Volume X - Sufi Mysticism
ART: YESTERDAY, TODAY, AND TOMORROW
Music (1)
In all ages, the thoughtful have called music the celestial art. Artists have pictured the angels playing on harps, and this teaches us that the soul comes on earth with a love of music. In Arabia, there is a story that when God commanded the soul to enter the body, the soul refused, saying this body seemed to it a prison. Then God asked the angels to sing and dance; and as the soul heard this music it was moved to ecstasy, and in that ecstasy it entered the physical body. It is an odd story, and yet it gives the key to the secret of music: that it is not after being born on earth that man learns to love music, but that the soul was already enthralled by music before it came to earth. And if one asks why then every soul does not love music, the answer is that there are many souls that are buried. They are alive, yet they are buried in the denseness of the earth; and therefore, they cannot appreciate music. But in that case, they are not able to appreciate anything else, for music is the first and the last thing to appeal to every soul.
The heaven of the Hindus, Indra Loka, is filled with singers. The male singers are called Gandharvas, and the female singers Apsaras. In Hindu symbology, music seemed the best symbol with which to express paradise.
Why does music appeal so much to man? The whole of manifestation has its origin in vibration, in sound; and this sound, which is called nada in the Vedanta, was the first manifestation of the universe. Consequently, the human body was made of tone and rhythm. The most important thing in the physical body is breath, and the breath is audible; it is most audible in the form of voice. This shows that the principal signs of life in the physical body are tone and rhythm, which together make music. Rhythm appeals to man because there is a rhythm going on in his body. The beating of the pulse and the movement of the heart both indicate this rhythm.
The rhythm of the mind has an effect upon this rhythm that is going on continually in the body, and in accordance with its influence, it affects the physical body. The notes appeal to a person because of the breath; breath is sound, and its vibrations reach every part of the body, keeping it alive. Therefore, in having an effect on the vibrations and on the atoms of the body, sound gives us a sensation.
This is only an explanation of the appeal of music to the physical body. Music reaches further than the physical body; it only depends on what kind of music it is. There is a tradition that the first language in the world consisted of music. After that, a language of words came into being. Even now, among primitive races, there is a language of sounds; and the more musical languages of the world are more expressive, whereas the languages which have less music in them are less so. It is not only words that convey a meaning; very often the tone of the voice conveys it much better, and sometimes the same word can have two or more meanings depending on the tone in which it is spoken.
It is said that Shiva, or Mahadeva, was the first inventor of a musical instrument. When he was wandering about in the forest, engrossed in his spiritual attainment, he wanted to have some source of amusement – a change in his meditative life. So he took a piece of bamboo and two gourds, which he attached to the bamboo; and the strings he made out of animal guts. When he had fixed these on the instrument, he had invented the vina. That is why the Hindus call the vina a sacred instrument, and for many years they did not allow any strings except gut-strings to be used. Afterwards, this instrument was improved and made more refined, and now steel strings are mostly used; but the reason why gut-string is appealing to the human soul, is that it comes from a living body. Even after being separated from the body, it still cries out, 'I am alive!' Thus, the violin gives out a more living sound than the piano. The piano may drown the violin, but the life that comes from gut-strings manifests as a voice.
There is a Chinese legend that says that the first music was played on little pieces of reed. The great musician of ancient times who introduced music in China, made holes in a piece of reed at a certain distance from each other, the distance between two fingers; and so the flute of reed came into being. From this came the scale of five notes: one note was the original note produced by the reed, and placing the fingers on the holes made the four other notes. Afterwards many other scales were developed.
Hindu philosophy distinguishes four different cycles of humanity of the human race: Krita Yuga, the Golden Age; Treta Yuga, the Silver Age; Dvapara Yuga, the Copper Age; and Kali Yuga, the Iron Age. This cycle in which we are living now is the Iron Age. In the Golden Age, there was the music of the soul, music that appealed to the soul itself and that raised it to cosmic consciousness, the music of the angels, a music which was healing and soothing. And the music of the Silver Age was the music of the heart. This was the music that appealed to the depths of the heart, creating sympathy and love of nature, inspiring man and helping the heart quality to develop. The music of the Copper Age appealed to the mind, to the intellect, so that one could understand the intricacies of musical science, the difference between many scales, and the quality of the rhythm. Finally, the music that belongs to the Iron Age has an influence on the physical body. It helps the soldiers to march and moves people to dance.
