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Interview with Hati Baba (shangri-la-la-la magazine)

Blind Mind


Started Topics :  2
Posts :  175
Posted : Mar 20, 2005 19:28
Hi everyone,
How GREAT is to live, not in dreams or nightmares (illusions), BUT in the PURE REALITY.


CHECK IT IN:
(published in Shangri-la-la-la Magazine, 2003)
Author - (?)


Lying on the beach.
Notes of music exquisitely wafting down through the breeze from "The Nine Bar", a musical paradisical psychedelical dance-floor situated on the cliffs above.

The daily sunset ritual in Vagatar has just begun.

Deejay starts with a slow beat, building up to thudding crescendos of pure magical mayhem, until, at 10 pm sharp, it suddenly stops and hundreds of motor-bike and moped engines can be heard starting simultaneously and roaring off to the next session just around the corner.
Either to "Primrose", (a bar/club/internet cafe all rolled into one) or up to "Paradiso", an open plan club with the dance-floor overlooking a beach.

The local and foreign promoters have opening and closing times sorted so that each venue has a fair share of punters.
The very essence of Psychedelic trance is apparent, from the streets and beaches filled with psychedelic colours, music emanating from various sources... to the dreadlocked smiling faces everywhere.
I had heard rumours that the trance scene had died and moved on, but i definitely found evidence that proved rumours are rumours, and never to rely on second-hand information anyway.
Sure it's not as cram-packed as it was in the old daze, but i personally think that adds a certain attraction.
This is the birthplace of a way of life that has broken language barriers and cultural differences through shared musical and universal beliefs, wilsht portraying the understanding that music creats in it's own language.
Music it's more than global - it's universal.
A language of souls ?
Words are often meanlingless in such instances of moments in eternity.
With people from all over the planet - each there seeking this same essence, you could say there's a fair representation of party people.
I met Indians, Croatians, Germans, Israelis, Scotts, French, British, Portuguese, Japanese, Tibetans, Swiss, Swedish, Belgiums, Spanish, Irish, Italians, Canadians and americans for instance, and a few Aliens too i'm sure, around Goa and on the dance-floor.

DJ Hati Baba (AKA Andrea Stafforti), the Gentleman, entrepeneur and traveller I met, deejayed and travelled with, has been going to India on a regular basis since 1985.
As one of the first hippies to be arrested in Goa for noise pollution -+ 15 years ago, from what i picked up, he is a bit of a legend and well known by travellers and locals alike, not only in Goa but throughout India, Nepal, as well as his home country of Switzerland.
And it's not hard to understand why.
With two clothing and head-shops in Switzerland, "Growland" and "Spacenick" he travels through India every year, buying items for his shops en route to his resort and spiritual retreat in Kathmandu, Nepal, whilst putting a lot of parties on along the way with various entities in the universe.

I fired a few questions at him one night in Pushkar.           - BEing mySELF
Blind Mind


Started Topics :  2
Posts :  175
Posted : Mar 20, 2005 19:31
E - What inspired you to get in music - namely, trance ?

H - Hhmmmm... The younger I was, the more I was writing, the little bit older I got the more I was painting and then all of a sudden I found out that according to Tibetan Buddhism, the inspiration, the soul, the spirit, - the enlightenment is mostly got through the ear, so...
I got interested in music.

E - Where were you and what were you doing 5 years ago ?

H - 5 years ago I was practically doing nearly the same thing like now.
I was just a bit less wealthier.
About this time I was probably at this same place where I am sitting now.
I was travelling trough India trying to get the best and nice things together for my shops.
I was dj-ing in Goa, Kathmandu, in Switerzland and Germany.
Trying to move the spirit trough the decades.

E - What have been your main influences in music ?

H - In music ? Hhmmm, the most, probably the greatest influence concerning music in my life was the first sound which ever happened in the universe;
It is called "Aum"... and then creation starts.

E - (Aum...) Your hero ?

H - Steve Hillage.
The first guy who was connecting an electric guitar with a moog synthesizer.
He was with the Electric Gypsies, who discovered the healing sound, and he played with "Gong" and "Solo".
He was one of the driving forces behind the Stonehenge Festival up to '84.

The Electric Gypsies were all these people who were travelling in England, Wales and Ireland.
They were bards - they were called bards in the old age, and they became electric bards, and so Electric Gypsy's and it was them who started to use the sound to heal people from all these problems and illness's of the modern age of this civilization.
There's this beautiful song of Steve Hillage, where's telling "We discovered, we are tasting the drop, the liquid light which shines in Acid !"
Steve Hillage himself, he has produced more famous groups these days like Simple Minds & Real Life.
There are two Findhorn communities on this planet.
One community started in Scotland, the second one was started in Australia, thats connecting, you know, the old hippy people who started these Findhorn communities, their kids became the musicians of the new age."

