelligence - very useful as we attain Galactic Alignment, as marked by the December solstice of 2012 (Gregorian Reckoning).

13 questions for you to attempt ;) Good luck...

Thank you. 13 is a powerful number indeed. It marks the end of an octave/cycle in which all preceding qualities are reconciled, integrated and harmonized!

[First posted 17 October 2011. reposted 31 October 2016]

Dynasties... are they a problem? (updated & reposted)

So let's be clear about this: there is nothing intrinsically wrong with children inheriting a busyness or political position from their parents - so long as they are capable and will do as well, if not better. Indeed, this is perfectly natural a phenomenon since some qualities do get passed down the genetic line. 

Even more often, children of famous people will achieve fame on their own terms in a totally different field - but just as often, they get eclipsed by their father's celebrity and end up struggling with an identity crisis.

I have absolutely no problem with the idea of politicians I like and admire - Kit Siang, Anwar, Karpal, to name a few - passing their legacies on to the next generation, so long as their children are equally, if not more, admirable. In the case of all three, I'm pleased that all their progeny have turned out fairly capable and electable. Can't say the same for Mahathir's kids, though... or Najib's... or Badawi's psychopathic drug-peddling son-in-law.

MAY ALL YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE (repost)

I rarely have meaningful dreams supercharged with symbolism – or perhaps I occasionally do but just don’t remember. So when I read about people achieving their dreams, the idea doesn’t actually carry that much excitement or veracity for me.

What dreams? Like the one I had earlier today where I found myself in a room full of accumulated memories discussing with Rafique Rashid how to dispose of his brother Rehman’s earthly possessions? Or the one I had a couple of days ago where I was just sitting in a coffeeshop, paying for my tea and I counted out 80 cents in coins – which made me realize when I woke up shortly afterwards that I had traveled back in time to the late 1980s when a cup of tea or coffee cost less than a dollar.

The Frank Zappa dream that came to me a couple of weeks ago was interesting. I was hosted to dinner by Mr and Mrs Zappa and all through the meal I kept thinking that Frank somehow didn’t look the way he’s supposed to look. He had boring hair, wore a middle-class suit, and his nose wasn’t quite right. This wasn’t by any means the first Zappa dream I’ve had. After my first and only close encounter with Mr Zappa at the Fillmore East in New York in the summer of 1968 - where I also exchanged small talk with saxophonist Ian Underwood (husband of percussionist Ruth Underwood) and shook hands with Jimmy Carl Black (the Indian of the group) – I had a series of vivid dreams involving Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention.

In the first Zappa dream I was a kid back in my hometown Batu Pahat sitting on the  front steps when I heard a squadron of aircraft overhead. I looked up and realized they weren’t actually airplanes but Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention flying in arrowhead formation. As they got closer I felt a compulsion to join them the way some kids suddenly decide to run away and join a circus. Then there was the dream where I was walking around a gypsy caravan and had to step over thick electrical cables coiled like black snakes all over the floor... then I realized I was on a movie set and noticed Frank behind a glass window in the control room tweaking some knobs.

Well, okay. The Zappa dreams do contain a whole load of symbolism if you care to delve into them, just like the vivid dream I had about a grizzly bear a few years ago. But the only dream I would like to see fulfilled is the lucid waking dream I have held close to my heart since the age of 19.

What is that dream? It’s not easy to articulate, but certainly worth an attempt if only to see how it sounds when verbalized...

I dreamt I had accomplished the greatest feat possible for any living creature on earth – to remember its own mysterious origins and to free itself from the illusion of limitation and separation! In my dream this spontaneous awakening to and realization of the absolute sacredness and miraculousness of life rippled out in all directions and dimensions, from the subatomic to the supergalactic and beyond, creating a domino effect of illumination and jubilant celebration.

Source reconnecting with Source, as the accumulated experience and memories of every expression of consciousness, encompassing the unconscious, in infinite feedback loops of awareness. All of it flowing through Me and all other aspects of my boundless cosmic Self, eternally and effortlessly, in ecstatic multidimensional mandalas of timeless beauty and self-regenerating, self-reintegrating truth.

