By Wes Annac, The Culture of Awareness
The great thing about music is that we can practice it in whatever way works for us. We don’t have to conform to anything strict or rigid, and no matter how we prefer to play, we can embrace it and use it to elevate our consciousness, inspiring ourselves to take it as far as we can in the process.
For example – you don’t have to be a good singer to embrace music, and whether you sing or play an instrument, all you have to do is diligently practice to get the most out of it. If you aren’t confident in yourself as a singer, maybe you can pick up a guitar, a keyboard or another instrument and practice away.
Singing seems like one of the hardest talents to hone, because in my opinion, singers put themselves out there a little more than people who play instruments. Anyone who plays music obviously puts themselves out there, but singers tend to be subjected to more social pressure.
We don’t even have to play music publicly, and the point of these articles is to provide a glimpse into its massive spiritual benefits instead of its social ones. We can elevate our consciousness by singing, playing an instrument, or even chanting wildly during meditation, and all we have to do is pursue what works for us.
Personally, I’m starting to think I’d benefit more from playing guitar than singing, and every musician will find specific paths that work for them. We don’t have to limit ourselves to one instrument, even if we sing, and if it lights our inner fire, we can pursue multiple instruments and increase our talent (and passion) for all of them.
Sri Chinmoy, our main guide for this series, tells us that listening to spiritual music while we sleep is helpful for the spirit but not as much for the body, which needs pure silence when it sleeps.
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“Were we to play spiritual music on tape while we slept, would it benefit us in any way?
“While you are sleeping if you play soulful music, your subtle vital, subtle physical and subtle mind will enjoy it.
“But your physical body may find it difficult to appreciate it, for it wants total silence. Although soulful music will add to pure silence, inner silence, the physical body wants a kind of silence which is totally devoid of outer sound.” (1)
Playing a tape softly while we sleep will help our subtle bodies, he tells us, which are constantly active. Playing it loudly can negatively affect the physical body that’s trying to sleep, however, so we’ll want to be careful.
“If you play your tape very softly, it will definitely help and inspire the subtle physical and subtle vital which are not sleeping. Many, many times when the physical sleeps, the subtle physical and the subtle vital do not sleep.
“They move around. They roam here and there. They visit their friends and enemies. My music is definitely a source of joy to them. So for the subtle physical, subtle vital and subtle mind, undoubtedly it is a help. But for the gross physical which is trying to sleep, it may be a hindrance, a disaster.” (2)
We’re also told about the ‘supreme duty’ of the conscious musician, which, as I’ve said before, is to offer their creativity to Source.
“What is the supreme duty of an artist or musician?
“The supreme duty of an artist or musician is to meditate before he creates something and, while creating, to be in a very contemplative, divine mood. Then, when the creation is completed, he will immediately offer his creation to the Supreme.
“No matter what others say about his creation, no matter what his feelings are about his own creation, as soon as his creation is completed, he will offer it to the Supreme for Him to use in His own way. This is the supreme duty of the spiritual musician or artist.” (3)
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It’s interesting that Sri Chinmoy mentions the importance of offering our creativity to Source, because I recently stumbled upon a very similar revelation. I was worried about something that had to do with my creativity, and I received an intuitive hint not to take it so personally.
Instead of making our creativity so personal and limiting it to what we feel like we can achieve based on our current level of talent, we can offer it to Source and let our divine Mother and Father take care of any lingering doubt.
It’s important to be grounded in the present moment, especially when it comes to creativity, and offering our work to Source is a great way to enjoy it while staying grounded in the Now, instead of taking ourselves out of the Now by worrying about what other people will think.
It helps to remember that we’re here to elevate humanity’s consciousness with creativity and anything else we enjoy, and we’re on this planet on a mission from the Most High to raise the awareness that desperately needs raised before we can bring this world into the light.
Since we’re on such a crucially important mission from Source, we might as well offer our creativity to him/her before we hit the ‘post’ button and send it out into the world.
That way, our creation will be inundated with divine energy and we’ll impact others on a much deeper level than if we would’ve offered it without any energetic input from our creator.
It’s probably obvious by now that creativity is a form of meditation, but it’s only meditative if we keep spirit in mind while we do it. If our thoughts are in a low place, our art will reflect that lowness and the spiritual value we’d otherwise get from it will be diminished to nothing.
