“At the moment of creation, the musician faithful to the art of improvisation chooses a certain path by selecting various intervals in harmony with his mood. Until the sounding of the first note on stage, this path is a secret to the conscious mind of the improviser and what is desired during the concert is only known to the unconscious. In Eastern mysticism, this unconscious is also called “the clear heart.” The more meaningful, clear, and active the unconscious is, the more attractive and beautiful the spiritual mood of the creation becomes.
“Love and loyalty to the ideal of improvisation and secrets of creation are one’s principle and one’s guidance. At the time of creation, one is nothing but an instrument and one maintains respect for this creation by being modest toward it, hence, this art in the East is called ‘inspirational.’ All one has to do is to let one’s feelings flow freely in the currents of truth, the searching rays of God. Love of God, which is one’s absolute love, has been and will be the most complete path to creation.
“The reunion of the artist with the beloved on stage warms his soul and guides his creation. In this path the melodies and rhythms create a feeling of zekr (the connection of an individual, in solitude or as a group, the supreme love of God by the use of music/rhythm) to the point that the performer and even the music disappear and only one thing is left, monotheism, which the old mystics have also called ‘oneness of existence.’”
-- M. R. Lotfi
I happened to catch Ravi Shankar on a documentary today. I didn’t see much of it; I really don’t care that much for Shankar’s music (I realize that people seem to think that if I like Indian music I must, ergo, like Ravi Shankar, but that isn’t the case.) However, a great deal of what I saw was him talking, primarily about his baba (master) and about the act of creating music itself.
When he was a young man, Ravi was apparently something of a wild boy. His baba had told him that he was like a butterfly, flittering here and there and he was never serious about anything. “You have so much talent,” his master had told him, “I would love to teach you, but you will not put your mind to one thing.” He told him that if he wanted to be serious, if he wanted to focus, to come and see him. Ravi was still entranced with “entertainments” as he referred to them— everything, no doubt, from the cinema to girls and parties— but Ravi said: “I was filled with turmoil.” Apparently, he was already creating (he was talking about a dance and music piece he had composed when he was 15, which was before he became a disciple) but that didn’t seem to be making things any better.
This is an interesting point he is making here: it was as if he had expected his creative endeavours to somehow clarify things but they were only making them worse. At some point, however, he did leave the city and go out to the master’s house. It was, he said, enormously difficult. He had to give up everything for it. There was nothing anywhere around, nothing to spend his time on but his practice; the master himself was a tyrant to them, but Shankar’s great love for this man is evident in his every mention of him. “I thank God that Baba was sent to me,” he says.
I’m not sure what all Ravi had to do while he was there, but practicing music was the lion’s share of it. Sitting there at the master’s feet playing. “The master spoke of musical things as if they were spiritual things. That this was a religious act.” Here we pull away from the master and go to Shankar himself playing and he is saying that playing music is not Of The World, not in this manner. This, he says, is the spiritual (and correct, one assumes) use of music. “Singers have it easy, because they can use their own voices to sing the beautiful hymns to Krishna, but a musician must get inside the instrument to do this, he must get away from himself. These notes are just sounds.” It is up to the musician to turn those sounds into proper notes and inspire them with the proper feeling. One must lose oneself in it, not even considering what the next note is that one is going to play. “If you’re only concern is to display your talent, to show the audience how fast that you can play or something like that; that is not spiritual music. That is just entertainment.”
He describes this state in which one creates as a beautiful pain in him, drawing a circle around his heart. It is as if someone else is there that you are playing to and you cannot seem to communicate properly, cannot seem to attain properly, and so this pain in the heart. And this is why the sadness in the music, but “It is a beautiful sadness,” he said, “It is a happiness.”
What Shankar is describing is creating as a spiritual practice. I said something one time about Inspiration as being divine, but by the time it gets to us, it is merely inspiration (small caps) and must be inspired by our own spirits for it to achieve anything like the initial Inspiration. He is also describing a sympatheia, his trying to communicate his inspiration to something or someone which he (accurately, I think) equates with God, but God, in revealing Himself to Shankar, is communicating to him.
I have been saying for some time that I thought writing was, to me anyway, a spiritual practice. And what I mean is this: when I am writing, I am allowing something to work through me. I think this is common for all artists, to some degree, but I have long ago consciously removed myself from the process. There is no I when I am writing. I have been practicing writing considerably longer than I have anything else, and I have attained a state where I can just step out of the way. I am allowing this something to work through me, and that is no different from meditation or prayer in that matter. In fact, really, there is no difference there at all— it’s just a matter of process: means and ends. And this seems to me to be a perfectly natural state of affairs; I mean, what did God put me here for if not to write?
