Essays

Music has the capacity of recharging us when we are exhausted and tired and out—it energizes us. In a state of exhaustion, music acts as a miracle—something starts taking place inside, something joyous, something pleasant, and something calm. Have we ever thought of the reason?

The answer is nothing different but the fact that we feel harmony. Without harmony, life is just chaos and some people may get along with it anyway. Harmony provides an equilibrium between two excesses, and it also provides an equilibrium between the outer and inner worlds.

Music is harmony—it is harmony between sound and silence. Sound belongs to the earth, silence belongs to the beyond.

Pythagoras, while unfolding the mystery of music, called it, numinous. The word 'numinous' comes from a Latin root numen, which means a nod from the above, a yes from the beyond. It is a matter to be understood— otherwise we will be ruining something significant.

Music creates such a harmony that even god starts nodding at us, saying yes to us. When we say music is numinous, we mean we are touched and overwhelmed by the beyond—something inside becomes silent, quieter, calmer and unflappable—it gets reflected on the face.

In the Pythagorean mystery school, music was of utmost importance. Pythagoras discovered that music could become the milieu, the soft background for meditation. He introduced the idea to the West.

We feel the music to discover our inner being. In the East we have known for centuries that music is the best aid to meditation. Osho says: "Music is outer meditation; it is inner music. They go together hand in hand, embracing each other. When meditation and music meet, world and god meet, matter and consciousness meet."

That is unio mystica—the mystic union. In the East it has been called yoga, which just means union. Ved Vyasa says yoga is samadhi, yoga is enstasis, meaning to stand in, doing nothing, just being. That is a state of meditation.

Osho further elaborates: "In the market place, you feel great disturbance inside you. In the market place, the whole atmosphere is anti-music, there is no harmony, it is "a chaos. But if you know the meditation technique deeply, you can sit in the market and nothing will disturb you because you have a powerful music working inside you."

We may have forgotten that music can take us downwards or upwards. The ancient music, the classical music has totally a different affect—it pulls us upwards, it takes us beyond gravitation. It is part of levitation. Modern music, on the other hand, is nothing but sheer noise population. It takes us downwards—it is raucous, it is concerned with the lowest centre of our being. Let us be clean within and without. Let us be deserving of divine blessings and grace—for then we shall be wanting on, no count.

"The Lords joys manifests through the splendorous beauty and serenity of his creations. The supreme bliss of this divine love is felt within the soul, that is pure and receptive to the sanctity of god's boundless love/'Atharva Veda 20.137.4

Do You Know?

Sambaed, one of the four great books of ancient Indian literature is considered as the first book dealing with the music