# Music as Prayer There is a realm where words dissolve and meaning takes flight on wings we cannot see. Music dwells in that realm. It is the language of what lies beyond language — the whisper of the soul when speech fails, the cry of the heart when reason runs dry. In every true musician, there lives a priest. Not the kind who tends altars of stone and gold, but one who stands at the threshold between the visible and invisible, between what we know and what we long for. When a musician draws the bow across strings, or lets fingers fall upon keys, something sacred stirs. It is prayer without petition, devotion without doctrine. We think of prayer as supplication — the bending of the knee, the folding of hands, the careful arrangement of words meant to reach an ear that listens from beyond. But there is another kind of prayer, older perhaps, and deeper. It is the prayer of presence, of surrender, of opening oneself to something larger than the self. This is what music is. A melody that moves us to tears has not reasoned its way into our hearts. It has bypassed all our guards and sentries, all our carefully constructed defenses against feeling. It speaks to what in us is most primitive, most true, most divine. In that moment of music's grace, we are not ourselves alone. We are part of a vast belonging. The sitar player in the tradition of Indian classical music knows this. She does not merely execute a composition; she enters into dialogue with something eternal. The raga is a map, yes, but also a permission — to wander, to discover, to give voice to what cannot be named. Each note is placed like a prayer bead on the string of sound. Each phrase rises and falls like the breathing of a living thing. In the West, we have our own languages of this mystery. A Bach fugue is a cathedral of sound, its architecture so perfect, so inevitable, that one feels not that it was composed but rather discovered — as if it had always existed, waiting to be heard. A Beethoven sonata, born from deafness and darkness, speaks of struggle and transcendence with a voice that no words could equal. The concert hall itself becomes sacred space. The audience sits in dim light, suspended in a collective silence more profound than any spoken in a temple. For those moments, we are bound to one another by something invisible and absolute. We listen. We surrender. We are held by beauty. Why is music thus? Perhaps because it mirrors the very structure of existence. The universe itself is vibration, relationship, pattern, rhythm. Music is the art form that most closely resembles the deep grammar of being. When we hear true music, we hear an echo of how things actually are — not as our thinking mind conceives them, but as our deepest self knows them to be. And so, music is prayer. Not because it asks for something, but because it is an act of the most complete attention and devotion we are capable of. It is the soul singing to itself, through itself, about itself — and in that singing, recognizing its kinship with all that lives, all that breathes, all that endures. To make music, then, is to pray. To listen to music truly is to pray. Both are acts of faith — faith that there is more to existence than the material and the measurable, faith that the human heart has access to truth that the mind cannot touch, faith that we are not alone.

One. From knowledge to song, and from song back to knowledge. The relationship between song and knowledge is altogether like that of the dearest of friends—much like the relationship between body and soul.

How so?

By employing knowledge, by immersing the mind in rhythm and cadence through long and devoted practice, one can create song. The most beautiful application of knowledge may well be in fashioning the stuff of joy. What purer, lovelier source of joy exists than song! When the human mind wanders in the upper realms of knowledge, it experiences its fullest perfection in the moment when it establishes within itself the firm and deep dwelling of melody. Thus, in time, without one's knowing it, this realization is born: In this very path I seek—therein lies my joy… Ah, this is surely the beginning of the pilgrimage along the infinite path!

From knowledge into song have created Rabindranath Tagore, Swami Vivekananda, Atul Prasad Sen, Rajnikanta Sen, Dwijendralal Ray, and other master musicians and lyricists.

Living in the mysterious, unknown city of song's secrets, letting body and mind drift gently into the current of melody, the way one inhabits each moment becomes the equal of inward prayer.

Just as through prayer a person can awaken consciousness, so too in the realm of song—as one immerses all thought and sense in its embrace—one gradually transcends the level of individual soul and arrives at the universal Self. There is no greater prayer than song in the discipline of becoming divine, of dwelling in the Absolute. The purest means of offering one's heart at the feet of God is song itself.

Those who have ascended thus from song to the higher reaches of knowledge—such great souls are they as Lalon Shai, the devotee Ramprasad, Krishna's beloved Mira, the devotee Tulsi, and Gagan the boatman—all these God-dedicated masters.

Throughout the ages, song has proven itself the equal of prayer in spiritual practice, and is thus regarded. To gladden the heart—song. To still the mind—song too. For silent, private communion and conversation with the Creator, song and melody prepare the mind completely and entirely. Does not prayer do precisely this? In examining the histories and traditions of various faiths, this special honor and regard for song and melody appears again and again, quite plainly, before one's eyes. He who loves song finds the path of dialogue with the Creator gradually opening before him.

Two. Music is the finest path to prayer. While singing, it becomes easy to keep God, consciousness itself, in direct contact with one's memory and reflection. In this essay, I am discussing the inner meaning and essence of a particular sacred prayer-song. If, after reading this piece, you can tell which song is being spoken of, there awaits for you as a gift three volumes of Vedanta philosophy. (The first three correct answerers shall receive the gift.)

1. You free us from the torment of all the bonds of this world. The entire universe sings your praise. We worship you with all the devotion of our hearts. You assume new forms in response to the yearning of the devotee, and yet no mark falls upon your being—you remain eternal, unchanging. You are without qualities, beyond the three gunas—that is, beyond sattva (auspiciousness, equilibrium), rajas or rajo (passion, agitation), and tamas or tamo (inertia, passivity, indifference, dullness)—free from the influence of these three qualities or the bondage of illusion; yet when needed to forge union with the heart of the devotee, you assume a form with qualities, a manifest form, so that the devotee and worshipper, moving gradually through worship with form, may eventually reach the realm of worship without form, to the knowledge of the supreme Brahman.

