Last week I got one of those group emails that came from some super list that was somehow affiliated with some larger subset of Yahoo groups that were loosely defined by a rather broad spiritual affiliation. You know those emails — put out by some well intended, but annoying stranger.

The person who sent it was incredibly excited and passionate. It was about a healing chant for Tibet and The Dalai lama and in fact even slightly suggested that it was The Dalai Lama himself doing the chanting. It was made very clear that no one was to profit off of these recordings and that now, more than ever, people needed to start playing this recording and chanting for the betterment of Tibet. Since I’ve been making my own music lately, I thought that using a sample of The Dalai Lama would be really great and since no one is buying my music, there would be no karmic repercussions in store for me. So I filed it away to perhaps download and use at some other point in time.

A day or two later, an apologetic email from the same person hits the faceless Yahoo user mob with a tone that bordered on outright shame. It seems as though there were people that had asked her some tough questions about the recording and even went to the web site that stored it. It appears that it had nothing at all to do with The Dalai Lama and even more surprising was that the guy who had recorded said chant was actually selling it off of his website. I couldn’t think of anything more crass. So I shot off an email to the original sender and she apologized yet again for being duped.

What it reminded me of was the cult of relics, which sprung up in The Middle-East during the time of The Crusades. There were people flocking to the holy land to look for The Spear of Longinus, The Holy Grail, Jesus’ last-supper dinnerware, you name it. It’s actually where the whole concept of the modern day museum got its start as these relics (and reasonable facsimiles thereof) were displayed across Western Europe as totemic fetishes of a wondrous new faith.

It also occurred to me that chanting and assigning it’s relevance to The Dalai Lama or any other spiritually reverent figure at this time potentially has more profit than prophet at it’s heart. The message? Caveat emptor. Sing your own chants, make your own music, sanctify your own holy water, find the source within and the spiritual con men that have been plaguing us for the past 3, 000 years will no longer be relevant. Oh yeah, and remember that when you finally decide to come to the party, BYOB (Be Your Own Buddha).

by Robert Phoenix
Robert Phoenix moves freely among a vast array of realities, but tends to focus-in on music and human evolution.

Photo Credit: Luca Galuzzi, www.galuzzi.it

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