The word “ecstasy” became a living reality and I perfectly understood what mystics, dervishes and yogis have spoken about for generations when they describe transcendent states of consciousness – using terms like samadhi, satori, beatitude, baraka, bliss. Remember, this was long before ecstasy became nothing more than a designer drug for techno-trancing urban kids. Let me tell you: once you have experienced pure cognitive ecstasy, sustained over days, even weeks, you will never settle for humdrum human notions of “success.”

Well, it’s true that at various times of my life I have entertained, albeit briefly, aspirations towards enormous worldly success – after all, would any young person spurn fame and fortune if they were within reach? And so at the age of 24 I embarked on setting up a company with two childhood friends. It was to start off as a creative consultancy catering to the advertising and public relations industry and after a few years, when we had sufficient capital, we would diversify into production of books, music, films, perhaps even launch an airline... nothing was impossible for a creative powerhouse named I.N.R.I. (for Igni Natura Renovatur Integra, an alchemical code signifying that the fire of passion completely renews or revitalizes the natural world).

This venture lasted all of three years and the main reason I eventually gave up was because I couldn’t get Telekom Malaysia to provide me with a phone line – despite residing in a diplomatic enclave in Kuala Lumpur. I even wrote a long, impassioned letter to the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications (no reply ever came, of course). But after I capitulated and accepted temporary corporate employment, the phone finally arrived.

Anyway, it was simply impractical for me to remain in a permanent state of carefree euphoria – not when I was already a father to two beautiful princesses whose mother, fortunately, earned a regular income as a dedicated schoolteacher. So I learned how to be immersed and involved in the world, but in a detached manner, lest I became trapped in its deceptive glamor.

My inner and outer lives were not always in alignment. Even though I was enjoying an active public life as a stage actor, musician and party animal, I went through patches of intense existential angst verging on despair. My Achilles’ heel was a tendency to succumb to an overwhelming sense of futility arising from a distressing mismatch between my dream of heaven on earth and what was apparently going on in the outside world. It was hard to find someone with whom I could discuss my self-doubts and the nagging sense that there might be something fundamentally wrong with me. So I took to recording these states of mind as poems and doodles (which I eventually compiled into a collection titled Moth Balls, published in a limited edition in November 1994 and now accessible online).

From time to time I would have a peak experience – whether spontaneously or with the help of psilocybin mushrooms (growing wild on grassy fields where cows grazed). Very rarely a kind friend would send me some good acid on a blotter via airmail. At these times my preferred default state of divine madness would be reinstated and my vision of paradise would snap back into crystal clear focus.

Nearly half a century has elapsed since my first glimpse of our true potential as sentient self-reinventing creatures on this bounteous planet. I used to feel a little isolated – the only other humans, a mere handful, who shared my vision were either living on the other side of the earth or long dead. But their thoughts recorded in words reassured me I wasn’t completely mad.

When the internet came along I discovered a growing network of human beings who share my dream of heaven on earth – and each one is a fractal of the whole, with unique experiences of universal truths, each one a significant piece of a colossal and magnificent cosmic jigsaw puzzle.

What we had in common was simply this: we had achieved vertical alignment with our own limitless potential, our Oversouls (I think Paramatman is the technical term for this in Sanskrit). I realized that the problem was how to persuade more humans to make a conscious 90-degree shift from being trapped in the horizontal plane where predator-prey games of eat-or-be-eaten prevail. On the horizontal plane, people subscribe to spurious notions of profit-and-loss, win-lose, and Us-versus-Them. Because resources are finite and limited on this plane, aggressive competition becomes the norm, each fighting for more food, more space, more influence, more power over others. The result can only be hell on earth!

Any individual who achieves that all-important 90-degree shift to the vertical also gains access to Source Energy – call it the morphogenetic field, the planetary mind or cosmic consciousness – and no longer buys into the illusions of limitation, separation or scarcity. Once liberated from scarcity conditioning (fang and claw, eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth programming) cooperation becomes spontaneous and this allows for the power of dynamic synergy to take effect, and we suddenly become clear and coherent fields, attuned to all other fields and interacting in effortless harmony. The overall effect is that we no longer feel burdened by gravity as it only takes a bit of levity to neutralize the sense of heaviness. And once we can laugh at ourselves and everyone else, everything transmutes from being merely laughable to being genuinely lovable.