2. You purify our hearts by removing all sin and stain from this world. You are the ornament of all creation, for when your radiance shines forth, all beings become radiant. You are consciousness itself; therefore your manifestation, your very form, is fundamentally consciousness. The awakening of consciousness is your awakening. Knowledge is the kohl upon your eyes, and in the revelation of knowledge you are revealed.

When such a manifestation of yours takes place within a being, that being becomes free of delusion and begins to walk the path of consciousness.

3. You are a luminous ocean of spirituality; by diving into you, one discovers oneself wholly. The journey through spirituality is, in essence, a return to one’s own depths. You are an ocean of compassion, forever waiting to forgive our countless errors and wrongs, to illumine the path of light. When called upon with singular focus and devotion, you fulfill the hopes of the devotee’s heart; your grace flows open to all who seek. You alone will rescue us from the tempests of this ocean of existence and reveal to us the dwelling place of supreme peace.

4. You are the Lord of this world. To ease the suffering of all beings and show them the rightful path, you have descended as the avatar of the age. Consider: a thought arises in someone—shall I go there? When he says “yes, I shall,” that is resolve; when he says “no, I shall not,” that is counter-resolve. To judge between desire and aversion is the work of intellect. All the desires arising within us, and the deeds we perform in accordance with them—where are the fruits of such action stored? Wherever they are stored, that is the mind-substance, the chitta. In the next birth too, we must experience their consequences. Where are all our unfulfilled longings stored? In the chitta. Where is recorded the karma of our past births and the births before that? Yes, all of it accumulates in the chitta. When none of these remain, that is the cessation of the mind’s modifications—the nirodha of chitta-vritti. The mind may become still, but the cessation of chitta-vritti is a far deeper, subtler state—at that moment, even the chitta itself is not. Through this cessation, our mind becomes absorbed in samadhi; by your grace, we are able to experience all these wondrous truths.

5. You remove the suffering of all beings. Thus the helpless being takes refuge in you alone. You are an ocean of mercy, yet in extracting work from us and dispensing its fruit, you are most perfect and strict. You are the very existence of all matter and life in the universe; therefore all your arrangements are to erase the sorrow of beings, to make happiness and prosperity enduring, and to offer peace as a shelter in times of the heart’s burning. O God, keep us on the rightful path so that we may free ourselves from all the sins and weaknesses of this dark age.

6. You have taught us to renounce all the fierce cravings, desires, and emotions born of bodily and mental longing, to turn the mind away from them; to release our excessive attachment to wealth and riches, and to learn to immerse ourselves in devotion to God; to refuse to be slaves of the five senses and to act at their whim. Lord, may we become utterly indifferent to all that we do not truly need; having surrendered ourselves at your feet, may we walk the remainder of life upon the path you have shown us.

7. You have counseled us to be fearless. Therefore we strive to strengthen our position so that we need not live with bowed heads. When the time demands it, you yourself have inspired us to study deeply the sciences of the lower order, and through them to receive initiation into the higher knowledge. When blessed with your grace, no profound truth of the world remains unknown or unfamiliar. Therefore, awaken us as consciousness within this heart of ours. Toward devotees of all castes, clans, creeds, and paths—those high and low in wealth and learning, in every station of life—you regard all with equal vision, showing favor to none, offering refuge to all.

8. To find a place at your feet is our supreme fortune. Compared to this, the whole world is utterly trivial, completely worthless. You dwell in the hearts of all as love, affection, devotion, sincerity, and goodness; or to speak more plainly, all those riches of the heart are but another form of you.

You dispel our weariness, bestow upon us peace, and through this all the world finds solace; by your grace alone does the dream of happiness take root in the human heart.

9. O Lord, we bow before you again and again, and offer our gratitude. You transcend all our words and thoughts—no utterance can express you, and even by fully employing the faculties of mind we cannot know you; yet you alone are the substance of all our speech and contemplation, and the root meaning of all these things—the eternal syllable. Just as the syllable, Brahman Immutable, dwells at the root of all creation, so too do you. You are the primordial source of all light; you have no source, and therefore you alone are the ultimate witness—all else exists as the witnessed. None of them can behold you as the beholder. Thus you are the light of all lights. You illumine the inner sanctum of each of us in infinite forms and colors. Through your grace you bestow upon all beings the knowledge of Brahman, and in this way you dissolve from them all ignorance and delusion.

10. Whether you be manifest or formless, we worship you alone. The life-breath of this collective song of ours is you alone; all our meditation finds expression in this song. Because we love you, through this prayer-song we have gathered our hearts in single-pointed devotion at your sacred feet. Today, on all sides, in every music and instrument, the entirety of our heart’s feeling is offered as oblation. The yearning hymn of praise and the fervent worship of your devotees—these are the complete surrender of body and mind.

To offer this prayer-song at the feet of God, of the Divine Person, of Consciousness, of Brahman Supreme, of the knower of Brahman, and of the true Master—to make this offering with body, heart, and word—this is the first glimpse upon the infinite path of Brahmanhood.