15 years ago I was an inexperienced spiritual seeker armed with a righteousness that rivaled JP Sears’ Ultra-Spiritual spoofs. I made a dismissive comment about a musical piece of angry, arrhythmic dissonance to my dear friend and cellist, Andrew Eckard.
He knocked me off my high horse with a simple question: “Are you saying that this isn’t a valid piece of music?”
Well, I had to admit that music can validly express any emotion. This piece was certainly a true expression of the composer’s confusion and anger.
Valid it was, but helpful (for me at that time) it was not. It offered no solution, no way out of anger and confusion.
I continued my search for deeper truth—or highest benefit—that music has to offer:
The power to connect me to the purest, most essential part of myself.
I had tasted the truth of music’s power many times as a young adult: wholeness, captivation, connection, joy. But as I continued my musical training, I became more and more enmeshed in my ego. For most of my 20’s I connected less and less to my essential self. I explored other attitudes and habits that promised happiness but delivered only hollow dissatisfaction.
Then I found meditation and began the work of weeding out attitudes and habits that weren’t the purest, most essential part of myself.
Instead of a dreary, dry existence, I found myself more in touch with a vibrant source of inspiration within my own self—call it Soul, Spirit, God, Source, Authentic Self, Light, or simply, Truth.
But can you ever really find truth in music?
If truth in me is the purest, most essential part of myself, then truth in music must be that which expresses the most essential and beneficial qualities of humanity.
What are the most essential qualities for humanity? For each of us the answers will be different, but chances are they include:
- an expansion of awareness from our center to others
- an upward direction of consciousness
Regardless of what we value, we each have a source of truth within us—this purest, most essential part of ourselves—that needs to come forth for healing and the evolution of our society.
Expressing truth in music has taken many forms throughout the centuries. Great composers write from that purest, most essential part of themselves, offering music that goes beyond limited personal expression into a realm of greater reality. Great performers tap into their truth when they play. Their music has the power to connect us to each other and to the source of truth within ourselves.
The time has come for music to be consciously used to its highest potential to create the healing and evolution that we so desperately need on this planet.
- If you write music: Expand your expression from a limited point of view into the universal truth that is trying to speak through you. Tap into a greater reality by diving deep and offer the solutions that you discover. Use your music to help others out of their own pain and limited thinking.
- If you perform music: Sing or play from an uplifted and expansive consciousness. Step out of the way and let the truth of the music speak through you with clarity and grace.
- If you listen to music: Perceive the subtle changes in your consciousness. Amplify whatever spark of inspiration into all of your interactions and activities.
The time has come. Let’s do this.