Sri Chinmoy Music Quotes
This page offers a selection of quotes, poems and extracts, gleaned from the vast literary works of Sri Chinmoy, that highlight the relevance and value of spiritual music.
Let us not try to understand music with our mind. Let us not even try to feel it with our heart. Let us simply and spontaneously allow the music-bird to fly in our heart-sky. While flying, it will unconditionally reveal to us what it has and what it is. What it has, is Immortality's message. What it is, is Eternity's passage.
O Master-Musician,
Tune me for life again.
The awakening of new music
My heart wants to become.
My life is now mingled
In ecstasy's height.
Music is a universal language. It is through music that the universal feeling of oneness can be achieved in the twinkling of an eye.
Music is the fragrance
Of the Soul.
Music is the perfection
Of the aspiring heart.
Music transcends the barriers of nations, nationalities and religions.
Music knows no frontiers.
It is free all-where.
Its contribution to emotional integration,
Human and divine,
Can never be fathomed.
As I said before, our task is to inspire each other. Music, art and other things inspire people. When we enter into a garden, we see the beauty of the flowers. We smell the fragrance. Then we have joy inside. When we have joy inside, we are peaceful. If we do not have joy, then we will feel that the world is full of conflicts and misunderstanding.
They say, "Music is the woman who talks charmingly, but says nothing."
I say, "Music is the woman who at once tells everything divinely and offers everything unreservedly."
Music will play a most important role in bringing about world oneness, for music embodies the Universal Heart, the Oneness-Heart.
The outer music
Comes from an outer instrument.
The inner music
Comes from the heart.
The name of this inner music
Is oneness.
The music-bird is within us to stay, to give us love. The music-bird is without us to fly, to give us joy.
Soul-filled music does have the capacity to wash away the dust from the human mind.
Right now the world may not seem to appreciate spiritual music, but if we continue to create, one day people will appreciate music from a spiritual point of view.
A soulful song
Can easily soothe the tortures
Of any cruel day.
Question: "What is the relationship between music and silence?"
Sri Chinmoy: "Silence is the nest and music is the bird. The bird leaves the nest early in the morning and returns to the nest in the evening. Similarly, in the spiritual world, divine music comes from the inmost soul of Silence."
Music embodies universal Light and universal Truth, and music also embodies the oneness-reality which we see in universal Love, universal Light, universal Awareness and universal Wakefulness. Universal Wakefulness we see inside all music. Music has to play a most important role in bringing about world oneness, for music is the connecting link between the One and the many and between the many and the One.
Inner music is the mother tongue of humanity,
the language of the soul.
A spiritual musician
Transports the audience
Into another world,
Far beyond the critical mind.
If we can feel that it is not our voice, not our fingers, but some reality deep inside our heart which is expressing itself, then we will know that it is the soul's music.
Music is our soul's home, God is the Supreme Musician.
The difference between a song and a piece of music is this: the song is the rose, the piece of music is the garden. The song is usually of the heart and for the heart. The music is of the entire being and for the entire being.
Do not allow your heart-strings
To play any melody except one:
Oneness-melody.
Silence is the source of everything. It is the source of music and it is music itself. Silence is the deepest, most satisfying music of the Supreme. Silence is like a stream that goes to one place and becomes a river, or to another place and becomes a brook, or to the sea where it is totally expanded.
The transcendental music of liberating Light and immortalising Delight is the beauty of the Heaven-Soul.
They say, "Classical music is the music without words; modern music is the music without music." I say, "Classical music is the music that lasts after it has all been sung; modern music is the music that begins long before it has actually begun." In classical music we try to see God the eternal Beyond. In modern music we see God the eternal Now.
Do not just carry the tune
But carry the real inspiration-voice
Of the music.
Music is the universal language. We do not have to learn any particular language to communicate with others if we can play soulful music. Soulful music carries the beauty and fragrance of silence. When we aspire through music, at that time we do not need any earthly language – the heart itself becomes a universal language. The heart is receiving the beauty and light of the higher worlds of silence.
My heart is all gratitude to music, for it keeps me all the time in touch with my Universal Self.
