I never realised it at the time but most of my 'spiritual search' happened through music. John Lennon and artists like that meant a lot to me but it wasn't until I discovered Bob Marley that something shifted more profoundly. I listened to him almost constantly for 2 years and watching him dance I somehow knew it was coming from a different place to any other popular artist I'd seen. It's hard enough to find songs out there which genuinely touch on this message but in terms of an actual figure who, not only through his music but his life, lived by example, I've still not come across anyone who matches Bob Marley.
I've found there are a lot of songs out there you could interpret to be about this because everything is being seen through that "oneness" lens now whereas the songwriter probably never intended that at all and was totally unconscious. Even some throwaway pop songs can have an inkling of it there.
Then there are those songs which are on to something, where the writer has some interest in spirituality and may say all the right things but that power is not fully there because the music has still not come through someone who is fully living it. Songs by artists like George Harrison, John Lennon, Manu Chao, Ian Brown, some of James and much of the reggae scene of the 70s.
The only artist I've found who I feel was living it and so that energy comes through in a purer form is Marley. Even Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer and much of the rest of them, they seemed to have some understanding but my feeling was it was more of a rebellious thing for them, being part of the Rastafari movement. That is why I don't personally see movements as a good thing. As soon as you put a label on it, no matter how good the intentions, people will follow without fully realising what's behind it.
I think Bob was different. He grew up in that culture and in the same way that many of the Indian sages realised this 'Truth' through their religions and expressed it in that language, he found an expression for it through Rastafarianism. There seems no doubt he knew and understood it went further than any of that. There is one interview in particular I like where this Canadian woman is being a bit prickly with him and she asks him "Do the people love you?" and he pauses, while she tries again to make it an ego thing. In the end he turns it around and says "Yes, the people love I. The people don't need to see me because the people love I" with a big smile on his face. He knew what was behind terms like 'Jah', 'Rastafari' and 'I & I'.
As for his lifestyle, you can never really tell. He was in a unique position because I don't think we've ever seen a truly awakened music artist in our times, certainly not one at his level of fame. You can't really compare his actions against the traditional teachers we are used to. For whatever reason, life threw him up in that particular environment and then gave him fame and money. The only thing I've come across which you could hold against him was his relationships with many women while he was married. Maybe that was an ego thing but at the same time it's possible it wasn't. Marriage and being monogamous are products of thought and so from where he was operating from, maybe they weren't an issue.
I've always discerned this state in the same way, whether I'm listening/watching teachers like UG Krishnamurti and Eckhart Tolle or musicians like Bob. There is a certain 'goodness' energy that comes off such a figure, no matter what they are saying or how they are behaving.
I didn't grow up immersed in that culture or listening to that music, but when I was about 25 I got heavily into Bob's music. It struck a chord in me and it wasn't long before I had all his albums, DVDs, and became intrigued by his life and the Rasta philosophy in general. I remember watching him dance on a DVD and thinking "there is something different about this man and the way he is dancing... it's not like Mick Jagger or any other rock artist I've seen".
When whatever happened to me happened after coming across Eckhart a couple of years later, I immediately knew without knowing how, that Bob Marley was also pointing to the same thing. I feel the Rasta movement is like most religions - there is a core truth there (maybe even more evident there than the major religions) but as it has gone on and developed, it has become more political and ego-centric.
The ganja thing is misunderstood. If the right intent is there, that plant can definitely be a 'teacher'. Trouble is, most of the world use it unwisely and it becomes a foolish ego thing. Bob himself used to get annoyed when certain people were smoking around him and acting foolish. He encouraged people to use it because he knew it could open doors but admitted it wasn't necessary.
Although the black African thing was a big part of Bob's message, he was always more universal than most of the other Rastas. Sometimes an undercurrent of prejudice against whites could be there within the movement. The way I see it, when someone falls into the 'natural state', they become one with their environment. Their background is no accident, it has all the time been shaping them for that 'moment'. Their 'teaching' will then be a mixture of that background against whatever environment they currently find themselves in. Just as you could say UG's audience were primarily people very disillusioned with spirituality (as he himself had been), Bob's primary audience were black people from the ghettos. His message was there for all but it was shaped by that background and focussed on those who had been like he once was.
The Rasta talk of the Babylon System is not dissimilar from what UG was always banging on about - how our culture brainwash us. David Icke was also part of my background and he goes into a version of history that details this. He mentions the ancient region Babylon as being significant and how it developed into the Roman Empire and through to the Western Elite governments we have today. I'm not interested in the details of that because history itself is always false but it's something to note that the Rastas/Marley, UG and Icke all share a common ground there.
