music

I did not hear the anthem, I was it

One night, as I kneeled beside my bed and prayed, I gazed through my window at the starry night. I thought of how God was THROUGH, and yet BEYOND, all space. Suddenly, I had the sensation of being surrounded by a musical harmony like a great anthem, only inaudible to the human ear. Then I just seemed to evaporate until I too was THROUGH and BEYOND the stars.

I was completely filling space, and the musical harmony was completely filling me. I did not see the proverbial Light, I experienced it. I did not hear the anthem, I was it... I understood that everything was part of God, everything in the universe was one.

Silence is a symphony

Silence can contain within it all the music that can be played, for all of it emerges from silence. A word is a note. Silence is a symphony.

Adding our separate voices to the song

We are part of the tremendous through
Forever surging in transcendent flight,
Perilous though the journey be long.
And all, it is ordained, will earn the right
To add our separate voices to the song
Rising triumphant from the chorus of the light.

We are the music of God

Some time ago, I was at a concert and listening to the orchestra beginning to tune up. It was the most discordant sound I've ever heard. Each instrument was playing in its own way, in total disharmony. Then the oboe, a quiet little instrument, began to play and all the other instruments turned in on its note. And gradually, all the disharmony began to calm down. Then there was silence, and the concert began. It seems to me that the mantra is very much like that little oboe. In meditation, the mantra brings all the parts of our being, one by one, bit by bit, into harmony. And when we are in harmony, we are the music of God.

As if all notes were contained in any single note

The first three notes -- the root, the fifth, and the minor third -- seemed entirely magical. In their simplicity he heard the implication of the whole piece itself, and from that, from his awareness of the fugue, came an awareness of all-of-music, as if all notes were contained in any single note. The perception was evanescent, but so powerful as to wipe away thoughts of himself. Music is here! Music has been here forever and always will be here! It was so much larger than life, so ineluctable strong, so potent an indicator of a kind of heaven on earth, that all else was swept before it. He saw this in a flash. In a nanosecond.

June 1997 (Vol. X, No. 6)

BLESSED BE, dear friends, as we journey into a new season. May we remember to pause and listen to bird-song: a reminder that each one of us has a soul-son deep within the silence of our hearts to bring forth into the world.

Those who know the music

Sam Hamill

There are those who know all the notes; and there are those who know the music.

To dance through life

Alan Fischer

To dance through life
we must listen to the
music within.

Praying without words

Unknown

BACH gave us God's Word
MOZART gave us God's Laughter
BEETHOVEN gave us God's Fire
God
gave us MUSIC that we
might pray without words.

Adding our separate voices to the song

Reginald Winder Sonnets of the Ancient Teaching

We are part of the tremendous through
Forever surging in transcendent flight,
Perilous though the journey be long.
And all, it is ordained, will earn the right
To add our separate voices to the song
Rising triumphant from the chorus of the light.

We can be played by the wind

Reshad Feild Reason Is Powerless in the Expression of Love

We can be played by the wind, and what we speak will be the sound of the moment, bringing with the word the possibility of real change rather than the apparency of change. We all know this somewhere deep within ourselves, and although God gives us everything, it is up to us to be so finely tuned that the music that is played is of Truth itself.

Without music no discipline can be perfect

Isadore of Seville

Without music no discipline can be perfect, for there is nothing without it. For the very universe is held together by a certain harmony of sounds, and the heavens themselves are made to revolve by the modulation of harmony. Music moves the feelings and changes the emotions... The very beasts also, even serpents, birds, and dolphins, music incites to listen to her melody. And every word we speak, every pulsation in our veins, is related by musical rhythms to the powers of harmony.