A story told in India helps illustrate this idea. At the court of the last emperor, Muhammad Shah, a singer came who had invented a new way of composing. And when this man sang his new compositions, he won the admiration and praise of everyone at the court. The singers and musicians were simply amazed to think that there could be a new development in music. But one of the old musicians who was present said, 'If your Majesty will pardon me I would like to say a word. There is no doubt that this is most beautiful music, and it has won the admiration of all those present, and also my own. But I must tell you that from this day the music of the country, instead of going upward will go downward, because the music which was handed down to us has weight, it has substance, but now it seems that this has been lost and the music has become lighter. Therefore from now on it will go downward.' And so it happened; step by step after that, the music was brought down.
A well-known writer said, 'There are four types of intoxication: the intoxication of physical strength, the intoxication of wealth, and the intoxication of power; but when it comes to comparing these three with the fourth, the intoxication of music, they are all as nothing.'
One day the Emperor Akbar said to his chief singer, Tansen, 'You are such a great singer and there is such wonderful magic in your voice; I wonder how great your teacher must have been.' 'Please,' said Tansen, 'never compare me to my teacher, there is no comparison.' Akbar said, 'Is your teacher then so great? Is he still alive?' Tansen said, 'Yes, he is living dead.' 'Where can one find him?' asked the emperor. 'I should like to hear him.' Tansen said, 'I will try, but I am afraid that his spirit might revolt if he saw that he had to sing before the emperor.' Then Akbar said, 'I shall come disguised as your servant.' Tansen said, 'In that case, it might be possible.'
Akbar went with Tansen, and after traveling a long way they found this teacher in the mountains, in solitude. Although Akbar was dressed as a servant, the sage recognized him; still, the emperor's humble attitude appealed to him. And then he sang, and both Akbar and Tansen became spellbound; the sphere of the earth was lost from their consciousness.
When they came to their senses they saw that the sage was not there any more. 'Where is he?' asked Akbar. Tansen said, 'He has left this place for ever, fearing that we might come again and trouble him.' Akbar could not say one word in praise of the music he had heard.
After their return to the palace, one day the emperor said, 'Tansen, I feel such a longing to hear him again!' Tansen said, 'We can never find him again now that he has left that place.' 'But,' said Akbar, 'I feel so restless. I long so much to hear that voice again. Do you not know that raga which he sang?' Tansen said that he did know the raga and began to sing it. But when he had finished the emperor said, 'It is not the same. Why is that?' And Tansen felt hurt and said, 'It is because I sing before you, but my teacher sings before God!'
This incident awakened in Tansen's heart such a feeling of independence that he saluted the emperor and bade him goodbye. He saw that the source of his imperfection was the relationship he had with the court, and he could no longer bear it. And so he left, and the rest of his life he wandered through the country and led a meditative life.
The stories about singers who could charm the birds and the animals, and about the miracles that were performed through the power of their music, are not only stories. Music can do even more than that; tone and rhythm are the source of the whole of manifestation.
Music (2)
The ancient Greek music seems to have been largely the same as the music of the East. The Greeks had certain scales like the ragas in India, which also resembled the Persian scales. In this way, there was a similarity in the music of the human race; but there came a division between the music of the East and of the West when the Western music, especially the German, progressed in another direction. In the traditions and the history of the world, as far as one can trace, one finds that melody was considered the principal thing in the East as well as in the West; and the composers, according to their stage of evolution, enriched this melody as much as they could. At first the melodies were chiefly folk songs, but sometimes also more elaborate compositions; and as such they were the expression of the soul. They were not compositions in the sense of modern, more technical compositions; they were in reality imaginations. An artist made a melody, and that melody became known after he had sung or played it; then others took it up. In this way, one melody was sung by perhaps ten different musicians in various ways, each retaining his liberty in singing that melody. No doubt it was difficult even to recognize the same melody after four or five persons had sung or played it, yet each of these had his freedom of expression, right or wrong.
Music in the East was based on ragas, which means a certain arrangement of notes, a theme that was recognized and distinguished as a certain raga. These ragas were composed by four different classes of people: those who studied and practiced folk songs, and out of these folk-songs arranged certain themes or ragas; mathematicians, who worked out mathematically many hundreds of ragas; poets and dramatists, who composed ragas and their wives, raginis, as well as sons, daughters, and daughters and sons-in-law, creating in this way families of ragas in their imagination; and finally musicians, who out of the three above-mentioned kinds of ragas composed new ones with their musical gift. On these ragas the music of India was based.