“Is creativity another form of meditation?
“It depends on what you are creating. If it is spiritual art or music, then certainly it is a form of meditation. But if you play undivine music or write unbearable books or keep your mind in the gutter while you are painting, this is not any kind of meditation.” (4)
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We have to pay attention to where we place our consciousness when we’re being creative, he tells us, and our work won’t be very spiritually potent if we don’t keep Source in mind during a session.
“While you are creating, if your consciousness is in the lower vital world, it will not be a form of meditation.
“But if you are singing something soulful or if you are in a very high consciousness while you are creating, if you are giving yourself in a divine way to the object or subject that you are involved with, then definitely you are doing a form of meditation.
“You have to know what you are creating and where your consciousness is while you are doing it.” (5)
Meditation is an essential component to spiritually inspired music, and without it, music might not provide the portal into a higher consciousness that we seek.
“I am giving a lot of importance to aspiring through music. There is nothing wrong if you feel aspiration in your music. But you have to know how many hours you can think of your music.
“If you spend five hours, six hours, seven hours a day on music, then you should spend one hour or two hours, let us say, on spirituality. Music is also a form of spirituality; I do not deny it. But the height that you will achieve from meditation either you may not get or cannot get from your music. Music is an added help.” (6)
Music alone might not get us where we want to go, but if we practice it in conjunction with meditation or other forms of spiritual attunement, it’ll take us deep within and allow us to connect with the sacred self in a way that other forms of creativity fail to do.
Any form of creativity provides a path into a higher state of consciousness, and it’s probably clear that I’m passionate about writing.
Beyond music, I think writing is one of the best ways to connect us with our inner realms and the flowing telepathic expression that takes place there, but it’s also incomplete if we don’t practice it along with meditation.
I’m getting the intuitive hint that as long as we stay creatively and spiritually active, it really doesn’t matter what we do. We can embrace music and play our hearts out, or we can embrace writing and write our hearts out.
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As long as we remember how crucial meditation is to the sustainment of our greater connection with spirit, we can use any creative avenue we want to raise awareness and inundate the world with the love and spirituality that seem to have dried up.
In all things, our dedication and where we place our thoughts are important, so let’s remember to enjoy our creativity, practice it with meditation and offer it to Source – especially when we don’t feel like it’s good enough.
Anything and everything is good enough for Source, and we’re infinitely accepted by our creator. All we have to do is open up and realize it, and everything else will start to fall into place.
Sincere spiritual seekers might feel ‘miserable’ if they don’t play spiritual music or play their music in accordance with meditation.
“If you can play spiritual music, soulful music, then you will have no problem in your life.
“But if you play only mundane music, then you may not be satisfied. You may be pleasing the outer world, but you are not pleasing your Inner Pilot in His own way. If you are not an aspiring seeker, that is fine. But if you are a sincere seeker, then you will feel miserable.” (7)
If we want to use music to elevate our consciousness, it’s essential that we write and play things that appease our need for a deeper level of awareness.
Music that’s hollow or spiritually dead won’t do much for us, whereas music that’s filled with the spirit will satiate that relentless thirst and allow us to uplift others in the process, provided we play publicly.
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We don’t have to play it for other people, but if we do, we’ll uplift ourselves and everyone else who’s in need of the higher vibration our creativity can provide.
As always, there’s still a lot to say about the spiritual value of music and we’ll pick this discussion back up another time.
I’m sure there’ll always be something to say about music’s spiritual properties and its potential to uplift us and the rest of the world, and as we’ve learned, all we have to do to feel its true effects is play from the heart.
It also helps to believe in ourselves and our power to use our creativity to awaken and uplift the world, and when we can finally empower ourselves, everything else will follow suit.
Footnotes:
- Srichinmoy.org: “Music: God’s Universal Language” at –http://www.srichinmoy.org/resources/library/music_and_spirituality/music_gods_language
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I’m a twenty-one year old writer, blogger, musician and channel for the creative expression of the inner universe, and I created The Culture of Awareness daily news site.
The Culture of Awareness features daily spiritual and alternative news, articles I’ve written, and more. Its purpose is to awaken and uplift by providing material about the fall of the planetary elite and a new paradigm of unity and spirituality.