Adi and Praja |
Chapter 9 |
Issue 114: Meditation |
Then he would imagine the sun to come down from above into his body, and every cell, every atom inside his body would be bathed in sunlight, in goodness, in health and in happiness. and he would than unify his own heart with the goodness and intelligence of the sun, and thus he himself became shining like the sun for the pleasure and good of all beings. It enhanced his intelligence too.
(114)
(meditation)
After a while he would stop, open his eyes, look around to nature or people, stretch his body, and continue his normal doings – usually walking on. In this way his whole being seemed to become more radiating, and less selfish. Unknowingly he was experiencing the sunrise of a new life, a life for which had been preparing himself since ages – which would be the latest fulfillment of his holiest wishes.
He could also meditate on an imagined suffering being, someone he knew, or humans in general, or living beings in general, and imagine, or feel hope, without pressure, without the use of his will power, but quietly merging with the feelings of the one or many he thought of, and then, feeling from his own wisdom-heart – as far as he knew that himself, but certainly not his brain-mind – into a solution of the person’s problem, or the cause of people’s problems in general, as if he was these people himself. He just wished them to be happy, wiser, more hopeful, but always without any pressure. He never wanted, even in his imagination, press an idea or thought on someone. He did not wish to ‘hypnotize’ anyone, or insert a new thought into anyone’s mind, even when no actual person was there. Because that would be against the law of nature, he felt: it would interfere with a person’s or other being’s free will, and become an obstacle instead of a help in going its own way for that soul. Every thought was no more than an imperfect theory, after all. In fact, Shano meant it mainly as a training for himself, hoping that one day, if he would have the skills and be in the position to help from a background of real wisdom – which is higher than the thinking mind – he would be inwardly prepared to perform action. He did not adhere to any special religion, because he had long understood that all religions of all times of all countries in whatever forms and however outwardly different in doctrine and dogma, came, like all other forces in nature, from the same compassionate and intelligent source. For Shano, plants and birds and insects were just as religious as people – and always more dedicated and true to their gods than people were with their mind.
He had been in many temples and shrines, mosques, churches, spiritual centers and lecture halls and natural holy places in forests and mountains, and some of them, only a few really, had left a lofty imprint in his consciousness. Like mineral souls and plant souls, every holy place has his own character, giving to it by its founders, by the founder of the religion, the recited texts of songs sung, the seriousness, intelligence and devotion of its visitors, and their inner qualities. He had felt that at some places – often not the most remarkable to see – very holy people, may be even the gods themselves, had been living in the past or more recently, studying and meditating, and thus automatically or consciously soaking every object in that place with the refined and forceful vibrations of their aura.
Such memories he also used as foci for his meditations, so that their breathe became part of his own. Shano’s inner being, his compassion and understanding grew enormously, and his inner life became richer and richer. When he opened his philosophy books he found more understanding, recognition rather, in some passages, than the first ten times he had read them. His philosophical mind was quickly awakening. Maybe he wanted to become a writer. At the same time he was still a young adventurer, not even 21 yet, and would search for and absorb experiences wherever he could. It was most interesting what happened inside Shano – it was like genuine alchemy.
One day he walked into a small quiet town in the mountains, not too high – it may have been some 2700 meters or 8000 feet above sea level. He was in a very good mood and his mind was very clear. He was not searching for anything in particular. Something special was hanging in the air, an atmosphere, you could call it sparkling, like on nature’s own first day of spring. He walked through the streets, and a little further, just outside the city limit, where he saw a house and a working place which in some way appealed to him. So he went there and knocked on the door. Inside a found a man and his young family with three children. He liked them instantly. He sat down with the man, and they talked like they had known each other for long, and just continued where they has stopped last time. He was a maker of musical instruments and a good player also, and the best of the town and a large region around. The man was so happy with his new friend Shano – who seemed to understand everything about the instruments immediately – that he invited him to stay. Shano did so without a second of hesitation – and he stayed much longer than he could ever have imagined he would stay in any town. But the man was amazed when he found that Shano who had this easy understanding about music, and could tell such beautiful stories about his travels, could not play any instrument properly. So he asked whether he wouldn’t like to be taught. Well, he would, and in a short time he became the best pupil the man had ever had. Shano became a part of the family. The teacher sometimes remarked that he was playing better than himself, but he waved that away of course. He was fond of the children and the children were fond if him.
