A Moment and Music
Performing Sri Chinmoy's music
One moment in time has stayed with me recently. It is a source of
inspiration, inexhaustible, never losing its freshness. When I find
myself losing track of what is important, I relive this memory; it
brings its own perspective. If days in Sri Chinmoy’s presence form the highlights of my year, then this moment was the pinnacle of one such highlight.
Music means more to me than I can say. Something I love about
celebrations in New York is that I can spend a large part of my time
immersed in Sri Chinmoy’s music – learning songs alone or with friends, and listening to others performing.
The moment in time was before performing with a group for Sri Chinmoy
and his students. The evening was diamond clear, and the moon rang out
reclining behind skeletal trees. One trunk held out many pristine arms
and hands of long-petalled blossom in a shower of purity, and a canopy
of white paper banners reflected their softness glimpsed over stone
walls. In the still, crisp air we waited, each holding one pure bloom.
I caught the scent and felt the cold stem in my hands as my eyes
absorbed its colour. All was simple in my mind and sight. I only waited
with a band of friends, with only that bloom then for my senses,
preparing to bring forward my best and perhaps to better it.
One moment led to another moment, when our turn came to sing. One
followed another into the sanctity of our daily meeting place:
Aspiration Ground. Gravel grinding under foot gave way to the softer
powdered floor. Between two stone lions, along a bank of carefully
tended spring flowers, the warm scent of hyacinths sprang out from the
chilly air. I have felt it to some extent in other places dedicated to
prayer and meditation, or in simple places of natural beauty: the
living stillness, the abundant silence, the soft clarity. To carry
one’s own symbolic identity with a place augments that feeling. It is
like coming home to one’s favourite place in the world, whilst sensing
something far beyond the world.
It is the fruit of much preparation to sing with devotion to God, in
front of the one who has given me the most inspiration in my life, in
such a serene and familiar place, surrounded by friends and the vibrant
open air. That moment is the fruit of many hours spent alone in
concentration on the songs, many hours spent in company learning the
subtleties of the music to sing as if with one voice, the day itself
spent calmly. The result is an experience beyond individuality, beyond
separation, merging sound with sound, breath with breath, beyond
thought and into the heart and beauty of music itself.
Sumangali Morhall
April 2005