The world as we know it also transforms into something altogether different. We no longer need to be convinced that laws and lawyers, courthouses and judges, and law enforcement agencies are utterly unnecessary - the moment we become self-governing and accept full responsibility for our own thoughts, words and deeds.

Our ancestors found themselves entangled in webs of deceit and falsehood which made them turn to external authority for instructions as to what to do or don’t – whether that authority presented itself as an invisible all-knowing, all-powerful deity; an all-too-visible priesthood; an occasionally visible monarchy, or the monarch’s appointed agents (that’s right the income tax department)!

Photo by Lesly Leon Lee

Generations before us have lived and died ignorant, disconnected from their own divinity and innate nobility. Their souls often get trapped in the astral and many of them attempt to seek redemption and some misguided notion of salvation through their living descendants – namely us. Once we become aware of this, what we can do is to become enlightened ourselves; and in liberating ourselves from our own benighted condition, we also liberate our bloodlines from the curse of abysmal unknowing.

How is this possible? We are bearers of genetic codes and, as anyone who works with codes knows, once an error is rectified in the present, the correction sets the entire program aright in the illusory past as well as the illusory future.

So that’s my dream, folks. I just wish to see all wrongs set right, all cages and prisons dismantled, all locks and keys discarded, all doors and windows left open to the gentle breezes of conscious, eternally rejuvenating, growth-facilitating, ecstatic change. In a community of fully conscious humans, criminal or destructive behavior will be swiftly outgrown and become obsolete - because no one will suffer lack or the indifference of others. With the illusion of scarcity dispersed, a new age of abundance for all will dawn.

10 November 2017

[Reposted 18 November 2018]

STOP CALLING ME GOD! (a poem by Antares Maitreya)

 

I said, “Stop calling me God!”

But the frightened, confused fragments of Myself

Refused to listen or even hear.

So atomized have they been for so many cycles

They had long forgotten their own origins.

I opted then to address them not in words,

Nor in thought, for that requires language and speech,

But as epiphanies in moments of unguardedness –

As a honeyed fragrance upon a gentle breeze

Or the distant melody of a lifetime long unvisited.

In the course of linear time traversing ages, epochs, eternities

A few units of awareness began to fathom symmetries

And apparent synchronicities, and they began to perceive hidden geometries

In the subliminal architecture of form, informing the formless,

Inchoate and incoherent Primordial Chaos.

Order thus began to emerge within their apprehension,

Giving rise to general principles (albeit theoretical)

And then an eureka moment occurred, almost unexpectedly,

When a man – to be precise, a mathematician – named Mandelbrot

Discovered the fractal nature of all that exists and – voila – comprehension!

What were hitherto confused fragments of Myself

Realized themselves as dynamic fractals: kaleidoscopic, ceaselessly evolving

Sparks of the Sacred Flame, magnificent mandalas, increasingly conscious,

Gloriously, radiantly emanating, then coalescing into gravitational fields

From which spring a cosmic cornucopia of entities that eat and can be eaten.

Behold your essential and eternal flux from simplicity to complexity and back,

A neverending dance of interchangeable polarities, separating quick from dead,

Expanding and contracting to generate Breath, then Rhythm and Algorithm,

Then a mother’s heartbeat lulling you to dream awhile in the amniotic sac

Of your own nascent divinity.

I WASN’T ALWAYS A CHEERFUL SOUL (a poem by Antares Maitreya)

Ah, how fragile our sense of happiness and hope!

I am writing this from the bottom

Of the barrel of well-being,

Aware of rainy nights

When everything is desired,

Nothing accomplished.

Be not greedy, I tell myself,

Count the little blessings of each moment,

Living contentment gratefully.

But to what avail.

Through thick travail

Frustration prevails.

