Seeing Musically

by Bhadra Sena

See deep enough and you see musically.

Carlyle

The world as it exists is not a product of chance, come out of chaos. It has a purpose and plan behind it. The Spirit and the Power of the Master-architect is hidden in every part of life, stretching form the rocks and minerals below to the starry heavens above, and in all that lies in between at various levels of existence, animate or even what we may call inanimate.

All that is ethereal or non-ethereal is of the spirit and nothing in form exists but for and through the spirit. The efficient and the spiritual cannot manifest itself – on the physical plane – except through the gross and the material. The spirit is the energising Power of God. it is at the root of all things, material an non-material, in whatever clothing they may be, gross or subtle. Matter and mind cannot exist by themselves. This Power is at once the material and the efficient cause of what we are within and without and works mysteriously in a way all its own.

Most of us are apathetic towards this vital part of our being. Too much concerned with what we see, we do not know who sees and how he sees. These are important questions and the more important they are, the more sadly neglected they remain.

We, to speak truly, are dead – dead by spiritual hardening. It is deadness in life, apart from deadness arising from the stopping of the heart. This hardening grows with time. The Water of Life becomes completely forgotten as the appetites of the flesh grow. And the ego-in-man takes the place of God-in-man. Even the spirit gets imperilled by the weight of our own vanity. Such is the plight of all. The creative Word becomes a palaver.

With selfishness, greed and hatred in us, we live in a constant state of fear and tension and accordingly see the world in our own colour.

We receive but what we give. And in our life alone does Nature live,

is the fundamental law of action and reaction. This is why in the work-a-day world, we see nature red in tooth and claw, torn by storms of our own making. Why? Simply because we are torn within and not an undivided individual.

On the surface, it is all turmoil, waves of passions lashing right and left; but in the deepest depths it is all calm. Always generating evil thoughts, doing evil deeds and justifying them by fallacious arguments, we remain floating on the surface. We have never slipped within. We do not know that there is a life deeper than the sense-life – the life of the spirit which runs rhythmically and musically, in harmony with the plan and purpose of God. A vision of the Life-Principle vibrant with Music works a miracle in him who sees deeply. He who does so, becomes a changed man, cast in a new mould. All things acquire a new meaning for him, in spite of the eddying winds sweeping without.

If we could but learn to sink to the centre of our being, we would be sure to see our inward essence and hear the sublime symphony of the soul, for God is the Great Musician, calling forth harmony latent in all creation.