Subscribe to SaReGaMa

<a href="http://saregama-contact.blogspot.com/2012/06/your-email-subject-message.html">Contact me:  http://saregama-contact.blogspot.com</a>   Music is more than just a combination of notes, rhythms and beats. It's a form of language or communication that accesses the mind and emotions directly, without the intermediation of words and rational thought. Both harmful and beneficial effects of music have been recognized from ancient times by many civilizations. Modern scientific researches have proved that music has measurable physiological and psychological effects on organisms, even on plants. Music is sound. As every form of sound it has certain frequency. Two frequencies tend to synchronize each other, it's known as frequency following response (FFR). Thus when you're listening to music it synchronizes your brainwaves to specific frequencies. The effect may be beneficial, like Mozart Effect, but it also may be devastating. There are numerous weapons and psychotropic techniques based on sound.   The major part of music, as any other form of art is a projection of one's mind. A filthy and wicked mind can't produce something pure and wholesome. Therefore it is wise to be selective about whose music you're listening to. My goal as an artist is creating uplifting and enlightening music with positive energetic charge and soothing vibration. I have a deep interest in Dhamma, which helps me to cleanse my mind of negative mental states inherent to us all.     Art can be divided into two parts. Ninety-nine percent of art is subjective art. Only one percent is objective art. The subjective art means you are pouring your subjectivity onto the canvas, your dreams, your imaginations, your fantasies. It is a projection of your psychology. The same happens in poetry, in music, in all dimensions of creativity - you are not concerned with the person who is going to see your painting, not concerned what will happen to him when he looks at it; that is not your concern at all. Your art is simply a kind of vomiting. It will help you, just the way vomiting helps. It takes the nausea away, it makes you cleaner, makes you feel healthier. But you have not considered what is going to happen to the person who is going to see your vomit. He will become nauseous. He may start feeling sick.Look at the paintings of Picasso. He is a great painter, but just a subjective artist. Looking at his paintings, you will start feeling sick, dizzy, something going berserk in your mind. You cannot go on looking at Picasso's painting for long. You would like to get away, because the painting has not come from a silent being. It has come from a chaos. It is a byproduct of a nightmare. But ninety-nine percent of art belongs to that category.Objective art is just the opposite. The man has nothing to throw out, he is utterly empty, absolutely clean. Out of this silence, out of this emptiness arises love, compassion. And out of this silence arises a possibility for creativity. This silence, this love, this compassion - these are the qualities of meditation.Meditation brings you to your very center. And your center is not only your center, it is the center of the whole existence. Only on the periphery we are different. As we start moving toward the center, we are one. We are part of eternity, a tremendously luminous experience of ecstasy that is beyond words. Something that you can be... but very difficult to express it. But a great desire arises in you to share it, because all other people around you are groping for exactly such experiences. And you have it, you know the path.There are in India statues, which you have just to sit silently and meditate upon. Just look at those statues. They have been made by meditators in such a way, in such a proportion, that just looking at the statue, the figure, the proportion, the beauty... Everything is very calculated to create a similar kind of state within you. And just sitting silently with a statue of Buddha or Mahavira, you will come across a strange feeling, which you cannot find in sitting by the side of any Western sculpture.All Western sculpture is sexual. You see the Roman sculpture: beautiful, but something creates sexuality in you. It hits your sexual center. It does not give you an uplift. In the East the situation is totally different. Statutes are carved, but before a sculptor starts carving statues he learns meditation. Before he starts playing on the flute he learns meditation. Before he starts writing poetry he learns meditation. Meditation is absolute necessity for any art; then the art will be objective.Unless you are a creator, you will never find real blissfulness. It is only by creating that you become part of the great creativity of the universe. But to be a creator, meditation is a basic necessity. Without it you can paint, but that painting has to be burned, it has not to be shown to others. It was good, it helped you unburden, but please, don't burden anybody else. Don't present it to your friends, they are not your enemies. Objective art is meditative art, subjective art is mind art. