Eden Ahbez
Overview
eden ahbez was an American songwriter and recording artist of the 1940s-1960s, whose lifestyle in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 was influential on the hippie
Hippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...

 movement. He was known to friends simply as ahbe.

Ahbez composed the song "Nature Boy
Nature Boy (song)
"Nature Boy" is a song by eden ahbez, published in 1947. The song tells a fantasy of a "strange enchanted boy... who wandered very far" only to learn that "the greatest thing... was just to love and be loved in return"...

," which became a #1 hit for eight weeks in 1948 for Nat "King" Cole and has since become a pop and jazz standard.

Living a bucolic life from at least the 1940s, he traveled in sandals and wore shoulder-length hair and beard, and white robes.
Quotations

There was a boy A very strange enchanted boy...

"Nature Boy (song)|Nature Boy" (1948)

While we spoke of many things Fools and kings This he said to me: "The greatest thing you'll ever learn Is just to love and be loved in return."

"Nature Boy" (1948)

Some white people hate black people, and some white people love black people, some black people hate white people, and some black people love white people. So you see it's not an issue of black and white, it's an issue of Lovers and Haters.

As quoted by Joe Romersa (c. 1992)

I am a being of Heaven and Earth, of thunder and lightning, of rain and wind, of the galaxies, of the suns and the stars and the void through which they travel. The essence of nature, eternal, divine that all men seek to know to hear, known as the great illusion time, and the all-prevailing atmosphere. And now you know my background.

Tape recording declaring how he recited one of his poems in response to a question "What is your background?" (1992)

Now Heaven and Earth are older than the temples, and older than the Scriptures, and whether we realize it or not, they hold more authority.

Tape recording to Joe Romersa (1992)

What I mean by the Principle of Oneness is this: That we must learn to realize that there's nothing separate or apart. That everything is part of everything else. That there's nothing above us, or below us, or around us. All is inherent within us. Like Jesus said, "The Kingdom is Within."

Tape recording to Joe Romersa (1992)

We're not earthly beings any more… we're cosmic beings.

Tape recording to Joe Romersa (1992)

The earth is my altar, the sky is my dome, mind is my garden, the heart is my home and I'm always at home — yea, I'm always at Om.

Tape recording to Joe Romersa

 
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