On the New Music - Part Two

An ear of mind withdrawn from the outward's rhymes

Discovered the seed-sounds of the eternal Word

The rhythm and music heard that built the worlds,

Savitri - Book Two, Canto 11, Page 280

When Mother said to me in 1961, "You must bring down a new music." I was stunned. I was at the time studying voice and immersed in classical music, especially art song a medium that unites two of the most inspired arts, poetry and music. I said, "Mother, I don't know anything about combining words and music". She then said, "No, no, you must go far above words and bring down the pure music".

For the past forty-nine years I have listened to the music of the world, collected nearly two thousand CD's, LP's and Cassette tapes, attended live concerts in various parts of the globe and have heard magnificent strains and, however brief, passages vibrant with something of the new music, much as poets here and there have caught touches of the overhead influence in poetry. Since my first meeting with Mother my aspiration has been to open the doors of the soul and bring down something of the new music, the eternal sound.

Away from the terrestrial murmur turned

Where transient calls and answers mix their flood,

King Aswapati listened through the ray

To other sounds than meet the sense-formed ear.

On a subtle interspace which rings our life,

Unlocked were the inner spirit's trance-closed doors:

The inaudible strain in Nature could be caught;

Across this cyclic tramp of eager lives,

Across the deep urgency of present cares,

Earth's wordless hymn to the Ineffable

Arose from the silent heart of the cosmic Void;

He heard the voice repressed of unborn Powers

Murmuring behind the luminous bars of Time.

Again the mighty yearning raised its flame

That asks a perfect life on earth for men

And prays for certainty in the uncertain mind

And shadowless bliss for suffering human hearts

And Truth embodied in an ignorant world

And godhead divinising mortal forms.

Savitri - Book Four, Canto 3, Page 369

In 2003 I realized that one of the most potent ways to "Bring down a new music" was to begin a choir for those open to the possibility of singing in an atmosphere charged with love and devotion for Mother and Sri Aurobindo in which Their Grace and Power might flow into us and open us to the music of the future. It would be a collective call to the Supreme.

Oft inspiration with her lightning feet,

A sudden messenger from the all-seeing tops,

Traversed the soundless corridors of his mind

Bringing her rhythmic sense of hidden things.

A music spoke transcending mortal speech.

As if from a golden phial of the All-Bliss,

A joy of light, a joy of sudden sight,

A rapture of the thrilled undying Word

Poured into his heart as into an empty cup,

A repetition of God's first delight

Creating in a young and virgin Time.

Savitri - Book One, Canto , Page 38

I feel the new music descending, reverberating in the many who aspire for the manifestation of the new world and all the beauty and light that will be yet remains still too far from us. I began an OM Choir in the Ashram in 2003 with a group of 5-9 members. The Choir has now grown dramatically, at times approaching 100 and the experience is so powerful that it defies description or analysis. Who could possibly analyze with the mind something that transcends mind and all the ideas we have about Eastern and Western music, harmony and disharmony, discord and concord.

Before beginning OM and aspiring for the New Music's descent we concentrate on warming up exercises to prepare the instrument, the only instrument we have, our body, so that it might be pliable and receptive, without tension or strain, and capable of holding the music that which descends, then allowing it to go through the body and enter into the earth to heal and transform.

The Mother said we should sit in a circle and have no preconceived ideas as to what will come down. She also said that there is a new music just above the head, waiting to come down. Lastly, She wrote to me saying that it would be better without the organ so we have only our voices to offer. We sit quietly, our chairs arranged in concentric circles, and as a candle is lit close our eyes and enter within. There is total silence in the room.

In moments when the inner lamps are lit

And the life's cherished guests are left outside,

Our spirit sits alone and speaks to its gulfs.

Savitri - Book One, Canto 4, Page 47

Men, women, and young adults gathered together invoke the Divine Presence and, if our call is pure enough, to hasten the advent of the new world and the manifestation of the life divine on earth. From the silence an OM is heard, joined by one voice, then another and still another until the room is vibrating with the force and power of the Word.

