Elvis Presley's Inner Spiritual Voyage

Elvis Presley's Inner Spiritual Voyage

Millions of words have been written about the turbulent and legendary life and career of Elvis Presley: from his humble birth and extremely poor early days in a tiny wooden shotgun two-room house in Tupelo, Mississippi; to his musical beginnings as a teenager discovered at Sun Records by Sam Phillips; to his spectacular ascent to worldwide celebrity propelled and supervised by the infamous Colonel Tom Parker. Despite this abundance of details, the reality is that the most committed and hardcore enthusiast who can recount all the essential specifics and smallest details of his career and life likely does not know that which is most important and revealing: the essential core of the man born Elvis Aaron Presley, his lifelong quest for meaning and purpose.

I knew a different Elvis from the public image, a bright, sensitive man who set out on a lifelong quest for understanding and self-realization. It was my privilege to walk that path with him. Together we explored the world’s great esoteric philosophies and religions. Elvis and I poured over every book I could get my hands on. We examined and debated, investigated and pierced, always looking for answers to the unanswerable, helping each other on the journey as we each searched for our own answers. Together we examined the perennial spiritual teachings , Eastern and Western ideas and religions, exoteric and esoteric. Our inquisitive minds were open to every possibility. We were students of meditation and spiritual healing. We delighted in playing with numbers and words, developing original ways of finding mystical meaning in the ordinary. Esoteric teachings communicated directly to Elvis’ core desire to discover the enigma of existence, and thus it stemmed naturally from the very marrow of his heart and soul.

Elvis' management and others around him couldn't accept or understand the nature of Elvis' spiritual quest. The very term spiritual conjured up strange, weird and alien notions and pictures to many of them. As a result, there were many years of misunderstanding and dissension.

The word "spiritual," just like "God," has many emotional and philosophical interpretations, separating human beings from each other and creating significant unhappiness and conflict. Individuals who have never lifted their sight above the material world, who have never even touched the realms of the sacred, talk about the concept as if they understand its significance or they minimize the concept as if they understand what they are denying. Just as with the word “love,” the full concept of spirituality has been tossed around so casually that its meaning has become devalued. We love our family, we love God; but we also love our cars or ice cream. Love is more than an emotional feeling; it’s a rich, consummate spiritual frequency, a unifying power that links us all.

The essential nature of spirituality is to acquire knowledge of our true selves, to learn the nature of our connection to God. This quest has been the basis of all the world's great religious and spiritual teachings, and the purpose of all the great mystics. Genuine spirituality is an attitude, a way of being, a deepening of our awareness and our adventure with life; it is the art of meaningful living.

The intrinsic theme of Elvis’ quest for meaning and purpose in his life was to know what was asked of him, what he was called upon to give to the world. He realized his God-given talent and the music he created were a great gift he tendered to his fans, and most people would have been satisfied with that as the purpose of their life. But it wasn’t enough for Elvis; he sincerely felt he was chosen at birth when his twin brother Jesse Garon was stillborn, and he suffered in his passion to do more, to give more.

His admirers sense there is more to Elvis than they know, that he radiated a sensitivity and innocence that shone through the dazzle and glamour.