E - So you feel the trance scene is a continuation and evolvement of the "hippy scene" ?

H - I could just make an image of my onw experience, you know when i came to Goa in 85 (it was so different then as it was in 79 or 82).
I was thinking, that except for Steve Hillage and Pink Floyd, music was dead.
So I was feeling a bit depressed and then I arrived in Goa... And then, for the first time in my life I heard the "new sound".
I heard things i had never heard before.
My ears !
And I, a little child, that hears his mother's voice the first time in his life !
And THIS is what i heard in Goa.
And Goa was just a place where it was allowed to happen.
Development of the music into the new age.

E - Getting back to the question - Goa/Psychedelic Trance - an evolvement of the hippy scene in Goa ?

H - It depends.
When I was listening to the radio I already heard some so called computer sounds - and a "good" hippy was not supposed to listen to disco !
So what we heard from the radio was some kind of sweet-water conserve music made to keep uh - like a valium for the people, but beside that, and nobody knew that, was evolving the new psychedelic trance music which was something completely different - it was just a continuation of what had started everytime - when a new technology was invented in music, a new age of music has started.
So I would like to remind the time that when the first time a piano was invented the music has done a step in evolution forward, and when the hammond organ came, music has done a step forward in evolution, and then when the electric guitar came, rock n roll was created.
So whenever a step in technology was allowing to make new sounds heard for the human ear, the music did a quantam step.
And what's this all about ? - and who ?
The evangelist who were the pioneers of music were always the people considered to be outcast - considered to be "gypsies" or "hippies" or "freaks" or whatever, and it was always them, who, first they hear this new music - and they like "Oh that's it ! Thats the new sound - that we go for".
And then like you see today now, every housewife is listening to Pink Floyd whilst she's doing the dishes!

E - What would you be doing if there was no such thing as music ?

H - Thats a very amazing question because there is no life without music.
Because in the beginning there was God, and besides God there was the word and the word was Aum and it was the first sound, the primordial sound and this sound is still sounding inside us.
If we knew it or if we don't knew it, it doesn't matter, but it's still sounding inside us.
This is the sound of life and life without sound is the same like sound without life - it's not existing.

E - Where do you see the scene going from here ?

H - I am very sorry, about these future prophesies I can't say so much, actually, I can only say where I like to go and where I like the scene to go but i don't know where the scene itself is going.
Maybe it's going somewhere completely different place from wherever I'm going and I don't know if the scene is the most important thing, or if the - how to say - the evolvement of music is the most important thing.
I mean, there was a scene called the rock scene, a scene which was called the new age scene, the new wave scene, the pop scene, the whatever scene.
So now there is a trance scene, and this trance scene, maybe now they're fixed on trance and they're going somewhere, but the universal sound which is putting the people together, the "UN" - the united religions which are expressed in the sound, and in the parties which are happening, they have to go wherever the cosmic flow is moving to.
And I don't know where the scene is going, but I think I feel where the music is leading us.           - BEing mySELF
Blind Mind


Started Topics :  2
Posts :  175
Posted : Mar 20, 2005 19:33
E - Where is the music leading us ?

H - I think the music is leading us into a more and more higher experience of ourselves.
First of our inner cosmos, and of our outer cosmos, and this is what is needed to be prepared for space migration.
For life in cosmos.
We are supposed to spread consciousness, life, love, laughter, into the whole universe.
And THERE is music leading us.
Music is our spiritual guide.
If there is no Guru let the music be our Guru.
I think the scene is at the moment searching for a new identity so it's a time of the change.
Time of change is always very good and interesting because it's opening a new hope, a new prosperity, a new way, into a new consciousness, a new feeling and into a new way of going to the music.
Actually, Herman Hesse says, describing very nicely in his "game of the glass pearls beads", that the music is only the part of communication between the humans and between the Gods, so music will develop into a multimedia thing, this is what I'm believing.

E - Its already happening don't you think ?

H - Its already happening and I was dreaming sometime of something which also could at the moment be felt as something a little strange, but you have a dancefloor of 5000 people, and everybody is having like a little electrode in his ear, and its connected with the central stage, playing the central multimedia sound, which is consisting of feelings... which is consisting of sound... which is consisting of visuals... which is consisting of orgasms... which is consisting of light... which is consisting of everything which is sensory or even super sensory - possible to sense.
So this is what I think where music is leading us to.