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajneesh">Osho</a>    <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._I._Gurdjieff">Gurdjieff</a>'s Definition of Objective Art    The difference between objective art and subjective art is that in objective art the artist really does 'create,' that is he makes what he intended, he puts into his work whatever ideas and feelings he wants to put into it. And the action of this work upon men is absolutely definite; they will, of course each according to his own level, receive the same ideas and the same feelings that the artist wanted to transmit to them. There can be nothing accidental either in the creation or in the impressions of objective art. ... This art does not pursue the aim either of 'beauty' or of producing a likeness of something or somebody. For instance, an ancient statue created by such an artist is neither a copy of the form of a person nor the expression of a subjective sensation; it is either the expression of the laws of knowledge, in terms of the human body, or a means of objective transmission of a state of mind. The form and action, indeed the whole expression, is according to law. In subjective art everything is accidental. The artist does not create; with him 'it creates itself.' This means that he is in the power of ideas, thoughts, and moods which he himself does not understand and over which he has no control whatever. They rule him and they express themselves in one form or another. And when they have accidentally taken this or that form, this form just as accidentally produces on man this or that action according to his mood, tastes, habits, the nature of the hypnosis under which he lives, and so on. There is nothing invariable; nothing is definite here.  In objective art there is nothing indefinite. A work of objective art ought to be a book as you call it; the only difference is that the artist transmits his ideas not directly through words or signs or hieroglyphs, but through certain feelings which he excites consciously and in an orderly way, knowing what he is doing and why he does it. ... I will cite you one example only -- music. Objective music is all based on inner octaves. And it can obtain not only definite psychological results but definite physical results. There can be such music as would freeze water. There can be such music as would kill a man instantaneously. The Biblical legend of the destruction of the walls of Jericho by music is precisely a legend of objective music. The pied piper of Hamelin is another example. Plain music, no matter of what kind, will not destroy walls, but objective music indeed can do so. And not only can it destroy but it can also build up. In the legend of Orpheus there are hints of objective music, for Orpheus used to impart knowledge by music. Snake charmers' music in the East is an approach to objective music, of course very primitive. Very often it is simply one note which is long drawn out, rising and falling only very little; but in this single note 'inner octaves' are going on all the time and melodies of 'inner octaves' which are inaudible to the ears but felt by the emotional center. And the snake hears this music or, more strictly speaking, he feels it, and he obeys it. The same music, only a little more complicated, and men would obey it. Contemporary art as a whole has nothing in common with the ancient sacred art. In the past, art served the same purpose as is served today by books - the purpose of preserving and transmitting certain knowledge. In ancient times they did not write books but expressed knowledge in works of art. We shall find many ideas in the ancient art which has reached us, if we know how to read it. Every art was like that then, including music. It represented an exposition and a record of the eternal laws of the structure of the universe. Those who devoted themselves to research and thus acquired a knowledge of important laws, embodied them in works of art, just as is done in books today.  There are no creators today. The contemporary priests of art do not create but imitate. They run after beauty and likeness or what is called originality, without possessing even the necessary knowledge. Not knowing, and not being able to do anything, since they are groping in the dark, they are praised by the crowd, which places them on a pedestal. Sacred art vanished and left behind only the halo which surrounded its servants. All the current words about the divine spark, talent, genius, creation, sacred art, have no solid basis - they are anachronisms. What are these talents? We will talk about them on some suitable occasion. … Recently I spoke with a well-known composer. From this conversation I clearly saw how poor his knowledge in the domain of true music was, and how deep the abyss of his ignorance. Without knowledge of mathematical laws, one can expect only accidental results. There still will be harmony between one note and another and there will be chords, but there will be no harmony among the harmonies. The keys to all the ancient arts were lost many centuries ago.   Either the shoemaker's craft must be called art, or all contemporary art must be called craft. In what way is a shoemaker sewing fashionable custom shoes of beautiful design inferior to an artist who pursues the aim of imitation or originality? With knowledge, the sewing of shoes may be sacred art too, but without it, a priest of contemporary art is worse than a cobbler.

About SaReGaMa