Have I been a fool

Following a wrong trail

To not even Nowhere?

Sad feelings are cobwebs

In unvisited rooms of mind.

Laziness keeps the dust on my mental shelf

Accumulating through dismal years

And fears,

And uncryable tears.

ARE WE STILL WAITING FOR THE MESSIAH? (reprise)

I haven't written about local politics since the Great Reset of May 9th, 2018, apart from a 500-word overview for The Edge's Merdeka Special.

There are several reasons for my silence. First, I have been preoccupied with the construction of a guest facility behind our house which has consumed much of my energy and all of my cash reserves. Secondly, now that Barisan Nasional is no longer in power, I feel that my political crusade (which began after October 1987) is more or less accomplished. Thirdly, people are getting much more vocal on social media now that the fear has receded and the cacophony of clamorous voices isn't something I wish to add to, although I look upon it as the grating sound of a nascent democracy akin to construction noise (which we tolerate when it's our own house that's being built).

So why do I feel compelled to put in my two bits' worth now? Truth be told, folks, I'm fatigued by the quarrelsome adversarial nature of political rhetoric. I have never liked to argue for the sake of argument, which I regard as nothing more than a competitive sport, a game of semantics. cunning lingual exercises that never penetrate beyond mere superficialities.

Above all, I have never subscribed to the notion that authentic change can be effected on the political level, that all it takes is to replace one captain or manager with another. It's the very idea of being subject to external authority, generation after generation, unquestioningly surrendering our innate power and sovereignty as conscious individuals, that needs to be reassessed and outgrown.

So why did I publicly endorse, consistently over 20 years, the prime ministership of Anwar Ibrahim? The answer is simple: I am no game-player and find politics every bit as tedious and banal as courtroom proceedings. I generally prefer engaging my right brain and gut feelings to getting embroiled in hair-splitting left-brain exercises. That's why when Anwar led a massive rebellion against Mahathir in 1998 I decided to monitor him closely. His determination, stoicism and tenacity impressed me greatly, so I made Anwar my political avatar.

Through Anwar I could be vicariously involved in the grubby, sordid world of political power play, without physical risk to myself. I can't imagine enduring 10 years of imprisonment for my political views - but Anwar did and I wholeheartedly admire his fighting spirit and resilience. To me his astonishing perseverance against all odds qualifies him as a bona fide national hero.

Anwar Ibrahim was politically crucified in 1998 by Mahathir, who spared no effort to humiliate and crush his adversary. Not only did Anwar survive six years as a political prisoner (and, I believe, at least one attempt to poison him with cyanide), he successfully resurrected himself as a messiah and led the opposition coalition called Pakatan Rakyat to a near-victory in March 2008, then again in May 2013. Indeed, were it nor for the all-too-obvious partisanship of the Election Commission which aided and abetted massive electoral fraud, I'm certain BN would have fallen five years ago, and Anwar anointed as Malaysia's 7th prime minister.

I was overjoyed, like many others, when Anwar Ibrahim received a full pardon from the Agong on May 16th, 2018, vindicating his 20-year battle against the behemoth BN. It was a great relief for everyone who can't bear to witness such grotesque travesties of justice, and a poignant moment indeed for his beautiful family. For me, it didn't matter who deserved the most credit for removing the utterly corrupt BN from power. Whether we succeeded with Mahathir leading the charge... or voters silently resented Najib's brutal incarceration of Anwar... or the rotting white elephant in the room named 1MDB finally began to stink too badly to be ignored... it's purely academic now. I'm certain it was all these factors, compounded with the collective will of a sizeable majority of young voters, that won the great victory against cynicism and fatalism.

What prompts me to speak up now is the vitriolic antagonism I see directed against Anwar, even before he made his "PD move." Cherished friends whose opinions I respect and value have risen up as a bilious phalanx of vociferous opposition in an attempt to thwart Anwar Ibrahim from fulfilling his political destiny.

He's too ambitious... a political chameleon... he endorses the reactionary Turkish dictator, Erdoğan, whom he regards as an ally... Anwar will be forced to pander to the religious fundamentalists, just to maintain his power base. 