The symbolled OM, the great assenting Word,

Savitri - Book Three, Canto 2, Page 310

1) There are certain words whose resonance in the physical world is the perfect vibratory materialisation of the more subtle vibration produced by the thought in its own domain. If we examine closely this similarity between the vibrations of thought and sound, we can discover the limited number of root syllables which express the most general ideas, and which are to be found in most spoken languages with an almost identical meaning. (This origin of language should not be confused with the origin of written languages, which are of an altogether different nature and correspond to different needs.)

2) There are other words which have been repeated in certain circumstances for hundreds of years and which are instinct with the mental forces of all those who have pronounced them. They are true batteries of energy.

3) Finally, there are words which assume an immediate value when they are pronounced, as a result of the living thought of the one who pronounces them. To illustrate what I have just said with an example, here is a very powerful word, for it can combine the qualities of all three categories: it is the Sanskrit word "AUM". It is used in India to express the divine Immanence. There, it is associated with every meditation, every contemplation, every yogic practice. More than any other sound, this sound "AUM" gives rise to a feeling of peace, of serenity, of eternity. Moreover, this word is instinct with the mental forces which for centuries all those who have used it have accumulated around the idea that it expresses; and, for Hindus especially, it has the true power of bringing one into contact with the divine Essence it evokes.

The Mother - The Power of Words - 18 June 1912

We are one body with many voices, not many bodies seeking unity through the music and from the Unity the diversity and beauty of the music flows. Each voice feels the OM intensifying from within and descending from the higher realms. Then the harmonies and melodies follow, and at the same time, each becomes aware of the confluence other sounds and chords rhythmic with new harmonies. The OM Choir is not a showcase for individual talent, no matter how excellent a voice may be. We do not sing 'ah' or 'ay' but only OM, the most powerful word in all the languages of man and has the power of effectuation. It is the great mantra of the yearning world.

We have marvellous voices already, from beautiful deep basses to soaring sopranos and many who come just to join their consciousness in a true collective aspiration to the Divine. Each week there is something new that we have never heard before and there has been much progress even though we are still on the threshold of the new music.

Our emotions are but high and dying notes

Of his wild music changed compellingly

By the passionate movements of a seeking Heart

In the inconstant links of hour with hour.

To call down heaven's distant answering song,

Savitri - Book Six, Canto 1, Page 438

We aspire to become "the ungarbed entity within" as Sri Aurobindo has written in Savitri, and to work to develop the 'Witness Self' that, standing behind, hears its own voice and the voice of all other voices as its own. We listen to the voice on either side of us, blend with it, merge with it, become one sound with it, fully attuned within, that we may truly become a harp of many strings, as we are already children of one Mother.

Then, falling silent in himself to know

He meets the deeper listening of his soul:

The Word repeats itself in rhythmic strains:

Savitri - Book Four, Canto 3, Page 375

There are no wrong notes. One feels at times an apparent discord or a seeming dissonance but realizes as the music develops that it is only a greater consonance seeking expression and an expanding harmony soaring higher, ever higher. We try to lose the sense of Eastern or Western music, past voice training in different techniques or even the critical intellect's evaluation of 'good' or 'poor' music, for we are calling the Divine Presence into our hearts and souls and it will lift our voices to a deeper, higher, and greater resolution.

Music brought down celestial yearnings, song

Held the merged heart absorbed in rapturous depths,

Linking the human with the cosmic cry;

Savitri - Book Four, Canto 3, Page 375

The Mother is with us in the OM choir. She is seen by a few, felt by many. Her presence inspires and uplifts our voices as our song rises to Her. Those who join us are moved by the intense beauty and harmony they feel. One member of the choir exclaimed, "The music sings you!", another disciple told me, "I had never sung before but suddenly felt the OM rising in me and I was singing." And yet another, one of the finest musicians in the Ashram spoke in reverent tones his awe at hearing sounds, celestial sounds, that in all his years of listening to and studying music he has never heard before. Dr. Vishwa, in his 91st year, joined us one evening a week or so before Mother's birthday (2005) and exclaimed, "Divine Music".

