SPIRITUAL IQ QUIZ: Scoring soul, musically-speaking

BY SOUL’S CODE — Music. Spirituality. They go together like peanut butter and jelly. But how much do you really know about the spiritual lives of your favorite musicians, or the musical lives of the spiritual leaders who shaped our world?

Modern music came to us from the spiritual — or more precisely, the monastic. Gregorian Chants, sung in chorus by monks as a series of meditative Om’s in the High Middle Ages, inspired the creation of written music and what we now call musical notation.

Click on the radio buttons below to test the depth of your soul, musically-speaking:

Who is a descendant of the ‘enlightenment’-era German composer Johann Sebastian Bach?

Bachman Turner Overdrive
Michelle Bachman
Sebastian Bach
Barbara Bach (Image, right: wife of Ringo Starr and ex-Bond girl)

Which progressive rock group — and baby-boomer stoner favorite — based an album on a footnote in the Upinashads, and Paramahansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi?

Pink Floyd
Emerson, Lake and Palmer
Peter Gabriel's GENESIS
Yes

Johann Sebastian Bach’s Mass In B. Minor has been called?

"The greatest artwork of all times and all people."
"A throwback to an earlier style of music."
"The first example of atonal music."
“The worst piece of crap” since Vh1 and reality TV personality Sebastian Bach’s album, "Bach 2: Basics."

Michael Jackson, a devout Jehovah’s Witness, had moral qualms while making which music video?

"Billie Jean" because he didn’t want to seem to be endorsing extramarital sex
"Beat It" because he feared it might be seen as an endorsement of masturbation
"The Girl Is Mine" because he felt it didn’t adequately explain how the concept of mimetic rivalry is the root of violence
"Thriller" because he worried it might be seen as an endorsement of the occult, and ultimately ran with a disclaimer

Martin Luther, the founder of Lutheranism, was known for what musical talent?

He was a prolific hymn writer, and author of "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God."
He was an accomplished organist.
He was a tin whistle virtuoso who delighted children with his playful ditties.
None; he was hard of hearing and had no known musical talent.

The Beatles were known for their association with which spiritual teacher?

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, leader and guru of the transcendental meditation movement
Timothy Leary, popularizer of LSD who famously said, "Tune in, Turn on and Drop out."
Baba Ram Dass
Baba O'Riley
Neem Karoli Baba

Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard once joined which rock group for a studio recording session?

The Rolling Stones
Cream
The Yardbirds
None of the above

SOUL’S CODE — When the Indian “hugging saint”, Amma, perhaps the most-loved person on the planet, enters an ashram or a hall or a tent in her world travels, all rise. Her presence is so supernatural, so beyond celebrity or personality, the rite acknowledges a rare phenomenon: the “godhead” has touched the floor which you, too, touch.

So it was with Michael Jackson. When his feet touched a stage, his presence touched a deep energy and knowing in us all. The “godhead” touched earth. Our columnists and readers share how they were touched . . .

Vicki Woodyard — No matter how one may have felt about Michael Jackson, watching the memorial service opened one’s heart chakra to an amazing degre, not unlike the service for Princess Diana. It is easy to see why.

In the sorrowful hour that we all face sooner or later, when a loved one has left the body, we face ourselves empty and alone. Tears fall and strangely enough, we are rendered kinder than we might have thought possible. Forgiveness rains onto the hard earth of the human heart. We need this.

Our culture does not know how to mourn; there is no tribal ritual until someone as famous as a Princess Diana or a Michael Jackson or an Elvis Presley dies. Then we unite via satellite hookups to shed virtual tears together. Strangely, they plop down our living human cheeks, and this is a good thing. A good thing indeed.

I don’t know what I thought about Michael Jackson and it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that I am a human living on this earth. Whoever takes us one step closer to each other is helping to heal the planet. Our nature and our destiny are one. We are made of paradox and stardust. We rise and fall like waves and in rejoining the sea, there is somehow an exultation tied in with the tears.

Lisa ‘Dane’ McCullough — To the best of my understanding, I believe that Michael Jackson was the bearer of profound love and profound negativity/confusion for the masses.   He was a sensitive soul that played out his role on earth to  perfection even though it wasn’t our idea of how he should be. I cannot  fathom how he lived a life of so much attention, expectation, etc.

He clearly gave life his all at times and was incredibly gifted.  His passing is an invitation for each of us to assume responsibility for giving our lives our all. Perhaps now we can own more of who we are — in all  of our light and shadow. I don’t own a television and did not feel the desire or need to watch any of the events yesterday. Furthermore, I think that the timing of his and Farrah’s passing is fascinating. Her being the ‘angel’ and him being the bearer of the darkness. Even their physical appearances were polar opposites. Something big and universal got balanced when they passed.

I felt the energy shifts for days afterwards. The summer solstice and the shifting of the light played in here too. That is enough to share for now though. 

Elaine Springer — Just incredibly sad; sad that someone so beautiful and gifted suffered in so much pain. The people who knew and loved him understood him. The media and the masses never could.

Chelsea Langan — Few people will admit that they will never know what and if anything ever happened, although from a spiritual perspective, it wouldn’t even matter.  Due diligence is required on an individual basis, and everyone in judgement of others tribulations will have to deal with the due diligence forced by the judgements themselves. However, none of this compromises our connection to Source, it only makes the journey a bit more twisted.

He was no doubt the brightest soul on earth since the advent of media and technology, nothing less. He let his Energy and Love emerge and flow on Earth better than anyone, and we could all take notes!

Anita Burns — I think he was an enormously talented, yet troubled man-child. Perhaps his life became so unbearable that he unconsciously brought on his passing. Too sensitive for the onslaught of media hounds looking for anything to sell their stories or get more ratings.