The credit for every song a musician sang and for every theme he played went to him, because while the theme might consist of only four or eight bars, he improvised extensively on it and made it more interesting. Therefore a performer in India had to be a composer at the same time, although in these improvisations due consideration was given to the original theme and rhythm of the raga, so that the audience might be able to recognize it. Even today, if a musician sings a raga which is not exactly as it ought to be, there may be someone among the audience who while not knowing precisely what is wrong, will yet feel immediately that it does not sound right. This is just as in Italy, when an opera singer makes one little mistake; someone from the audience will immediately show his disapproval. This is because the music of the opera has become engraved upon the spirit of the lovers of opera. As soon as it seems slightly different from what they are accustomed to hearing, they know there is something wrong.
But what is most remarkable is that the mystics played such an important part in the development of Indian music. They used it for their meditation, as it was invented and taught by Mahadeva. Music is the most wonderful way to spiritual realization; there is no quicker and no surer way of attaining spiritual perfection than through music. The great Indian mystics such as Narada and Tumbara were singers; Krishna played the flute; and thus music in its tradition and practice has always been connected with mysticism. Musicians have always held to the principle that modern scientists have rediscovered: that the ear is incapable of fully enjoying two sounds played or sung together, and that is why they enriched the melody to such an extent for the purpose of their meditation.
When Persian music, with its artistry and beauty, was brought to India, it was wedded to Indian music; and there resulted a most wonderful art. The desire of the people of all classes and ages has always been and still is that music, no matter whether it is technical or non-technical, theoretical or non-theoretical, should touch the soul deeply. If it does not do so, the technical, theoretical, and scientific side of it does not appeal to them. Therefore, it has often been very difficult even for the great masters of music, who had developed the technique and science of music, and who were masters of rhythm and tone, to please the audience. The audience, from the king to the man in the street – everyone – wants only one thing, and that is a great appeal to the soul from the voice, from the word, from melody. Everything expressed in music should appeal to the soul. This is true even to the extent that when a beggar in the street does not sing a song that appeals to the passers-by, he will not get as many pennies as another who is more appealing.
No doubt the music of India has changed much during the last century. That which the Indians call classical music, or music with weight and substance, is not patronized any more, because of the ignorance of most of the princes and potentates of the country. Therefore, the best music is no longer understood. Then people have taken to smoking and talking while listening to music, and music was not made for that. It seems that the spirit of the great musicians is dead. A great vina player, who considered his instrument sacred and who worshipped it before taking it in his hand, practicing and playing it for perhaps ten hours a day, regarded music as his religion. But if he had to play before people who are moving about, smoking, and talking with other people at a social gathering, then all his music would go to the winds. It was the sacredness with which the people of ancient times invested music, that kept it on a higher level.
When Tansen, the great singer, left the court, hurt by a remark of the Emperor Akbar, as was related in the previous chapter, he went to Rewa, a state in central India. When the maharaja of Rewa heard that Tansen was coming, he was perplexed, wondering in what way he should honor him. A chair was sent for Tansen, to bring him to the palace, and when he arrived Tansen expected the maharaja at least to receive him at the door. So as soon as he got out of the chair he said, 'Where is the maharaja?' and the man whom he asked replied, 'here is the maharaja.' pointing to the one who had been carrying the chair all through the city. Tansen was most touched, and he said, 'You could not have given me a greater reward.' From that day, Tansen saluted him with his right hand, saying, 'This hand will never salute anyone else, all my life.' And so it was. Tansen would not even salute the emperor with his right hand. Such was the appreciation, the acknowledgment of talent in ancient India.
Now a new music has come to India that is called 'theatrical music.' It is neither Eastern nor Western; it is a very peculiar music. The themes of march and gallop and polka, and airs that no one wants to hear any more in the Western world, are imitated, and an Indian twist is given to them. Thus they are spoilt for the ears of the Western listener and also for good Eastern ears. Since the masses have not been educated in the best music, and for them there is only one source of entertainment – the theatre – they are becoming as fond of this music as people are of jazz in America.
Pope Gregory I, after whom the Gregorian scales are named, coordinated those beautiful melodies that had come from ancient Greece via Byzantium, to form the religious music of the Church. This is all that remains as a relic of the music of those times, though one does find traces of this Gregorian music in the compositions of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries – for instance, in Handel's Messiah. Later composers, however, created a type of music which was quite different. No doubt they laid the foundation for Western music and helped it to evolve, but evolve in what way? Mechanically. They were able to make use of large bands, either brass bands or string bands, and also of an orchestra in which hundreds of instruments could be played at the same time. This naturally made a great impression, and it gave much opportunity and scope for the development and evolution of music. Nevertheless, there was one thing which was lost and which is being lost more and more every day: the appeal to the soul, which is the main purpose of music.