E - What would you do to change the trance scene ?

H - I don't want to change the trance scene, what I want to do is to help whole humanity to reach a higher consciousness, a higher state of mind, a better understanding of life and cosmology, and to do that all I can do is to go on teaching because teaching means, in the sense of whenever I play music, I try to give a message - the message of the light, of the central universal light which shines through the nectar of sound, which we can hear, but which we also can see, we also can feel which we also can experience and which one day will maybe even be possible to experience all that without a body and thats the real future - COSMIC FUTURE !

E - Whats your favourite activity ?

H - Meditation.
But it doesn't just mean to be quiet and looking at the point of your nose.
When I talk about meditation I talk about something much more vast.
I mean meditation is to do music.
Meditation is to live in music.
Meditation is to Dj.
Meditation is to dance.
Meditation is to love.
Meditation is to discover the secrets of the universe.
This is all meditation for me, so ahh... everything - every activity which brings me further to the realms of the Gods, out of the everyday simple and materialistic way of earning money to get your "dalbhat" (rice plate), is for me kind of a meditation.
So this is my favourite activity.
Communication can be meditation too.           - BEing mySELF
Blind Mind


Started Topics :  2
Posts :  175
Posted : Mar 20, 2005 19:34
E - Where do you see yourself in 10 years ?

H - I see myself in 10 years as more evolved, more developed, more satisfied, more uhm... cosmically stable person, with a lot of healing powers.
With myself healed up, grown up, developed and with a lot of people around me, me with them doing the same thing.

E - If you believed in reincarnation what would you come back as ?

H - Theres no next life for me - I'm the last one of my name and I have to do it this life, I have to jump out - I have to get mukti - liberation.
And if i come back, I don't want to come back as a reincarnation, I come back as a boddhisatva, as a soul full of compassion and help for all the human's which are still not able to reach that point.
Thats my goal.

E - What 3 things would you have to bring with you if earthlings had to evacuate this planet ?

H - I don't need to take 3 things.
I only need to take one thing and this one thing which I have to take, you can even call it a donkeys bridge.
Thats just because I'm not yet enlightened.
So what I would have to take with me is a mala.
Mala means chain of beds, of 108, preferably rudraksha pearls, because if I do this mala, if I meditate with this mala, and everytime I touch one bead, and I say "Aum"; I do this 3 times, I close my eyes, I close my nose, I close my ears, I close my mouth, and I will hear all the music of the universe inside my soul.
Thats the only thing I have to take with me at the moment.

E - How did you get the name "Hati Baba" ?

H - A baba is somebody who has developed his own ways to reach higher spirituality, higher consciousness, who has done it on his own, not talking about the millions of Gurus's around you, which are all the time around you - I mean everybody - every animal - every little ant (-No kidding a huge ant decided to pick that moment to walk past on the wall behind...) its a guru for you and its teaching you what you have to learn.
But if there isn't any personality to which you can consecrate all your being (or your money) then you do it on yourself.
And if you have done it by yourself, and you have reached a certain point of knowledge and spirituality, you're allowed, according to the Hindu system, the Vedic system, lets say, to call yourself a Baba.
And being a little bit the size of an elephant, and with the brain of an elephant, and with a heart of gold, I think I'm allowed to call myself Hati Baba !
(Hati means elephant)

E - Out of curiousity - any initiation ?
(with regards to "Baba")

H - All these rituals, they are very important to give you confidence about what you do, and about what you reach.
Actually what the Vedas are very clear about, there is no enlightenment without a guru.
But in a time like this the Gurus are very little and many are fake.
And the people searching for Gurus are myriads and they don't find any, so the only way to go at these times are - You choose your own way.
There is, in Hindu mythology, a very beautiful expression for that.
It's called "Shiva Dakshina Murti".
So Shiva himself never had a guru, he was teaching himself, with the help of his 3 beautiful incarnated shakti's - or women - to reach enlightnment, and this is Shiva Dakshina Murti - "you have to learn it on your own"
"Be your own guru".           - BEing mySELF
Blind Mind


Started Topics :  2
Posts :  175
Posted : Mar 20, 2005 19:35
E - What are you doing now ?

H - I'm sitting at the moment in a very beautiful place, being interviewied by one beautiful Shakti, in the middle of the desert of Rajasthan, surrounded by village paintings, by old wood, by antique carvings, by a bed lying on the stone, looking in a mirror of carved ebony, and reminding of times when there were a lot less people living on this planet.

E - Apart from playing music, what is your profession - what do you do for a living ?

