collectors are spiritual seekers. They search for grails after all. But on the blog at Vinyl Vogue, Lou has been doing the devil’s work. Attracted to album covers with bikini clad women and suggestive images of women with food, Lou needed a higher calling.
Browsing through the bins, Lou thought he had found his guru. Bhagavan Das’s Ah, a double LP from 1972. This hippie on the beach seemed to be the exact opposite of Tammy Lynn Leppert being violated on the Spring Break soundtrack cover. Bhagavan Das was born Kermit Michael Riggs in Laguna Beach California in 1945. He was a sensitive soul troubled by growing American imperialism and the assassination of John F. Kennedy. In 1962 he saw a photo of Allen Ginsberg in Life wading in the Ganges River in India and this provided the inspiration for Riggs to follow in Ginsberg’s footsteps on a spiritual quest to India. Ginsberg was the first international hippie, and he is directly responsible for generations of seekers heading to the East for wisdom. From 1963 to 1967, Riggs sat at the feet of prominent Indian gurus, including Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, years before the Beatles made their pilgrimage. In Neem Karoli Baba, Riggsfound his true guru, who renamed him Bhagavan Das. Bhagavan Das became in essence a spiritual hermit who devoted himself to mediation and introspection for up to 21 hours a day, eating out of a human skull.
In 1967, Richard Alpert arrived in India searching for spiritual awakening. Alpert along with Timothy Leary were among the founding fathers of the psychedelic revolution in the West and their investigations with psychedelics and indiscretions with undergraduates at Harvard got them in hot water. Disgraced, Alpert arrived in India with fifty doses of LSD and met Bhagavan Das. Bhagavan Das wanted those fifty doses and Alpert wanted to sleep with the young guru. At an impasse, Bhagavan Das, after a few months instructing Alpert, introduced Alpert to his guru but not before advising Alpert to “Be Here Now.” The rest is New Age history. Alpert was renamed Ram Dass, and he wrote a bestselling book on his spiritual awakening that became a cult classic. In the book Ram Dass credits Bhagavan Das as a true guru, the man who knows. At the age of twenty-five, Bhagavan Das became a New Age icon.
In 1972, Bhagavan Das, now in the United States, recorded Ah, a double LP of kirtan chants to wide acclaim. Rolling Stone anointed Bhagavan Das as the Jimi Hendrix of chant and he toured with Allen Ginsberg and opened for the Grateful Dead. In the 1970s and 1980s, Bhagavan Das became somewhat adrift, married two women at the same time, became a salesman of insurance, encyclopedias, and automobiles as well as a born-again Christian. After this period in the spiritual wilderness, Bhagavan Das returned to his role as chanter and guru, a role he continues to this day. So far so good.
As you know from these posts on Vinyl Vogue, Lou always looks for the darkness in the light and there have been rumors and whispers about Bhagavan Das and his spiritual practices. A self-proclaimed devotee of Kali and a worshipper of the sacred yoni, that is a lord of the vagina to you and me, Bhagavan Das practices a form of crazy wisdom like that of Chögyam Ripoche, the drunken guru who held sway over Allen Ginsberg and other New American Poets in Boulder, Colorado. A follower of Bhagavan Das named Jeff Brown, released a documentary, Karmageddon, detailing his disillusionment with his crazy wisdom and called him out that his spirituality was just a front to attract young pussy. In a surprising turn of events, Ram Dass calls out his inspiration Bhagavan Das as a salesman of spirituality with questionable motives at the end of the movie. It is a fascinating documentary and well worth a watch.
As for Ah. It is completely mystifying to Lou how this shit found any audience at all. The packaging is top notch with a gatefold sleeve and an insert. It must have cost a pretty penny to put out. There is definitely money in this type of stuff. Loudoes not know what the Jimi Hendrix of chant means but Lou must admit that with this LP Bhagavan Das helped Lou connectwith the passage of time. Listening to these chants, Lou felt time stop and it seemed that the two LPs would never end. Lou may have escaped from his mortal body. Bhagavan Das definitely put Lou in touch with the meaning of boredom, which Lou guesses is a form of crazy wisdom. As Bill Cosby knows well, one of the keys to getting the girls is putting them to sleep.
Suggested Sites and Sounds:
The Beats in India: A Blue Hand by Deb Baker: 9780143114833 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books
Be Here Now: Be Here Now by Ram Dass: 9780517543054 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books
The Teachings of the Lord of Vagina: God is Not A Big Deal - Bhagavan Das
Karmageddon: KARMAGEDDON THE MOVIE
— Lou Waxman