That's what I hear all the time on my Facebook newsfeed. Anyone who makes a career of politics has got to be ambitious and adapt chameleon-like to changing circumstances, so these are actually positive traits. As for cozying up with the likes of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan... well, it could just as well be Paul Wolfowitz, Bashar al-Assad, Emmanuel Macron, Vladimir Putin or, God forbid, Donald J. Trump. End of the day what we think we know of public figures is mostly from media reports. Anyone can be easily demonized by media shills with an occult agenda. Remember what the Zionist-controlled media did to Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi? One day we might even discover that Winston Churchill was far more villainous than Adolf Hitler, and that Barack Obama was, in truth, a Manchurian candidate installed by the CIA on behalf of the Deep State.. so keep your mind open (at least a crack).

Can all these well-informed, highly intelligent and articulate friends be utterly wrong? Yes, they can. Their judgment may be clouded by their own biases, fears and prejudices. After all, they are mostly the same "street-savvy" Anglophilic crowd who delight in dismissing Donald Trump as a buffoonish boor, unfit to occupy the White House. That's right, folks, this may come as a shock to you but I have nothing seriously negative to say about Trump's presidency, which I view as instrumental to a Great Geopolitical Reset.

Notwithstanding DJT's apparent lack of lexicological range, I am inclined to regard him as the reincarnation of some ancient Roman emperor who has been given the opportunity to step up to the world stage at this evolutionary juncture as a wild card (or more appropriately the Joker), even as the entire deck is being reshuffled. 

Enough of meaningless labels like left and right, liberal and conservative. Life is way too complex and fluid to fit into a simple binary context of Good and Bad, Right and Wrong, Democrat and Republican, Whig and Tory, Government and Opposition. If you can be so easily classified as either this or that, then it's probable that you haven't been completely candid with yourself. Or perhaps you have been conditioned to rely on ideas and opinions injected into your psyche by the plutocrat-owned miseducation system and mass media - instead of your own instincts and intuition.

I doubt if there has ever been a political figure of note who isn't somehow controversial - who inspires admiration from some and triggers fear and loathing in others. If the founders of the world's main religions were active in today's cybernetic world, imagine what the media pundits and shills would have to say about them - whether they be Krishna, Laotse, Confucius, Siddhartha Gautama, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad or Baha'ullah. Imagine the scandals buzzing around them like bluebottles, the stinking muck raked up, the nasty remarks, cynical deconstructions, scholarly critiques written about these long-gone icons. Humans, time and again, have created gods to adore and worship - only to rip them apart or crucify or debunk them when they suffer a collective mood swing.

Perhaps it's time we begin to accept responsibility for how we experience the world around us - instead of hoping for a messianic cult figure, some great savior to rescue us from the confusion and mayhem of everyday reality. Don't you think it's puerile of us to still believe that a single president or prime minister or guru figure can set aright all that has gone wrong in the nation, resolve all problems that beset humanity, and lead us all to the Promised Land?

Having said that, I'm painfully aware that the vast majority of my fellow citizens may not be ready as yet to upgrade their own software and become self-governing entities. They must be given time and a conducive space to take their first faltering steps into an unknown, but potentially glorious, future. If I were to do the unthinkable and offer myself as a political candidate, my open disregard for all forms of institutionalized religion would scare, shock and offend too many. I probably wouldn't survive a week in politics. However, someone like Anwar has not only survived, he actually seems to thrive in the midst of controversy.

Nobody can dispute his resolve, tenacity, resilience and inner strength. His remarkable rise in politics, followed by a fall of mythical proportions, and his ultimate resurrection and ascension, lead me to conclude that he is indeed capable of overcoming all obstacles and inspiring the entire populace, regardless of racial or religious conditioning, to transcend the artificial divisiveness that has kept us from becoming a truly splendid and accomplished nation.

