 110. Music, Mystic Revelation |
Bach, among Western composers, understood the charm and power of repetitious sound slightly differentiated in a hundred complex ways.
Sanskrit literature describes 120 talas or time measures. The traditional founder of Hindu music, Bharata, is said to have isolated thirty-two kinds of tala in the song of a lark. The origin of tala or rhythm is rooted in human movements – the double time of walking, and the triple time of respiration in sleep, when inhalation is twice the length of exhalation.
India has long recognized the human voice as the most perfect instrument of sound. Hindu music, therefore, largely confines itself to the voice range of three octaves. For the same reason, melody (relation of successive notes) is stressed, rather than harmony (relation of simultaneous notes).
Hindu music is a subjective, spiritual, and individualistic art, aiming not at symphonic brilliance but at personal harmony with the Over-Soul. All the celebrated songs of India have been composed by devotees of the Divine. The Sanskrit word for "musician" is bhagavathar, "he who sings the praises of God."
The sankirtans or musical gatherings are an effective form of yoga or spiritual discipline, necessitating intense concentration, absorption in the seed thought and sound. Because man himself is an expression of the Creative Word, sound exercises on him a potent and immediate effect. Great religious music of East and West bestows joy on man because it causes a temporary vibratory awakening of one of his occult spinal centers. In those blissful moments a dim memory comes to him of his divine origin.
PART TWO
Mystic Revelation
The Revelation
My name is Selfiam. One day as I was walking down a path called the path of many paths, I began to grow tired, so I decided that I should rest. But when? I couldn't rest in the past, for the past was just a memory and was gone. I couldn't rest in the future, for tomorrow never comes. And the imagined tomorrow is just a projection from the past. So I decided to rest in the "INNER" HERE and NOW (eyes closed) of the INNER PRESENT MOMENT just as my SELF. As I entered into a deep REST, I became unaware of my body and of my thoughts. I began to have a strange dream or vision in which I met an angelic type being. He told me we had to travel on an other kind of INNER PATH. It was called the PATH OF NO PATH and was located in the LAND OF NO EARTH. So I was and walked this being. Soon we came to a large lake. There seemed to be a great storm over this man-made lake. There was different colored rains and lightings for different kinds of people. I knew we could not cross this lake. There were four young men by the shore of the lake. Somehow I knew that they came from across the lake. The one who seemed to be the leader was called JOHN, THE BELOVED, which was changed from JOHN THE COMMON, because of his navigational skills into uncharted waters. He offered to help us get to the other side and gave us a ride in his YELLOW SUBMARINE where he and his crew now spent most of their time teaching others how cross over by going under.
