“If music be the food of love, play on” – Shakespeare

Music is the only thing which can so possess people that they drop all their inhibitions and, just for a moment in this precious life, they dance! That is the real music.

Real music has emotion in it, and this is why real saints love music so much; it helps them do their work.  Shiva is rhythm, the father of music, and His Shakti is the mother, the sounds or notes.  The child is Ganesha, the song: Rhythm + Notes = Song

The greatest music is written by Gandharvas, celestial musicians who incarnate on earth and many of great Western musicians were Gandharvas, like Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, and Mozart.

The right kind of music acts as a way of bringing light into one’s consciousness.  Music is manifestation of sound, and sound exists wherever there is energy, and it doesn’t matter if it is recorded or live music

Music should not be an end in itself, it should be a sadhana, a means of getting to your goal.  Mantras are one way in which to make use of sound in sadhana, music is another.  The Vedas are mantras set o music, but Vedas are too far away for most of us, while music is available to everyone.  If you are lucky, meaning if you have worked hard in previous lives and God is kind to you, your music can be sufficient to draw God to you regardless of whether it is Western-style or Indian-style music.

The greatness of Western music is that many musicians together can cooperate to create a tone poem.   An Indian musician paints his complete musical picture with one instrument only.

In Indian music each raga (melodic scale) has a specific picture which must be visualized as you play or sing it.  If you do it right the true image of that raga will manifest.  For the Raga Megha (the cloud melody), for instance, you must imagine a cloudy sky and all its background.  If you want rain you play Megha in a certain way and rain will come.

So any kind of music, Western, Indian, or anything else, can give you results if you are sincere about it and make it into a Sadhana.

Hari Om

Mohan

Yoga practitioner, Dhrti Yoga