Saturday, May 31, 2008

Music is the transformation of life

Please do no ask me regarding the subject of this article. You will probably know by the end of this. I am just trying to pen down something I really felt today. I really felt that divineness has been embedded in each and every thing that we have around us. It’s just that we have to understand it, discover it. For example let me take music and try to explain some concepts through it. Music just an art of 7 letters, sounds, frequencies however you want to describe it, but is much more and probably beyond these 7 letters, sounds, frequencies. My friends used to make fun of me when I used to say that I like Karnatic music that it is the most lethargic which involves stretching of the sounds etc.

But let me start with the 7 frequencies or sounds “sa re ga ma pa da ni ”. Music starts with defining your frequencies or sounds for each of these letters. I have never learnt music and so may not be quite familiar with the terminology used in it. Once you define your sounds for all these 7 letters, I mean once you master these 7 sounds, you will be able to sing these with exactly the same frequency or sound even if asked to sing in the middle of the night while in deep sleep. This is what it means to master something. In life this is synonymous to define something to do in a particular way which is discipline. Discipline as I see has nothing to do with time. It is just the defining of something to do in a particular way. The more you are used to defining things, the more you will experience perfection.

In music, the basic concept lies in bringing down a complex sound (which is a combination of sounds probably Raaga) to the simplest possible sounds which are nothing but the basic seven sounds that we have defined and mastered. Similarly if you see in life any complex task can be brought down into the simplest of the tasks and start from each of these simple tasks that we know or have already mastered. If you see in the field IT, the design and analysis involves breaking down of complex tasks into simpler ones that are pre-defined. I have seen many great musicians playing tele ads, movie songs, some of the mantras etc. So any complex line can be brought down to the pre-defined set of simple things that can easily be done. Life teaches us the same thing to bring down any complex task into a set of pre-defined simple known tasks.

Coming to the next aspect of music, people try to master these 7 sounds irrespective of the conditions. Let me explain. I remember watching some of the movies in which a person teaching music will make the student stand in a river of cold water immersed till the neck and then practice these sounds. In life if you see, another aspect that will affect the things we do are the circumstances, tensions, sufferings, affections and a lot of other things. Practicing music like that is nothing but simulating those conditions artificially and trying to master them. Once the student is able to sing the 7 sounds as exactly defined, they have mastered the circumstances. In life one should try to master the circumstances which means that irrespective of the circumstances that we are in, we must be able to lead our life smoothly without any issues.

Coming the next aspect of music is that you are singing a song with an underlying svaram. Let me take an example of geetham, cos that’s what I know, there is something called svaram. When you are singing something, it is being guided by the underlying svaram. If you take an example geetham “vara veena”, the underlying svaram is “ga ga pa pa ”. When you closely observe this, you are singing “va” with a sound of pre-defined “ga”. Whatever we do in life are guided by the intentions, underlying. If the svaram is not right, the geetham wont be heard pleasantly. Similarly if the underlying intentions are not good, though you may do something really good, it will not be received pleasantly. Intentions in life are as good as svarams in music.

The next aspect of music will let you further refine the frequencies that you have mastered. For example if you take the simple sound “re”, this can be further divided into three more frequencies which are close by. This aspect signifies knowing the difference between the things that are very close, mastering. I have read a definition about expert somewhere that has been imprinted in my mind. “An expert is a person who knows more and more about less and less”. So this aspect of music encourages us to gain the expertise, to know the subtle differences between the closest of the things. But this can happen only when you have already mastered the basics. In life, once you are doing things with perfection, then you can further refine them. In olden days, people used to describe a disciple as being better than a master. Once you start doing something that a master has got, with perfection, the next thing can be to improve the thing itself.

Let me mention the next aspect of music, research and experimentation. I have heard, learnt from the musicians, that they experiment a lot trying to build new ragas, tunes etc. If you see there are millions of songs written, composed differently. But they are all the bi-products of the same very minor set of pre-defined sounds or frequencies. So there is a lot more to experiment. But imagine when this can happen, when you have already mastered the things you are doing and also know the subtle differences between them.

In this process of research a person might discover new things. This is a discovery not an invention. He has known that a particular sound (a complex sound) can be in a particular way. But it already exists in nature and is just the discovery of it. Like if you take the example of a person carving a statue out of stone. The statue already exists inside the stone. It is just that this person is discovering it for the world. So there are infinite number of things in this world waiting to be discovered.

If you observe the world, divineness is everywhere. It is just that we have to discover it. If you see there is distinction only at lower level of education like arts, sciences, literature etc. But as go up you will finally reach PhD which is doctorate in philosophy. This means that the person has discovered something for the world that already exists in nature.

Finally I want to mention about the aspect of dissolution in life. Whenever a person is so involved in singing, the person is completely lost in that moment. Becoming one with the music. The person wont exist separately. He/she has become one with the music. This is nothing but a state of bliss. Whenever you become one with something, whenever you don’t exist independently, it is a state of bliss. If you observe very carefully whenever you are feeling really happy, whenever you are in the blissful state, you don’t know that you are happy. You don’t exist. But the happiness is felt after you come out of the state and start recollecting about that state. But when you are in that state of bliss, you don’t know that you are atleast for a fraction of time.

All this applies to every aspect of life. So start discovering the divineness

1 comment:

Sarada said...

I have experienced "Bliss" for the very first time in my life while reading this. Great peice of work!!!!

Tamasoma Jyotirgamaya

This is one of the very common and famous prayers in our scriptures which means "Lead me from darkness to light". I always have a ...