The Heart in the Transcendence of Art

"Your heart is the size of an ocean, Go find yourself in its hidden depths." - Rumi

Why do we love music so much.?

A female friend of mine was once asked by another female friend of hers "Why do women love musicians so much?" Her simple response made me laugh. "Uh... well... because they make music!" Nuff said.

What is it about the arts the so captivates us and causes us to downright worship the artists?

I have many ideas about all the arts but today, I only want to talk about music. Not because it is the most important, but because it is the one I am most intimately familiar with. I started playing drums at 5 years old, learned piano after entering college as a percussion major and found myself writing and playing music ever since.

While I do not do it with the same regularity and energy I did 65 years ago, it is still with me. So I may have some insight to offer as to why we love it so. And not just to hear it but to watch it as it is being created. We all love the live performance. It is magic. To watch the creation, or rather the recreation, right before our eyes, is a world class miracle.

But why? There is something about art that hits us right where it counts.

I recently watch a video of a wonderful young classical guitarist, Ana Vidović, doing a concert in a stunningly beautiful church in San Francisco. What I saw was the perfect non-duality. The body, heart and mind were not at odds with one another. They were in complete harmony. The light, power and overwhelming beauty of the music (Bach in this case) was effortlessly ringing from that instrument - the guitar. But the guitar was at one with the more subtle instrument - the body. And the body was at one with the actual musician.

There was no disconnect between the heart of what we could call Ana and the body and the guitar. In fact, there was no disconnect between the guitar and the sound in the air and the vibrating of my ear drums and all of the inner mechanisms that brought that glorious sound finally to me, the equivalent of Ana on the hearing side.

I believe that, when we experience the gifts of a genuine musician, or a dancer, or a mime, or an actor we experience this unity of being, this oneness of soul and body.

We love musicians (and dancers, actors, performance artists and, in fact, all artists) simply because they exemplify a unity that we all want to experience. A unity in which my inner feelings, my impulse to express, my need to speak, has no limitations or hindrances. It comes out fully and unedited. We all yearn for that freedom. We see it in the artist but it we long for it in ourselves. In fact, we see it in the artist because it is within ourselves.

Well, I have very good news for you. You do not have to be a great artist to find that unity between body and soul. You need not be on a stage at St. Mark's Cathedral or Carnegie Hall. You can experience it in your local grocery store or at a PTA meeting.

Whenever you give that divine light permission to shine through you, when you say yes to this moment, when you drop all resistance to now and just be the light that, in fact, you are, you are on the stage of the greatest concert hall, rave or jazz cafe there is. And, more than that, you transform that otherwise mundane venue into the stage of the divine. Where the dance of gods and goddess. Shivas and Shaktis make merry, for there is nothing between them and me, them and you, you and me, you and the divine Us.

You are the art.

Your body is the instrument.

You life is the art.

You are the music, the musician and the instrument.

Dance, drum, strum, bow lightly.

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GP offers dozens of workshops, meditations and courses on his learning platform, The OM School

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