Hearts touched by thy love shall answer to my call,

Discover the ancient music of the spheres

In the revealing accents of thy voice

And nearer draw to me because thou art:

Savitri - Book Eleven, Canto 1, Page 697

An OM Choir has been formed in Auroville and all have experienced a profound peace in the atmosphere of Savitri Bhavan, one of the great lights in Auroville, charged with the Mother's Grace. Many members of the OM Choir in the Ashram came to inaugurate the Auroville OM Choir and now attend as often as possible. Aurovilians also make the journey from Auroville each Wednesday evening at 7:00 P.M. to join their voices in divine concord.

I caught the echoes of a word supreme

And metred the rhythm-beats of infinity

And listened through music for the eternal Voice.

Savitri - Book Five, Canto 3, Page 411

When I was a young man studying for the Metropolitan Opera under a scholarship from the great mezzo-soprano/actress, Regina Resnik, I attended as many concerts each week as my college schedule would allow. Once, after a performance in New York City, of the Concordia Choir, a choir under the direction of one of the world's finest choral conductors, I met the conductor, Paul Christiansen. After the concert I approached this tall, dignified man and asked him the secret of his perfection with such young singers. He leaned down to me with a smile and said, "You see, it is simply a question of paring away all the crud to get at the essence." These words have remained with me all these years as the key to the inner dimensions of harmonic sound. A friend who attended the yearly summer workshops for choir directors given by Mr. Christiansen told me that he would conduct a choir of choir directors from all parts of the U.S.

and there were times when the music was of such beauty and perfection that these seasoned adults would break down in tears and often it would be ten minutes before they could absorb the experience and continue.

A climber on the invisible stair of sound,

Music not with these few and striving steps

Aspired that wander upon transient strings,

But changed its ever new uncounted notes

In a passion of unforeseeing discovery,

And kept its old unforgotten ecstasies

A growing treasure in the mystic heart.

Savitri - Book Two, Canto 1, Page 670

We take as a thematic inspiration each week lines from Savitri or words of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo. All are invited to join the Ashram and Auroville OM Choirs and no previous training is required, the only criteria being an intense inner aspiration for the descent of the new music, of Truth and Light and Divine Love.

Earth is the chosen place of mightiest souls;

Earth is the heroic spirit's battlefield,

The forge where the Archmason shapes his works.

Thy servitudes on earth are greater, King,

Than all the glorious liberties of heaven.

The heavens were once to me my natural home,

I too have wandered in star-jewelled groves,

Paced sun-gold pastures and moon-silver swards

And heard the harping laughter of their streams

And lingered under branches dropping myrrh;

I too have revelled in the fields of light

Touched by the ethereal raiment of the winds,

Thy wonder-rounds of music I have trod,

Lived in the rhyme of bright unlabouring thoughts,

I have beat swift harmonies of rapture vast,

Danced in spontaneous measures of the soul

The great and easy dances of the gods.

Savitri - Book Eleven, Canto 1, Page 682

I am always available to assist in beginning new OM Choirs throughout the world. In addition to the OM Choirs and our prayers for the new music, I would encourage all composers who are devoted to Mother and Sri Aurobindo to begin a new approach to composition by taking a few lines of Mother's organ music and from the powerful seed sounds She has given us use these rhythms and melodies as a base for compositions that will have the power to lift us to the heights and act as the medium through which the true music of the new age will sound in all who are called to Their Vision.

The measure of that subtle music ceased.

Down with a hurried swimming floating lapse

Through unseen worlds and bottomless spaces forced

Sank like a star the soul of Savitri.

