Music

Meditation and music cannot be separated. When we cry from the inmost recesses of our heart for peace, light and bliss, then that is the best form of meditation. Next to meditation is music, soulful music, the music that stirs and elevates our aspiring consciousness. It carries us into the Universal Consciousness and makes us feel that we are in tune with the highest, with the deepest, with the furthest.

When we listen to soulful music, or when we ourselves play soulful music, immediately our inner existence climbs up high, higher, highest. It climbs up and enters into something beyond. This beyond is constantly trying to help us, guide us, mould us and shape us into our true transcendental image, our true divinity. When we hear soulful music, or when we play a piece of soulful music, we feel a kind of inner thrill in our entire existence, from the soles of our feet to the crown of our head. A river is flowing through us, a river of consciousness, and this consciousness is all the time illumined.

Not the music of the mind, Not even the music of the heart, But the music of the soul only Can liberate our earth-bound life.

Let us not try To understand music with our mind. Let us not even try to feel it with our heart. Let us simply and spontaneously Allow the music-bird to fly in our heart sky. While flying, it will unconditionally reveal to us What it has and what it is. What it has is Immortality’s message And what it is Is Eternity’s passage.

Soulful and spiritual music really helps us; it feeds our inner life. Music has tremendous power. With fire we can burn ourselves, or we can cook and do many other good things. It is the same with music. Divine music immediately elevates our consciousness, whereas undivine music immediately lowers our consciousness and tries to destroy our sincere inner cry for a better spiritual life. The spiritual person will immediately be affected by this music. So music can change our consciousness provided it is the music that comes from the heart and enters into the heart. The music that touches the very depth of our heart can elevate our consciousness.

Each individual has his own music, each movement has its own music, each action has its own music. Each time we breathe in and breathe out, there is music.

A soulful sound gives immediate joy and immediate self-expansion. This self-expansion is not egocentric; it is something divine, something supreme, something universal. Other sounds are produced by the individual for the individual, but a soulful sound is produced by the Universal in us, by the Eternal in us, by the Absolute in us.

If we can feel that It is not our voice, Not our fingers, But some reality deep inside our heart Which is expressing itself, Then we will know that it is The soul’s music.

All excerpts by Sri Chinmoy