All UG's 49 years study of religion, spirituality, and western psychology were available to him as an expression, and Eckhart's academic background shapes his, but from what I see, Bob only had the Bible and the Rasta movement as sources to put this into language. If you can 'get past' the language of his songs and interviews, you will find the same thing is constantly being pointed to.
It's a threat to many people who have invested years in this 'enlightenment/self-realisation' thing to accept what Marley is really about because it means they have to take another look at themselves and admit they have been carrying certain prejudices all along without realising it.
There is so much hidden stuff that Marley is conveying, in his words, actions and songs that will just go by those with minds. Something has to be there in you to recognise it in him. Often he will rub his forehead while performing, which from my experience, seems to stimulate the third eye chakra. All of his songs are full of layers of meaning. The surface layer is often relating very much to this world, giving those who are in mind a way in, but beneath that there is a lot more going on.
In this song, "Cry To Me" - Cry To Me (1976) - Bob Marley & The Wailers
Cry to me, cry to me yeah!
You're gonna walk back through the heartaches
You're gonna walk back through the pain
You're gonna shed those lonely teardrops
The reaction of your cheating game
You've got to cry to me yeah!
You've got to cry cry cry to me now
Lord knows how I get from the heartaches
Lord that leadeth me yeah!
And now I'm by the still water
You've got to cry to me yeah!...
- the 'Me' refers to Source/God/Self and the song is basically about how once the mind is broken, you have to go through a period of shedding all the tears, anger and frustrations you yourself inflicted on the world while you were lost in thought to cleanse yourself. 'The reaction of your cheating game' - not being your true self. 'Now I'm by the still water' - stillness, consciousness.
"Real Situation" - Real Situation (1991) - Bob Marley & The Wailers
Check out the real situation
Nation war against nation
Where did it all begin, when will it end?
Well it seems like total destruction the only solution
There ain't no use, no one can stop them now
Give them an inch they take a yard
Give them a yard they take a mile
Once a man and twice a child
Everything is just for a while
It seems like total destruction the only solution
There ain't no use, no one can stop them now...
- this is a rare song in that Bob seems to be giving up while all his other songs were about keeping on the fight. In actual fact, it is a song of complete surrender, therefore still very positive. He is accepting that if we destroy ourselves so be it.
“Kaya” - Kaya
Kaya is Jamaican slang for ganja. At least that's what I always understood it to be. Bob named the album this song was on Kaya also and I always felt it was a devotional song. In the same way that songs have been written about Arunachala and Ramana's devotion to it, Bob and the true Rastas have devotion to the plant and see it as a sort of guru which can "reveal you to yourself" as he would put it.
Today though I happened to look up the roots of the word Kaya as I've been spontaneously saying it when I go into the state where I have to lie down and allow blockages to be cleared. This can often take the form of words and sounds coming out my mouth which sound like ancient languages mixed in with certain English words. I feel a clearing in the body as it happens. Anyway, whenever 'Kaya' popped out I assumed it was probably in relation to the plant and Bob but that never felt quite it. I've now found the word has origins in Turkey, Japan, Zulu and can mean 'restful place', 'home', and 'rock' amongst other things.
Maybe Bob was also paying respect to the 'restful place' in the song. Another layer of meaning, because it's interesting he chose the title Kaya as I've heard him use various terms for herb in conversation but never Kaya. It would satisfy the minds of rebellious youths to associate it with ganja but also underneath that he was praising home itself.
You can take "dready", "natty dread" and "rastaman" in this song to all mean the same thing, which is - the one who is naturally themselves, who lives 'truth'. Those forcing on us the "devil's illusion" (which is thought) are all the institutions of thought - governments, church, science, media, education... Those individuals, or that which we constantly reject, is the "head cornerstone" on which we could build paradise on this Earth. The "something they could never take away" is that place where all this arises from and which once seen can never be tainted. The fire he sings of is the same fire I have spoken of before. Kundalini energy, life force energy, call it what you will... when it is touched by 'you' it destroys all that is false and purifies the body back to it's original state.What he is describing in the latter verses - "Now the fire is out of control..." - is the collective form of this, when enough individuals are transformed and society as we know it begins to break down. All this 2012, biblical revelations stuff, that some claim we are entering in this period - it doesn't mean a literal armageddon scenario but that this energy will come through unseen from within and affect the external world. We are possibly already seeing that - institutions collapsing, scandals everywhere, people's behaviour becoming more mad and erratic.