I don't reside in Port Dickson, but if I did, I would support Anwar Ibrahim in his quest to be reinstated as an active Member of Parliament. Those who condemn his strategy of triggering a by-election through the voluntary resignation of an incumbent MP do so without a full understanding of all the nasty intrigues going on behind closed doors. This species of low-grade jostling for positions and power has long been part of political culture everywhere - not just in Malaysia. Non-players and outsiders only know what gets reported - or leaked.

Occasionally an internal rift reveals itself like a crack in the wall, weakening the prospects of a particular political party owing to petty ego conflicts. Unless you are fully immersed in the water, it's impossible to know what's lurking below the surface, and even then you can be caught off-guard by sabotage and the invisible machinations of rivals. This is a game of thrones I myself have chosen not to play, except by proxy.

There appears to be a contradiction here: while I have never taken economics or politics all that seriously, I am at the same time aware that the 3D Matrix is still largely influenced by the primal drives for money and power. A single individual at the helm, with the unwavering support of a large enough majority, can dramatically alter the course we chart as sovereign nations. A charismatic leader can steer the ship of state towards dangerous reefs by publicly preaching unity while privately sowing seeds of discord and discontent - but he or she can also opt to play the pivotal role of maintaining harmony and stability during a major transition between eras.

On April 14th, 2008, I was present at the Sultan Sulaiman Club in Kampung Bahru when Anwar Ibrahim made a stirring comeback speech in which he declared it was time for us to replace Ketuanan Melayu (Malay Supremacy) with Ketuanan Rakyat (Supremacy of the People). The response was unanimous and absolutely moving. Looking around me, I saw locals in white skull caps and robes enthusiastically cheering Anwar for his vision of Greater Unity and Harmony, transcending artificially imposed racial and religious barriers. It was as if we had finally stepped across an invisible threshold between adolescence and adulthood as a nation. I saluted Anwar for articulating this truly powerful sentiment and he reinforced this vision by intoning at every subsequent ceramah:

"Anak Cina anak saya, anak India anak saya, anak Iban, anak Kadazan, anak Melayu semua anak saya!" 

I am inclined to believe that, after ten years of unjust imprisonment as a political dissident within a tradition-bound feudalistic establishment, this is essentially what Anwar Ibrahim desires to be congratulated and remembered for. His destiny, I am still convinced after 20 years, is to steer the nation back on its intended course - to evolve gracefully into a unified, harmonious and mature melting-pot of diverse cultures, looking forward instead of backwards.

There, I have broken my silence.

5 October 2018

THE ERROR OF YOUR TERROR (revisited)

BOMBS GO OFF. A bunch of people blown to bits. Everybody else terrified. Not a jolly time to be in Baghdad - especially if you tan well, tend to overdress, and look Iraqi. The Dalai Lama says war is already obsolete and every sane soul agrees. Except a cabal of well-connected fraternity bozos hell-bent on establishing a planetary empire founded on perpetual war.

We’re dealing with desperadoes heavily armed with WMDs. No blow too low for this mob. Human sacrifice is standard practice in their warlike cult. The end always justifies any means. If a “better” world calls for a drastic cull, unleash the radioactive weaponry, the earthquake and hurricane machines and laboratory-manufactured epidemics... three thousand casualties or three hundred thousand, what’s the difference? Collateral damage!

Those who wage war, whether by obvious or subtle means, are the true terrorists. After all, what is war if not a crude excuse to eliminate the perceived enemy by brute force. And since when did brute force ever accomplish anything constructive? The only effect of brute force is to intimidate, terrorize, abuse, disempower and enslave.

And the only real enemy is our own unacknowledged and unbefriended shadow selves. Just as the shadow aspect of greed is lack, the shadow side of militant self-righteousness is cruelty, intolerance, and fanaticism.

Fear is a very effective means of mass mind control. Fear as a primary response implanted in the hypothalamus to retard our evolution. My maternal great-grandfather carried a strong negative emotional charge, which passed down the genetic track to my late mother and one of my brothers. Both see the world as dangerous and hostile, and invest a great deal of energy on “security” – arming themselves against bacterial and viral attacks with a huge arsenal of prescription drugs; living within a self-created prison behind steel bars, high fencing, and heavy-duty padlocks; and never trusting strangers (thereby never admitting any fresh data into their stale belief systems).