Debussy was looking all his life for something new to introduce into modern music. Scriabin once told me personally, 'Something is missing in our music, it has become so mechanical. The whole process of composition nowadays is mechanical; how can we introduce a spirit into it?' And I have often thought that if Scriabin, with his fine character and beautiful personality, had lived longer, he could have introduced a new strain of music into the modern world.
Will someone else try to do what Scriabin wanted? When there is a need, if there is a real desire for its fulfillment, it must come. It only seems that we do not need it enough; that is the difficulty. We become so easily contented with what we have. If the world feels a greater need for a better kind of music, then it will come; but if people mostly enjoy jazz, and if that is sufficient for them, then naturally it will only come slowly, because so few want anything better.
The music of the future will be different from the music of the past in this way: the ancient music developed only in one direction, and that was that every instrument was played alone and every song was sung alone; there was no other instrument or voice. And the modern development is that there are a variety of voices and there are many instruments playing together; the development of music in this direction has its origin in what is recognized as classical music. It certainly has its value; but on the other hand, something has also been lost. In order to make music perfect, its ancient aspect should be developed more.
There is music that makes one feel like jumping and dancing, there is music that makes one feel like laughing and smiling, and then there is music that makes one feel like shedding tears. If one were to ask a thoughtful person which he preferred, no doubt he would say, 'The last, the music which brings tears.' Why does the soul want sad music? Because that is the only time when the soul is touched. The other music, the music that reaches no further than the surface of one's being, remains only on the surface. It is the music that reaches to the depths of one's being which touches the soul. The deeper the music reaches, the more contented is the soul. No doubt a person who is very cheerful and has had dinner and a glass of wine could be quite happy with some dance music. But then he need not have serious music, for him, jazz will be quite sufficient.
The modern revival of folk music is an effort in the right direction. But it should be carried out without spoiling the folk music; for the tendency of most composers is to take this music and then put too much of their own touch into it. If, however, they can preserve the folk music without spoiling it, it will be something worthwhile. Composers sometimes take folk music and attach a modern harmony to it; and this spoils it too, for generally folk music is the expression of the soul of that particular time, when there was no harmonization such as there is now. And the modern method of harmonization, when it is applied to folk music, takes away its original atmosphere.
We can observe two principal tendencies in modern music. One is the tendency to make the music of our time more natural, and in that way to improve it. And this can surely be developed more and more, as there will be a greater appreciation of solo music, for instance, of the cello or the violin. Musicians will again go back to the ancient idea of one instrument playing or one voice singing at a time. And when they again come to the full appreciation of this idea, they will reach the spiritual stage of musical perfection. People today like music that has more than one voice, because they do not listen enough to solo music. But the more they hear it and the closer they come to it, the more they will forget the other kind. There are big symphony concerts given in the concert halls of London, New York, Paris, and all the large cities, but if one notices carefully what the audience likes best, it will be a solo on the cello, on the flute, or on the violin.
People are accustomed to hearing music of many sounds, and after the solo concert is over they will enjoy the other kind of music. But in the depths of their being they will surely still prefer the solo music, for the human soul is the same now as in ancient times, and the same in the East as in the West. The ringing of one bell has a greater appeal than the ringing of many bells. One sound always goes deeper than many sounds. The reason why two sounds are in conflict with each other is that however much they are tuned to one another, yet they are two, and that in itself is a conflict.
But then, there is another tendency which is working hand in hand with this one, and which is dragging music downward. And that tendency is that the composers are not contented with the chords that the great masters such as Mozart or Beethoven or Wagner have used in their music. They are inventing new chords, chords which tend to confuse thousands of listeners. And what will be the outcome of this? It will have an unconscious effect upon the nervous system of humanity; it will make people more and more nervous. And as we often see that those who attend good concerts only go there out of vanity, they will accept any kind of music. But as Wagner has said, noise is not necessarily music. It is not the newness of the music that will give satisfaction in the end; it will not do any good to the souls who have gone to the concert-hall only to satisfy their vanity. Music should be healing, music should uplift the soul, music should inspire; then there is no better way of getting closer to God, of rising higher towards the spirit, of attaining spiritual perfection, than music, if only it is rightly understood.
Inayat Khan