These are just thoughts. I may be way off.  I got so tired of the news media feeding on his death, that I mostly turned it off.

Laurence Koike — The memorial was beautiful especially from 11-year-old Paris. A moving ceremony to honor someone.  We have memorials for people but it’s all about us and how we feel. The dead cannot really appreciate it, not in the physical sense. I say “not in the physical sense” because I believe we each live on forever in another consciousness.  The physical being passes away but the US that is the Universe lives on. We care and we feel as the living.

As far as the man or “man-child”, I agree he was a troubled person. He was exploited as a child, and exploited even in his death. Perhaps all those accusations about child molestations (alleged since we do not know the truth) was his way of controlling what he could not control.  His reaction to being ‘used’ all the time by others. What kind of psychology would you nurture if your whole life was living in a “fish bowl” (quote from MJ). 

Anita Magnoli — After watching the event, I really had an appreciation for his life.  Michael Jackson was a world-wide figure and he really brought the music industry to the next level.

He has definitely left his legacy. . .RIP MJ

Paul Kaihla — PIECES OF AN AFTERLIFE: Was it an accident of celebrity that Michael Jackson and Britney Spears performed together? Or was it an alignment of what self-help author, Caroline Myss, calls “energy anatomy” ?

Britney was Michael’s tabloid mirror-image for the millennials, both raised by parents who manufactured their kids to be fame-making and money-making widgets. Maybe Britney was most honest about it in her 2007 song, Piece of Me.

Before his children, Michael’s most beloved mate was his pet chimpanzee, Bubbles, now,  in real life, alive in an animal sanctuary.

You can forever experience Bubbles and Michael, immortalized, in the permanent collection of San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art, in the larger-than-life porcelain sculpture that made Jeff Koons’ 1988 “banality series” so famous:

Akon

Sri Lanka shows no love for rapper Akon: Bikini babes and Buddha in videos don’t mix on Sinhalese Buddhists’ watch.

Social networking more than idle chat to disabled: People gaining a community and “family” online.

Don’t want to face your therapist?  New research shows therapy by teleconference as effective as face to face.

Sweden voted No. 1 place for women to live: Flexible gender roles part of the reason.

Just in time for Easter! If new “gas” method is allowed, it may successfully date the Shroud of Turin.

Anderson wrote the kriya-like lyrics to Tales from Topographic Oceans (each side of the two-album set is an entire song) while reading the latter’s Autobiography of a Yogi, which is now a classroom text in the post-modern spiritual canon.

Dean’s themes were broken off chunks of planet and surreal spirals of flora. Check out the cover he created for 1970′s Fragile, which featured Yes’s biggest cross-over radio hit — a track called, Long Distance Runaround and one of its shortest songs.

You can already see one of Cameron’s winged Leonardo da Vinci-like flying machines on the front cover (left). And in anticipation of Cameron’s ecological-catastrophe theme 40 years beforehand, the back side of the album shows the planet breaking up into the kind of floating islands that hover in the atmosphere of Avatar’s Pandora, while the native population escapes in a wooden space glider.

LOVE SPIRITUAL CINEMA? CLICK THROUGH OUR SLIDESHOW: “TOP 12 TRANSCENDENTAL MOVIES”

As Yes and progressive rock faded as a genre during the New Wave 1980s Dean still sold posters and other designs to a cult following as a brand in his own right. Now 65 and living in Brighton, UK, he’s branched out into designing video game covers. Compare the images below, the last of which Dean called “Icarus,” to the scenes in the Avatar trailer above:

GUEST COLUMN: BLAKE BLISS — When I experience depression it’s a lot like watching a nightmare in endless rewind.

It closes in on me and keeps me from feeling anything positive.

I feel so alone most days that the sick feeling of isolation seems like my only reality. It’s strange, but it seems that when I’m lonely, the best cure is solitude.

The problem is, my demons often creep in from the shadows and raid my mind, plaguing me with dark imagery and worry.

My depression goes way back; I never faced my feelings as a child. Often, I would just run from my emotional wounds. I find it hard to explain the trauma I endured in that time.

The feelings expressed through my body were far from pleasant and I noticed changes in my attitude. I have always felt alone, and my depression is a direct link from that sensation. Like many young people,I have never felt as if I fit in, or that anyone understood me.

I felt like I was passing through my reality, yes, with a touch of grace; but only to be ignored by people I actually cared for. I’ve been lost, disconnected and restrained by a physical shell with many spiritual restrictions. No one, not my friends nor my family, could be close to me.

What is that line from Sartre? “Hell is other people.”  Eventually I ended up trapping myself in my own sorrow.

Why did I end up craving the pain, as if it’s all I really have? To this day I try to ignore what my mind tries to convince me of.

That’s the little voice in your head mentioning your flaws, pointing the gun at your brain and telling you to walk through your toughest experiences without being even remotely ready.

Now, as I look back to what I’ve gone through, I wouldn’t change anything in my life. I would keep all the experiences. Many of them were dire and painful, but I love who I am now and I’m thankful I could finally piece myself together.

When I was really depressed, listening to music was my crutch, something to hold on to as I sunk my mind into the lyrics and rested in those thoughts. This created wonderful moments of peace.

I have gathered so much inner knowledge from these experiences, and this has become my mission — to pass a message of hope on to others. This is the reason that I created my band, Blake Bliss, about three years ago.

With my singing career, I’m trying to help others who feel disconnected and lonely.

One day I think you just wake up from all the pain and realize. Still, more experiences with depression pour in even now and I fight my depression every day.

This isn’t the end of the battle. I’m only just getting warmed up

Blake is a musician from Ontario, Canada who loves art, writing, poetry, drawing, painting and spirituality. Visit him at: blakebliss.com, myspace.com/blakebliss and myspace.com/letterboxblack