If you say that a musician is not God, I may agree with you. But if you say music is not God, then I totally disagree with you.
Do not just carry
The body of the music,
But carry the true heart
Of the music.
Our body's food is either vegetable or meat, or both. But the soul's food is music. Undoubtedly it is so. Even our physical nature at times desperately needs music.
Music is God's Dream. God is dreaming at every moment through music. His Dream is called the cosmic Reality, the universal Reality. If we don't dream, reality cannot come into existence. Reality is always there inside dream. So you can say that this moment reality is the body and dream is the heart, and the next moment reality is the heart and dream is the body.
Music is the Vedic bird in us. This bird is called Suparna. This bird divine flies in the welkin of Infinity, with the message of Immortality.
When we sing,
We embody and become
The power of music.
This power has a free access
To the Universal Heart.
Spiritual music helps us considerably because it has joy in it. Real joy and peace are inseparable. If you are peaceful, you are happy, and if you are happy, you are peaceful.
Soulful music is the music that immediately elevates our consciousness to the Absolute, to the Highest. But ordinary music, vital music, brings our consciousness down. For a fleeting second or a few hours, we get a kind of pleasure; but then this pleasure takes us into a lower vital consciousness where we are tempted. From the temptation-world we enter into the frustration-world, and from the frustration-world we enter into the destruction-world. But soulful music takes us into the world of aspiration. From aspiration we enter into the world of realisation, where our inner existence is flooded with Light and Delight.
Soulful music is the music that wants to eventually transform our consciousness. It carries us into the Universal Consciousness and makes us feel that we are in tune with the highest, with the deepest, with the farthest.
Music is an indispensable thing. We don't have to know what it looks like or what it does. Its very existence keeps us alive. Music means Self-expansion and oneness. The Self expands through music. The Self that expands is not the individual self but the unlimited Self. Music is the expansion of unlimited Reality. When the Unlimited expands, that is music.
While playing a musical instrument, you have to feel that music is the universal language, that music has and also is the key to unlock the Heart-Door of the Supreme.
Music is the universal language.
May we all live,
Through soulful music,
In the world-heart's oneness-home.
The excruciating pangs and universal pathos of music is the beauty of the earth-heart. The transcendental music of liberating Light and immortalising Delight is the beauty of the Heaven-Soul.
God's Music is the constant expansion of His Soul's Delight. Man's music is the preparation of his life's hunger for perpetual joy.
Music
Gives joy
To the dreaming soul.
In the spiritual world, next to meditation is music, the breath of music. Meditation is silence, energising and fulfilling. Silence is the eloquent expression of the inexpressible.
A musician's biography is written wherever he performs; everybody hears what he is playing.
Question: What do I feel when you play music?
Sri Chinmoy: It is not a matter of seeing or feeling. I only enjoy myself. At times I don't see or feel anything; only I become the music itself. I become Delight, Delight itself.
The heart-flute
Knows how to charm the world.
If you play divine music, spiritual music, then you are bound to give and get satisfaction.
Music is inspiration, soulful inspiration. It inspires the human in us. Music is manifestation, fruitful manifestation. It manifests the divine in us. Music is satisfaction, supreme satisfaction. It satisfies the Pilot Supreme in us.
It is music that, being the universal language, has no need to learn any particular language of the world.
The music of the heart
Begins
Where the words of the mind
Stop.
Music is Eternity's Kite,
Infinity's Flight
And Immortality's Light.
The Music of our Lord Supreme
Is for those
Who are aspiring to become better,
Who love God's creation
And want to serve it,
Who are sleeplessly dreaming of a world
Of peace and oneness.
Human music
Feeds the vital of mankind.
Divine music
Serves the heart of mankind.
You sing songs with endless delight.
I sing songs while walking along the road
Of the ever-unknown.
You sing; therefore, even in teeming darkness,
There is a candle-flame that brightly shines.
I sing because You are my Eternity’s Comrade.
Music is
Entertainment.
Music is
Enlightenment.
Music is
The animal bark of man.
Music is
The God-Song And God-Dance for man.