Being new to the town he heard various stories. The house he lived was on a corner, and roads went into four directions. This was a good place, because musicians who wanted instruments build could easily reach and remember the place. To the South was the road which, Shano knew, would ultimately lead to the country he came from, to his birthplace, and to the city were he had lived. The road in the North was were he came from. He had not much idea about the road leading West, but it was called ‘Road to Technology’ because it would lead to the countries, or airports from which one could go to countries where most technological gadgets were invented. Every real technological invention seemed to be made in the West, and than imitated or imported to other countries. That had been so for the last three hundred years at least. But in the part of the world were Shano lived, wisdom and ways of living were born, and language and music, philosophy and religion seemed to have come from that part of the world mainly. These more subtle aspects of culture were imported and imitated in other parts, including the West, but usually not very perfect, because the people there were not intelligent enough to understand all that. Just as the introduction of Western technology and political systems had created havoc in the living environment and confusion in the people’s minds – resulting at places to awful suppression, dictatorship and destruction of values, so the people in the west created havoc with the philosophies they were not yet ready to understand, which had led to dogmatism and strange mixtures of materialism, hedonism and spirituality. Of course there were beautiful exceptions also, and it was no more than a stage of transition, of preparation – otherwise the mixture of cultures would never have happened.
Shano knew something that most people did not realize, but his new friend certainly did. In the West, people could compose and play the most beautiful music. The people there would play together in large groups, called orchestras and thus produce very complex sounds, rhythms and intermingling melodies. They had invented harmony and symphony. Harmony meant a sounding together of two or many tones, sometimes from very low to very high pitched together, and they would form a new sound, called harmonious sound. These different pitches would have to be perfectly adjusted, attuned to each other, and Shano knew that such was the case only of the frequencies or wavelengths of these pitches which had a simple mathematical relation. That discovery had been done for the western world in Greece more than two and a half thousand years ago by a very great philosopher, named Pythagoras, who himself was perhaps taught by the gods. That principle was still applied in music every day, as much as in previous centuries. The music of most other cultures was mostly based on individual performance, or sometimes two people who understood each other well playing together, while the rest of the music were background tones or tunes and rhythmic patterns. Thanks to this discovery, the western musicians, designers and builders of musical instruments had acquired great skill in making instruments in which many tones would sound together. Some instruments had to be played with all ten fingers at the same time, producing complex harmonies, and even the players feet were sometimes involved. There were also instruments producing only one sound per time unit, like flutes and clarinets, and hobos and trumpets – like in other cultures. But in the western tradition these could be harmoniously combined and produce new, joint sounds. And because they understood harmony, they could combine large groups of instruments, which, when rightly attuned could play complex melodies and harmonies together, and these were called symphonies – which means together-sound. Of course complex harmonies could also be sung, and human voices and ears, when trained, have the automatic tendency to attune to these simple mathematical beauties. Musicians and composers could also use ‘disharmonies’ to a certain extend, to create particular tensions, which was best recognized and enjoyed by people who had tensions themselves – and then it could have a curative effect on them, bringing their moods and souls back to harmony. There is a strong relation between the harmony of music and the harmony of the human soul. Shano hoped that one day he would have opportunity to travel to that far west.
Music of other cultures had discovered other miracles of nature – for example, Indian music had a more refined scale, a finer subdivision than the western scale. Others wanted to make music so soft and subtle, that they used silk strings to play on.
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