As if all notes were contained in any single note

Frank Conroy Body and Soul

The first three notes -- the root, the fifth, and the minor third -- seemed entirely magical. In their simplicity he heard the implication of the whole piece itself, and from that, from his awareness of the fugue, came an awareness of all-of-music, as if all notes were contained in any single note. The perception was evanescent, but so powerful as to wipe away thoughts of himself. Music is here! Music has been here forever and always will be here! It was so much larger than life, so ineluctable strong, so potent an indicator of a kind of heaven on earth, that all else was swept before it. He saw this in a flash. In a nanosecond.

We each listen to a different music within

Beverly Elaine Eanes Joy

We each listen to a different music within, one uniquely our own. A special joy is finding and refining the creative spark which leads us to follow in rhythm to the pace and tempo of our God-given talents.

Silence is a symphony

David J. Wolpe In Speech and Silence

Silence can contain within it all the music that can be played, for all of it emerges from silence. A word is a note. Silence is a symphony.

The infinite musical variations of wind

James Mahood

The infinite musical variations of wind, water, and bird summon differently, but each is woven into delightful textures of notes, tones, and silences.

How one cultivates silence

Thomas Moore Meditations

One cultivates silence not by forcing the ears not to hear, but by turning up the volume on the music of the world and soul.

Silence burst into song

David Steindl-Rast The Music of Silence

At a certain pitch of religious experience, the heart just wants to sing; it breaks into song. Paradoxically, you could say when silence finds its fullness, it comes to word. As the Book of Wisdom says, "When night in its swift course had reached its halfway point and deep silence embraced everything" -- when night was at its darkest and deepest -- there "the eternal Word leaped from the Heavenly throne": silence burst into song.

I did not hear the anthem, I was it

Edward Hoffman Re-Visioning Childhood Experiences

One night, as I kneeled beside my bed and prayed, I gazed through my window at the starry night. I thought of how God was THROUGH, and yet BEYOND, all space. Suddenly, I had the sensation of being surrounded by a musical harmony like a great anthem, only inaudible to the human ear. Then I just seemed to evaporate until I too was THROUGH and BEYOND the stars.

I was completely filling space, and the musical harmony was completely filling me. I did not see the proverbial Light, I experienced it. I did not hear the anthem, I was it... I understood that everything was part of God, everything in the universe was one.

A distant melody

Roberto Viola The House on the Dunes

In total silence he perceived a distant melody. It could be coming from the stars, from the bottom of the sea or from the night itself... It was not like any other, not even like the purring of the sea on tranquil nights before the storms... Juan sang drawn by the music that reached him, and, like the night, his song made him brother to the trees, the seagull, the mollusks, the wild flowers that spring up in the sand. "This melody is the murmur of the sea that covers all humankind."

We are the music of God

Laurence Freeman

Some time ago, I was at a concert and listening to the orchestra beginning to tune up. It was the most discordant sound I've ever heard. Each instrument was playing in its own way, in total disharmony. Then the oboe, a quiet little instrument, began to play and all the other instruments turned in on its note. And gradually, all the disharmony began to calm down. Then there was silence, and the concert began. It seems to me that the mantra is very much like that little oboe. In meditation, the mantra brings all the parts of our being, one by one, bit by bit, into harmony. And when we are in harmony, we are the music of God.

The origins of music lie far back in time

Di Jiangyue The Spring and Autumn Annals of Lu Buwei

The origins of music lie far back in time. It arises out of proportion and is rooted in the Great One ... That from which all beings arise and have their origin is the Great One ... When the world is at peace, when all things are at rest, then music can be brought to perfection.

So shall I sing my song

So shall I sing my song. The melody winds through creation and forms the Name of the deepest Mystery and Being ... is unspeakable and as simple as the bee and the hummingbird and flower, is as constant and as changing as the cosmos. The Name is Now. With each moment the song is new. Each call of the Holy in and to me releases a surprise of melody I never knew I knew before. I didn't. Awareness. The Holy One makes all things new -- always, all ways, now. I must be attentive to my singing. I am new. I can always be a song fuller than could be imagined yesterday. I sing my life and I sing creation. Your Name is the song.

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