Amidst a laughter of unearthly lyres

She heard around her nameless voices cry

Triumphing, an innumerable sound.

A choir of rushing winds to meet her came.

Savitri - Book Eleven, Canto 1, Page 707

Ecstatic voices smote at hearing's chords,

Each movement found a music all its own;

Songs thrilled of birds upon unfading boughs

The colours of whose plumage had been caught

From the rainbow of imagination's wings.

Savitri - Book Eleven, Canto 1, Page 669-670

A climber on the invisible stair of sound,

Music not with these few and striving steps

Aspired that wander upon transient strings,

But changed its ever new uncounted notes

In a passion of unforeseeing discovery,

And kept its old unforgotten ecstasies

A growing treasure in the mystic heart.

Savitri - Book Eleven, Canto 1, Page 670

On Sundays, when you play, do you decide beforehand

from what region the music has to come?

I?

From where does it come?

Before sitting down I don't even know what notes I am going to play. . . . But I do not at all know what will come. Nothing at all, nothing. I don't even decide what feeling or idea or state of consciousness is going to be expressed, nothing. I am like a blank page. I come and sit down, concentrate for a minute and let it come.

The Mother - Questions and Answers, Page 384

For example, there are regions harmonious and musical in which one hears something which is the origin of the music we have here—but the sounds of material, physical music seem absolutely barbaric in comparison with that music! When one has heard that, even the most perfect instrument is inadequate. All constructed instruments, among which the violin certainly has the purest sound, are very much inferior in their expression to the music of this world of harmonies.The human voice when absolutely pure is of all instruments the one which expresses it best; but it is still... it has a sound which seems so harsh, so gross compared with that. When one has been in that region, one truly knows what music is. And it has so perfect a clarity that at the same time as the sound one has the full understanding of what is said. That is, one has the principle of the idea, without words, simply with the sound and all the inflexions of the... one can't call it sensations,nor feelings... what seems to be closest would be some kind of soul-states or states of consciousness. All these inflexions areclearly perceptible through the nuances of the sound. And certainly, those who were great musicians, geniuses from the point of view of music, must have been more or less consciously in contact with that.

The Mother - Questions and Answers, Page 346

Mother explained later: "To hear behind the sound is to come into contact with the subtle reality which is behind the material fact, behind the word or the physical sound or behind music, for example. One concentrates and then one hears what is behind. It means coming into contact with the vital reality which is behind the appearances.

The Mother - On Thoughts and Aphorisms, Page 131

What a happy day it will be when poetry, painting and music express only beauty, victory and joy, leading the way towards the realisation of the future, towards the advent of a world in which falsehood and suffering, ugliness

and death will be no more...

The Mother - On Education, Page 456

Music of the Purified Heart      Jan. 17, 2005

A thousand lyrics cry out for the song

That lies unsung upon the lips of man,

Melodies of soul for which we long

And poetry unheard since time began.

An impress of divinity we feel

And sometimes glimpse in rare refracted light,

A splendour that on the spirit seems to steal

And lift the opaque curtain of the night.

Greed still holds the world and us in thrall

Desire captivates our hearts and more,

Often leads the spirit to its fall

And the progress of the body we ignore.

The intimate Supreme felicity

Who sits within and still cannot be found

Eludes us by His sheer proximity

Till silence reigns on consecrated ground.

But now the moment comes, the voice is heard

That counsels us to find the secret cave

The sacred Om, first and final Word,

Where dwells the light the Unborn Spirit gave,

Shedding Ego's hard and brilliant mask,

Conscious walk again the upward Way,

Resume the inward quest, the age-old task,

Transforming life, man's debt to God repay.

I pray for a time in the not-too-distant future when OM choirs throughout the world will chant their prayer to the Divine

This article is offered to the Mother and Sri Aurobindo in gratitude for the countless blessings they have bestowed on us, for the music of love and beauty they have given us, and the divine music still to come in the dawn of the golden age.

Narad