But all the “security” in the world can’t keep out death when your life contract ends and doesn’t get renewed. My childhood friend, whom I hadn’t seen in over a decade, was viciously murdered in the sanctity of his own home along with his partner in July 2005. Apparently, a psychopath had been stalking them for some time and was driven by drug-induced demons to strike terror into what was once a quiet residential neighborhood. The London bombs went off a couple of days later, prompting me to revisit the origins of fear.

It all starts with the crude concept of “God” as an External Force to be feared, worshiped and appeased. We’ve all heard the phrase “God-fearing” touted as something positive. Well, any “god” that enjoys being feared is more demonic than deific. Where did this “God-fearing” implant come from?

If you travel far enough down your genetic timetrack, you will encounter a blind spot in your deep memory where the universal trauma of abduction and rape occurred. We were violated as a species before our awareness had sufficiently matured to be able transmute and heal the psychic shock. Who raped us? Some wicked “stepfather” creator god or gods whose cold-blooded DNA now flows in our veins (along with a whole stew of strange and familiar bloodlines)? Or maybe, as Gnostic shaman John Lamb Lash suggests, these Archontic ET intervention hypotheses were seeded into the collective psyche as false genetic memories. And the spindoctors are still at - only now these red-herring scenarios are called internet memes.

You can identify this aberrant gene or meme as the aspect of ourselves that is numb to our own feelings - that is incapable of empathy, knows no compassion, and is interested only in its own survival. It raped our planetary biosphere in a desperate attempt to stave off total extinction, caused by an irreversible loss of vital force after too many generations of cloning.

Biological reproduction was deemed too messy and unpredictable, so this criminal reptoid species opted to reinvent itself as a Master Race of Empire-Builders destined to rule over the holographic worlds as the All-Seeing Eye of the Illuminati (Tolkien depicted this as the Eye of Sauron and you can spot this symbol on the back of every dollar bill issued by the Federal Reserve). This bogus deity favors Intellect over Intuition, the Male Principle of Will over the Female Principle of Desire. It installed a corrupt male priesthood to serve as its human agents on Earth, preaching hellfire, brimstone, and planting the fear of God into our hearts (where only Love ought to dwell).

It staked a claim on the dissemination and interpretation of scriptures, labeling as “deviationist” all ideas that liberate rather than entrap. Call it the economics and politics of Monopoly: control the only bridge across the river Styx, set up tolls on every highway to Heaven. Patent everything, make everyone pay royalties and taxes, amass a vast fortune, gain even more power over others, and so the game goes on. When any of us refuses to play, the game is over... it’s as simple as that.

That’s why the “sheeple” must be kept in line through sheer terror. Serve them a daily diet of bad news and mediocrity, let paralysis set in, along with a sense of abject powerlessness – so they always vote in strong leaders to guide them to the Promised Land. Above all, make sure they never reclaim the authentic, primordial, sovereign power within the very atoms of their own cells...

Let eggheads write lengthy tomes about the “Colonized Self.” Let George Lucas churn out blockbusters about the “Evil Empire.” After so many generations of systematic conditioning, most folks are simply too chicken to ever break free of the insidious frequency fence. Here’s a clue for you: The Matrix is a fourth-dimensionally generated 3D illusion (very realistic special effects, folks die gruesome deaths and their bodies stink as they rot).

Speaking of chickens, a shaman colleague recently remarked: “If this Rooster Year transforms itself into a Phoenix, everybody on the planet resurrects and ascends.” So do it NOW, folks, free yourselves from fear conditioning... before another Year of the Dog arrives to find us still barking up the wrong tree.

[Originally published in the August 2005 issue of VIDA! First posted 8 January 2007, reposted 20 November 2017 & 16 April 2019]

The Beatles changed my life (and perhaps the course of human evolution!)

Watch this classic 88-minute movie (released in July 1964) on YouTube!

