“That music alone can be called real which comes from the harmony of the soul, its true source, and when it comes from there it must appeal to all souls.”
– Hazrat Inayat Khan
There is indeed something unique and mystical about the quality of sound. While every art form, such as painting or poetry has its form, sound alone is free from form. While most arts need previous knowledge and understanding to be fully enjoyed and experienced, music intuitively resonates within all living beings. It rises above all differences and stands beyond words.
Toddlers intuitively move their little arms and legs with rhythm long before they are capable of admiring words, forms or colors. Teenagers feel strong enthusiasm, passion and emotion through music and use it as a vital form of their arising authentic self-expression. Even animals such as snakes and many birds clearly react to the sounds being played or sung by humans and sing themselves, expressing their emotions and passions through sound, applying the same principles of harmony and rhythm.
I have personally witnessed numerous times, how flocks of birds gather in the trees above us during a singing circle. I have seen cats and dogs suddenly appearing out of the blue and joining us in our musical gatherings just when we are tapping deeper into states of collective bliss and joy.
Music has been the first language of life, long before words and language have evolutionarily evolved in us humans. And our extraordinary connection to music is an expression of this ancient seed inside of us all.
The Rhythm of Life
Life itself depends upon the rhythmic working of the body. Our pulse, our heartbeat, the inhaling and exhaling of the breath are all bound to rhythm and harmony. Likewise, the movements of the branches in the forest, the rise and fall of the ocean’s waves as well as the sounds of the crickets and birds, are all following rhythms and melodies.
The more deeply we observe nature, the more we immerse ourselves into pure perception, the more we intuitively sense a kind of correspondence and alignment that is happening between the different elements, plants and animals. For instance, we can tap into that field, when we observe a forest for an extended period of time, just by sitting in the midst of it and allow all sensory perceptions to enter us and merge into each other without trying to make any sense out of it. The more we can quiet down the rational and logical mind, for example through yoga and meditation, the more we can perceive reality in its unbiased, unlabeled and holistic nature[1]. And we can experience how this nature has a musical quality.
There is music outside and music within ourselves. Our sense of rhythm and our strong attraction to patterns of sound and melody shows that music is in the depths of our being.
The Philosophy of Sound and Vibration
From a metaphysical standpoint, all movements and forms in the manifested world are made up of vibrations pertaining to a certain plane of existence. The whole system of Hindu mythology and philosophy is based on the concept of vibration called Nada Brahma, which translates into “Sound-God”. According to this concept, the original state of the whole creation is vibration. First, this vibration is inaudible and invisible, then it becomes audible (nada = sound) and in a next step visible (jatanada = light).
When we look at our emotions and states of mind, we see that we are not only influenced by sound but also by color. And colors are nothing else but different degrees of reflected light. Just as all the colors belong to the same light, all notes and pitches belong to the same primordial sound, all vocal expressions are different degrees of the one breath, and even all the endless forms of human existence can be seen as the manifestation of the same higher intelligence or consciousness.
There is a fundamental and deep connection between sound, voice and breath. The breath of an object can be called sound. The audibility of the breath can be called voice.
Vocalization and Repetition
In Sanskrit, music is called Sangita, signifying three subjects: singing, playing and dancing. All three elements are involved in any action. For example, when a person speaks, the voice itself signifies singing, the pronunciation, intonation and modulation signifies playing and the body and face expression signifies dancing. These layers of communication and expression are inseparable.
As the voice is a direct manifestation of the breath in the form of sounds and words, in the majority of situations, its rhythm and harmony have a far greater impact on others than the words themselves. Various studies in modern psychology indicate: How trustworthy someone appears to us, how much we are emotionally impacted by someone’s words and even how attractive and lovable we perceive another person is all very much influenced by how the words are being presented and not so much what they say[2].
However, words can have a deep impact too. When we vocalize our thoughts and emotions, we amplify their power and impact. There is a difference between just thinking of gratitude or speaking out the word of gratitude a hundred times in form of an affirmation, a prayer or a mantra[3].
The vocalization and repetition creates a deeper imprint on various levels of our being, and holds the potential to pierce through the outer layer of the rational conscious mind into the more emotional and often subconscious areas of our being, where we can experience a change and re-programming of pattern and beliefs. The vibration of the word becomes the medium of communication between the external and internal life.
This very practical wisdom that can quite easily be experienced by the person engaged, is the reason why we find elements of prayer and Mantra in basically all spiritual traditions and religions in any part of the world, from the most elaborate theologies and religions to the most archaic shamanic and animistic belief systems.
Harmony, Beauty & Ecstasy
A core element and result of music and sound is the experience of harmony. Harmony with oneself. Harmony with others. Harmony with nature. When a person plays music, besides harmonizing notes, there is potential of harmonizing people. Instead of just tuning instruments, the musician can tune souls including his own.
In order to gain a better awareness of what is meant by that, it’s helpful to take a look at classical Indian music. In its traditional way, the first thing the musician does is tune his instrument, for example the tampura, an instrument that creates a foundational, rhythmical drone note. This process can take up to fifteen minutes, and the art is to simultaneously tune the instrument but also one’s own being and frequency. Mind, body and soul are one with the instrument. From this point, it is said that masters only need to play the first note, and every person in the audience immediately becomes tuned to the music and the musicians, tapping deeper into states of no-mind, heart-opening and bliss.