H - Hhm. You see, when I was 17, I just had to face that nobody is going to sponsor my geniality as an artist, so I had to find out how to feed myself somehow, and always, to avoid going into a factory and losing your soul and health for a proprietor and for a stupid job, was to enter business.
So before entering business I had to ask myself, what do I like to do best in my life ?
And I said okay I like to write books, but in Switerzland nobody's paying any money for people writing books, they always buy the books from America.
So second thing is okay I like to do Love, but ah... probably is very difficult to find women to pay for that , and, ah... is also a little bit difficult to go to bed with 70 years old rich girls.
So then next thing was okay, I am a creative personality so, I try to do a mixture of what i love to do the best in my life, and this is something to do with creativity.
So I try to live from my own ideas.
I try to live from what I really like to do without prostituting myself too much to the god of money.
And this is the way which I try to - which I was going up to now, and which I still try to hold on to - living off my creativity without prostituting myself.
And up to now, with some lttle exceptions of which I have to be ashamed, I've managed to do that.

E - Where to next ?

H - I have to go back to Nepal, because there I am building up my own consequence against the petrochemical governing of this planet - against all these people which are dreaming about a world without nature.
I am doing something.
I try to use all these old, beautiful, very very working, healthy, powerful knowledge of herbs and health - which is more and more prohibited in the West, to allow the multis and the petrochemical multis to sell us all kind of poisonous medicines - which they call medicines and which is just making us much much more ill than we were before.
I try to enter a new level which is going above Hemp, but I learned it through the hemp, because hemp is one of the ultimate medicines which God ever created for humanity.
And out of that, I try to make this even more vast, and this is my fight - this is my personal challenge to the rest of the petrochemical governed world, that I want to help the people to get back to help themselves !
I want to give them the infrastructure to help themselves, in a state of mind and body where they don't need doctors anymore - FOREVER.           - BEing mySELF
Blind Mind


Started Topics :  2
Posts :  175
Posted : Mar 20, 2005 19:36
Final

The party we played at together was a long-waited 2 day affair at the HillTop Motel in Vagatar.
Long-waited because some parties around that time hadn't been allowed to take place by local authorities.
Steve D'Sousa, owner of HillTop, has been throwing parties for over 20 years, and along with the promoters and deejays who have been making annual "pilgrimages" to Goa for the past few decades, has time and again proven that Goa still cooks.
Funny thing was, Hati Baba and I been staying at HillTop for 3 weeks before we met.
He threw a Goan feast for everyone in the lodge the Fryday before the party, and once we started talking we didn't stop - no, couldn't stop, and so the beer flowed and the sun came up and we're waffling on til we realize okay the parties starting in a few hours and we better get some shut eye if we gonna rock the place later...
Which we did, (at sunrise, once we'd recovered from the previous night session) along with some true blue trance rockers OF NOTE.
Trying to remember names is another story, but two dj's that stand out in my memory banks are Sumerpan, playing a mean night time set, and XP, who took over from Hati Baba and myself at midday. (XP, sorry mate, I really thought that track was 9 minutes something...)

The most enjoyable back to back session I remember.
It was hot in Goa.
We cooked.
All of us under the sun.

ONE.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap031121.html           - BEing mySELF
Blind Mind


Started Topics :  2
Posts :  175
Posted : Mar 20, 2005 19:38
The Spirit of nature is the essence of life.

The natural spirit is strong & true.
The spirit of nature is there, let it through.

The truth is not out there, it is inside you.

By Nick
(shangri-la-la-la magazine)
          - BEing mySELF
Blind Mind


Started Topics :  2
Posts :  175
Posted : Mar 20, 2005 19:39
A really TRUE, truly REAL MASTERPEACE !!! !!! !!! !!! !!! !!! !!!

Isn't it ?
          - BEing mySELF
Nomolos(Zenon Rec.)
IsraTrance Junior Member

Started Topics :  48
Posts :  2027
Posted : Mar 20, 2005 21:31
nice! wish i was back in India land of endless possibilities and magical random encounters....
well...i guess next year!
Cheers.           "....or is it???"

www.zenonrecords.com
www.myspace.com/thenomolos
Blind Mind


Started Topics :  2
Posts :  175
Posted : Mar 25, 2005 15:13
ISn't IT?           - BEing mySELF
bert


Started Topics :  3
Posts :  82
Posted : Mar 25, 2005 15:31
No!
DETOX
IsraTrance Senior Member

Started Topics :  296
Posts :  6194
Posted : Mar 26, 2005 03:02
Nice interview with some wise things said there.

Really nice one           Toodaloo Motherfuckers!!!!!
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