(I think this is why so much of what is called art in this day and age is so ineffective. They do not seem to have removed themselves in the process of their work and I mean quite literally. The basic description of current art (1960- to the present) is seeming to try and communicate “What I Feel.” Which is myopic. You are in the way. How can you possibly allow something through you if all you can conceive of is yourself?)
There is something that Shankar mentioned above, about the music and the turmoil in him. His creativity, I mentioned, was not clarifying anything. I think this is a good point. If, as an artist, God put one here for this purpose, then it should clarify things, properly used. It is a large part of who one is and through it, it only makes sense that it is capable of clarifying things, of unwinding the turmoil in one’s heart. Which does not necessarily mean being at peace, because by Shankar’s own admission the act of creation is a beautiful sadness, but it does not add to that turmoil; it makes music out of it. It changes it to spirit.
When he was a young man, Ravi was apparently something of a wild boy. His baba had told him that he was like a butterfly, flittering here and there and he was never serious about anything. “You have so much talent,” his master had told him, “I would love to teach you, but you will not put your mind to one thing.” He told him that if he wanted to be serious, if he wanted to focus, to come and see him. Ravi was still entranced with “entertainments” as he referred to them— everything, no doubt, from the cinema to girls and parties— but Ravi said: “I was filled with turmoil.” Apparently, he was already creating (he was talking about a dance and music piece he had composed when he was 15, which was before he became a disciple) but that didn’t seem to be making things any better.
This is an interesting point he is making here: it was as if he had expected his creative endeavours to somehow clarify things but they were only making them worse. At some point, however, he did leave the city and go out to the master’s house. It was, he said, enormously difficult. He had to give up everything for it. There was nothing anywhere around, nothing to spend his time on but his practice; the master himself was a tyrant to them, but Shankar’s great love for this man is evident in his every mention of him. “I thank God that Baba was sent to me,” he says.
I’m not sure what all Ravi had to do while he was there, but practicing music was the lion’s share of it. Sitting there at the master’s feet playing. “The master spoke of musical things as if they were spiritual things. That this was a religious act.” Here we pull away from the master and go to Shankar himself playing and he is saying that playing music is not Of The World, not in this manner. This, he says, is the spiritual (and correct, one assumes) use of music. “Singers have it easy, because they can use their own voices to sing the beautiful hymns to Krishna, but a musician must get inside the instrument to do this, he must get away from himself. These notes are just sounds.” It is up to the musician to turn those sounds into proper notes and inspire them with the proper feeling. One must lose oneself in it, not even considering what the next note is that one is going to play. “If you’re only concern is to display your talent, to show the audience how fast that you can play or something like that; that is not spiritual music. That is just entertainment.”
He describes this state in which one creates as a beautiful pain in him, drawing a circle around his heart. It is as if someone else is there that you are playing to and you cannot seem to communicate properly, cannot seem to attain properly, and so this pain in the heart. And this is why the sadness in the music, but “It is a beautiful sadness,” he said, “It is a happiness.”
What Shankar is describing is creating as a spiritual practice. I said something one time about Inspiration as being divine, but by the time it gets to us, it is merely inspiration (small caps) and must be inspired by our own spirits for it to achieve anything like the initial Inspiration. He is also describing a sympatheia, his trying to communicate his inspiration to something or someone which he (accurately, I think) equates with God, but God, in revealing Himself to Shankar, is communicating to him.
I have been saying for some time that I thought writing was, to me anyway, a spiritual practice. And what I mean is this: when I am writing, I am allowing something to work through me. I think this is common for all artists, to some degree, but I have long ago consciously removed myself from the process. There is no I when I am writing. I have been practicing writing considerably longer than I have anything else, and I have attained a state where I can just step out of the way. I am allowing this something to work through me, and that is no different from meditation or prayer in that matter. In fact, really, there is no difference there at all— it’s just a matter of process: means and ends. And this seems to me to be a perfectly natural state of affairs; I mean, what did God put me here for if not to write?
(I think this is why so much of what is called art in this day and age is so ineffective. They do not seem to have removed themselves in the process of their work and I mean quite literally. The basic description of current art (1960- to the present) is seeming to try and communicate “What I Feel.” Which is myopic. You are in the way. How can you possibly allow something through you if all you can conceive of is yourself?)
There is something that Shankar mentioned above, about the music and the turmoil in him. His creativity, I mentioned, was not clarifying anything. I think this is a good point. If, as an artist, God put one here for this purpose, then it should clarify things, properly used. It is a large part of who one is and through it, it only makes sense that it is capable of clarifying things, of unwinding the turmoil in one’s heart. Which does not necessarily mean being at peace, because by Shankar’s own admission the act of creation is a beautiful sadness, but it does not add to that turmoil; it makes music out of it. It changes it to spirit.
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