But what is harmony? There is no particular sound that by itself is harmonious or disharmonious. It is the blending, the arrangement and contrast of different sounds that determines the level of harmony. It is the relationship between one sound with another one. And at the same time, it needs to be noticed that the Western mind and ear often follows a very narrow definition of harmony. A definition that is heavily influenced by the according music systems with its octaves, scales and chords.
However, when we listen to tribal and shamanic music, we find a whole range of sound arrangements that would be classified as disharmonious in the West. Yet, these sounds are being used as powerful tools for influencing the emotional and energetic states of others as part of ceremonies, rituals and healing modalities.
A key question remains. Where does the inspiration for music originally come from? What is it that makes the musician create and sing songs that have a harmonizing effect? One way of looking at it is there is place in the collective consciousness and higher intelligence being referred to as akashic records[4], where all possible forms of music but also all words, thoughts and emotions are stored beyond our concept of time. The musician can accordingly “channel” or “download” this information in states of sensitivity, creative flow and spiritual connectedness.
Another way of looking at it is the inspiration from the heart and intuition, that the inspiration is received by something essential and aesthetical beyond our minds - by the spirit of beauty itself. In the Sufi tradition, this essential beauty is called Saqi. It comprises all beauty in form, line, color, imagination, sentiment and manner. And the secret language in which this beauty is communicating with and through us is music.
“The secret language in which this beauty is communicating with and through us is music.”
Whether we are being pleased or touched by a painting, by a sculpture, by the architecture of a building, by a poem, by a song or even the presence of another human being, it is always the rhythm, harmony and hence the inherent subtle musical quality in them that is inspiring and elevating us. It is their musical quality that our intuitive faculties are able to hear. And once we become receptive to this music, we can hear it playing everywhere and all the time, be it in people or objects. We can hear it in times of solitude and contemplation and in the midst of the dance of life.
Music as a path of self-realization and spiritual growth
In Hindu mythology, the Goddess of wisdom Saraswati is always pictured with her instrument, the vina, indicating how important music is for our growth and evolvement. Indeed, whether we refine our capacity for listening and receiving music with the full openness of our senses and our hearts, whether we learn how to surrender into the ecstasy and bliss of uninhibited dancing or singing, or whether we cultivate the devotion, patience and courage to play and perform music for others, we not only learn music but developing ourselves physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
Music is the miniature of life’s expression in form of sound, rhythm and harmony. And it is through understanding and consciously influencing the rhythms and melodies of our bodies, emotions and thoughts that we gain true self-mastery and lasting growth. Particularly, learning to make music is a highly effective training for the mind and soul, and a supreme path for cultivating not only concentration and discipline but also the qualities of letting go, joy and flow, all at the same time.
Hence, when a person expresses himself through music, it doesn’t need to be for the pleasure and entertainment of others. More than that, by hearing, playing and most importantly loving music, he develops music in his personality, in all his thoughts, words and actions. Musicians and music lovers lose themselves in sound and enter higher states of ecstasy and trance, where they experience deep bliss, inner peace and the transcendence of the body and the mind.
The Sufis refer to music as ghiza-e-ruh – the food of the soul. From this standpoint, there is a mind behind the body, and a soul behind the mind. And it’s not only the body, but also the mind and the soul that need nutrition in order to flourish and grow, with the soul being the finest and deepest layer, feeding on beauty and harmony with music being its favorite dish.
We understand that the insatiable hunger and the cravings that we experience on the level of our body is an expression of the fact that our mind and soul not being nourished enough. If we stay oblivious of this interrelation, we will only experience momentary satisfactions in our lives, but then hunger again, ending up in repeated loops of frustrations and despair in one way or another.
But there is another deep layer in which music helps us on our journey of becoming a better and more fulfilled human being. Through music, we intuitively and inevitably train our heart in feeling more deeply. We can train to consciously arouse and fully experience feelings such as sorrow, melancholia, joy, hopefulness and all the countless nuances language cannot even fully grasp. Through that, we can not only bathe in the full intensity of our existence but also evolve our capacity for compassion as we become capable of truly understanding those feelings in others.
And from a practical point of view, it’s as simple as that: When our heart stays focused on the music we are hearing or playing, when we sing with love, when we dance with full passion, when music becomes an unfiltered expression of our essence, we create warmth and connection in and around us.
We touch other people’s souls in inexplicable ways.
We experience and radiate love.
We become better versions of ourselves.
[1] This phenomenon is also consistently reported by those, who experience psychedelic journeys through the intake of Psilocybin, LSD or mescaline. One reason for that is that those brain areas responsible for language, reasoning and rational thinking become less active and those areas responsible for feeling and imagination are stimulated.
[2] See Mehrabian-Study: Mehrabian, Albert (1971): Silent Messages (1st Edition). This effect is only significant in cases of emotionally relevant messages and less in factual, structured information.
[3] A mantra is the creative projection of the mind through sound. The Sanskrit root of the word is man (=mind) and trange (=projection). It is based on the knowledge that sound is a form of energy that has a structure, power and a definite effect on the chakras and the human psyche.
[4] In Vedantic Hinduism, Akasha means the basis and essence of all things in the material world; the first element created.
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