Can One Find Spirituality Within Music?

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zeropoint
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Re: Can One Find Spirituality Within Music?

Post by zeropoint »

Ahhh yes the Schumann frequency.... 8)

Here is a letter I wrote to Debashish Bhattacharya, indian guitar and sitar virtuoso after a personal epiphany on this subject some years ago. I can't find his reply on this 'puter at the moment which is a darned shame because it was so humble and beautiful......

Dear Debashish

I am writing to you today to thank you, and in so doing thank myself, for a moment of true illumination and inspiration.

A couple of years ago a friend invited me to see The Gotan Project perform at The Barbican Centre in London, where you and your brother played on the same bill. It was the first time that I had heard your music, at a time in my life when my thoughts were much taken with the mystery of creativity, with love and the one life force. As the music started to sing from the pair of you I recalled a recent conversation with the brother of a friend of mine, an exceptionally gifted artist, who sadly suffers from what we in the mechanistic west call schizophrenia. A few days before that concert he told me that he had decided to give up any idea of his own creativity because it stopped him from enjoying what others created. Whenever he went to see another's work he found himself laid low by comparing his own creation to their's. He felt he could never reach the state of absolute mastery that he perceived in what they were doing and over the years he realized that this was making him feel so bad and so unable to appreciate the beauty around him that he elected to quit. I listened to him with great sadness in my heart for I too knew the pain that comes from the ego's crushing need to compare in a world where it views itself separate and isolated from the rest of creation.

So it was that as the delirium of beauty emanated from the two of you this voice reappeared in my mind, urging me to to demean myself by comparison.

"See here" it said, "this is true mastery, this is what happens when you dedicate yourself to your art and labour constantly in gratitude for your gift. You have never worked as these two have worked. You have squandered your talent and you might as well accept the fact that you have blown it. Give up all desire to create and end your days in peace" With the memory of the conversation with my friend fresh in my mind I felt myself beginning to sink into the mist of despair that he had described, from whose depths I could almost no longer hear the astonishing music that was being delivered to my ears. But just then a second voice spoke up to remind me of the Oneness of all creation. It told me " do not sink into this illusion for the truth is that you are as much responsible for this music as those that perform it. It is only the ego which seeks to separate the listener from the performer and the music performed." As soon as I heard this a great calm and wonder came over me and I was immediately able to rejoice in the delight of what I witnessed in front of me. But even that wonder was surpassed as the music came to an end and, with the rapturous applause subsiding, you leant gently forward and picked up the microphone.

"Let me tell you what we believe" you said. "We believe that we do not make this music. We believe that you do and we simply tune it up on its way back to you."

So there it is, an epiphanous moment for which I give thanks. To you. To your brother. To myself....and to the universe of which we are all apart.


Good luck with all you attempt and thank you again.

Warmest regards

Tim
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