Questions and Answers

Questions and Answers

Can some kinds of music cause us to feel upset and change our spiritual condition?

Yes. There is some music that is really destructive to our inner being. This music comes from the gross physical or the lower vital. Undivine music tries to awaken our lower vital consciousness and throw us into a world of excitement. The spiritual person will immediately be affected by this music.

Music has tremendous power. With Fire we can burn ourselves, or we can cook and do many other good things. It is the same with music. Divine music immediately elevates our consciousness, whereas undivine music immediately lowers our consciousness and tries to destroy our sincere inner cry for a better, spiritual life. Vital music brings our consciousness down. For a few fleeting moments or hours we get a kind of pleasure; but then this pleasure takes us into a lower vital consciousness where temptation looms large. From the temptation-world we enter into the frustration-world, and from the frustration-world we enter into the destruction-world.

We all know that vital music is most appreciated all over the world. Psychic music is not very widely appreciated, and very few people appreciate the soul's music. They feel that it is like a stranger entering into their consciousness. But this is actually because spiritual music awakens the eternal tenant, the soul, that is deep within them waiting to come to the fore.

Can we use music to help us in our spiritual life?

We can definitely use music to help us in our spiritual life. Music and the spiritual life are like twin brothers; we cannot separate them. How can we separate two fingers, two eyes? They live side by side. If one eye is not functioning well, then we feel that our vision is imperfect. Music and the spiritual life can easily go together; one complements the other. Music helps the spiritual seeker to go deep within to get the utmost satisfaction from life, from truth, from reality. The spiritual life, in turn, helps music to offer its capacity and its strength, which is the soul's light, to the world at large.

What does ‘soulful’ mean in relation to music?

What do we mean by soulful music? If you say it is the music that embodies the soul, then I wish to say that you are mistaken. You have to feel that soulful music is the light that wants to express itself in a divine way. Even as darkness wants to manifest its authority on earth, light also wants to manifest its reality and divinity in a specific way. Light is the soul of everything. Light is the soul of music, the soul of love, and the soul of all art. When light divinely manifests itself in the form of music, it is the music of the soul.

Soulful music is the music that immediately elevates our consciousness to the highest. Soulful music takes us into the world of aspiration. From aspiration we enter into the world of realisation, where our inner existence is flooded with light and delight.

Soulful music is the music that wants to eventually transform our consciousness. It carries us into the Universal Consciousness and makes us feel that we are in tune with the highest, with the deepest, with the farthest.

It also makes us feel that God Himself is the Supreme Musician. When we play soulful music, we come to realise that we are not the musician; we are just an instrument. We are like a piano, violin or guitar, and it is God who is constantly playing on us. If we really play soulful music, we will feel that we are the instrument, and somebody else is singing and playing in and through us. That somebody is our Inner Pilot, the Supreme.

God the Creator is the Supreme Musician and God the creation is the supreme music.

When we listen to soulful music, or when we ourselves play soulful music, immediately our inner existence climbs up high, higher, highest. It climbs up and enters into the Beyond, which is constantly trying to help us, guide us, mould us and shape us into our true transcendental image, our true divinity. When we hear soulful music or play a soulful piece of music, we feel a kind of inner thrill in our entire existence. From the soles of our feet to the crown of our head we feel that a river is flowing through us, a river of illumined consciousness.

Next to deep prayer or meditation, music is of paramount importance in our spiritual life. Meditation is like a direct route, or shortcut, to the goal. Music is a road that is absolutely clear: it may be a little longer, but it is quite clear of obstacles. If one can play soulful music or hear soulful music, the power of his own meditation increases. Music, soulful music, adds to our aspiration. Similarly, if a spiritual seeker wants to be a musician, even if he does not have a musical background, he will be able to be a good musician because prayer and meditation contain all capacities. You may never have studied music, but if you pray and meditate soulfully, then inside your prayer, inside your meditation, by the Grace of the Supreme, the power of music will loom large.

How do we know if music is spiritual and if the musician is aspiring?

Whether or not the musician is aspiring is not your business. That is only God's business. Somebody may appear to be spiritual, but if his music brings your consciousness down, then he is not playing spiritual music. When you hear music, if it lifts your consciousness, then you will know that it is spiritual music. Sometimes the musician is aspiring and also he is playing spiritual music; at that time you are very fortunate, because you get inspiration from both the music and the musician.

What is the best way to become one with soulful music?

The best way to become one with soulful music is to have the firm inner conviction while listening to it that as you are breathing in, the breath is immediately entering directly into your soul. And with the breath, you have to feel that the Universal Consciousness, divine Reality, divine Truth is also entering. Then, when you breathe out, try to feel that you are breathing out the ignorance that is covering your soul. Feel that the veils of ignorance are being lifted and discarded. If you can consciously imagine and feel this, it is the best way to become one with soulful music.

Music is God's dream. We don't have to know what it looks like or what it does. Its very existence keeps us alive.