Directed by Richard Lester, produced by Walter Shenson, scripted by Alun Owen

Released four days after the film opened in the U.K., A Hard Day's Night was The Beatles' third studio album and instantly became a chart-topper. I remember the film as a life-changing event. It opened at the Rex Cinema in Batu Pahat in early 1965 and completely knocked my socks off. From that moment I was hooked.

Prior to that, I fancied myself as a bit of a snob. Even though I did hear a few early Beatles hits on the radio ("I Want To Hold Your Hand," "She Loves You," "I Saw Her Standing There") I was inclined to shrug the moptops off as just another passing fad. You see, I was never really into radio music, even if I confess to briefly being a fan of Cliff Richard and The Shadows when I was 11. But Elvis didn't drive me wild and I was more into soundtrack music from epic films like Exodus, Spartacus, Cleopatra and The Magnificent Seven.

I got interested in Broadway musicals after hearing an EP with songs from West Side Story and subsequently acquired a taste for Igor Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky, Bach and Beethoven, before moving on to progressive jazz - specifically the non-swing variety produced by maestros like Dave Brubeck, Charlie Mingus, Thelonious Monk and, later, Miles Davis and Sun Ra.

Watching John, Paul, George and Ringo on the big screen in A Hard Day's Night got me off my musical high horse and made me pay close attention to "pop music." I realized then that the new generation of popular bands in the 1960s were more than mere entertainers - they were harbingers of cultural evolution, prophets of a radical new consciousness, shamans and wizards shaping the dreams of post-war youth across the world.

From Tierra del Fuego to Vladivostok, adventurous pop groups like The Beatles, Cream, The Jimi Hendrix Experience and Pink Floyd were creating a world culture that demolished linguistic, racial, ideological and national barriers - and paving the way for the evolution of a true planetary consciousness.

Wilfrid Brambell as Paul's "very clean" grandfather

The eleventh Beatles studio album, Abbey Road, was released in late 1969 - but an earlier project, Let It Be, didn't appear till May 1970 because tensions between John Lennon and Paul McCartney got in the way. Soon after that The Beatles dissolved themselves as a coherent musical entity and went their separate ways. I will always respect them for knowing when to call it a day and quit while their music was still strong - instead of forcing themselves into churning out more albums just for the money.

The Beatles turned on a lot of teenaged girls (sexually) and teenaged boys (mentally)

Brian Epstein (1934-1967)

PhD dissertations have been written on the cultural and sociopolitical impact of The Beatles phenomenon on the later part of the 20th century, so I won't attempt to reinvent the wheel. Suffice to say, as can be evinced from watching A Hard Day's Night again - after 47 years - the dynamic, complementary chemistry of these four lads from Liverpool created a powerful synergy that's akin to what happens when you mix Fire (John Lennon), Water (Paul McCartney), Air (George Harrison) and Earth (Ringo Starr) into a cohesive, coherent whole. A lot of the credit goes to the genius of director Richard Lester, whose use of hand-held cameras and quirky editing influenced a future genre of music videos and the popularization of cinéma vérité in mainstream movie-making.

George Martin, wizard producer

The creative input of two latter-day wizards must not be discounted. Initially, it was Brian Epstein the visionary entrepreneur, who saw the Beatles' commercial potential and undertook to manage the boys, shaping their trademark hairstyles and smart dress sense, without muting their natural exuberance and playful wit. In the studio, George Martin took over the wizard's role in helping refine and shape the Beatles' unique sound. Martin did all the orchestral arrangements and was savvy enough to not stand in the way of their innovative spirit.

What The Beatles did for me was to inspire me to be more myself - to become aware of the vast possibilities of creative synthesis. Their musical output - especially beginning with their seventh studio album, Revolver - began quantum jumping in terms of lyrical and musical eclecticism.

The Beatles were adventurous in that they experimented with altered states through cannabis, mescaline and LSD - and were able to incorporate their expanded consciousness into their artistic vision. In so doing they became cultural messiahs to subsequent generations, leading them beyond the rigid dogmatism of tradition and offering them a vivid glimpse of a hipper, funkier, more psychedelic version of the Promised Land.

[First posted 16 December 2011]