Biology teaches that a goal of evolution is to ensure species’ survival and propagation. But there seems to be another powerful factor that comes into play in the human context: enrichment. Along with survival factors are elements that enrich us. Unlike eating and drinking, enrichment factors are not at all necessary for being alive. They simply add fun and color to life. Examples of enrichment factors are humor, sports, poetry, love and music.
In our own times, music is largely a form of entertainment, distraction, and pastime: Whether it is song or symphony, rock band or rágá, country music or choir, people listen to music as an enjoyable mode of passing time. In some places, there is also background music. And, of course, music accompanies dancing, another enrichment factor.
Victor Hugo’s description of music as that which “expresses what cannot be uttered and on which it is impossible to be silent,” suggests that in some respect music is akin to God. After all, the Divine is more than a being that needs to be periodically propitiated and preached about. God can also be an experience of something beyond the satisfactions of the material dimensions of life. In the prayer mode and in meditation, there is an indescribable feeling of joy unrelated to objects and people, an ecstasy that cannot be expressed in words. Beethoven described music as “a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.” Martin Luther regarded music as the best gift of God (die beste Gottesgabe).
Confucius did not talk much about God and the hereafter, but he regarded music as emanating from a heavenly source. Pythagoras believed in music in the heavens (Music of the Spheres). In the Dharmic (Indic) tradition, sound (shabda) is sacred. The root of the world is the Sound Principle (Shabdabrahman). It is a remarkable recognition in that ultimately the physical universe is not just matter in motion but, as string theory suggests, vibration at the core. The connection between sound and the spiritual realm was formulated through the Sama Veda which is the musical mode of reciting Vedic hymns, one of the earliest expressions of music in religion in human legacy.
Perhaps one reason why one can produce pure music without words and phrases is that the essence of the Divine is unfathomable through words and ideas, sacraments and sermons. The Divine is only superficially tractable through múrtis and metaphors and is practically unreachable through language and lectures, theories and theologies. God can at best be silently experienced in the movements and measures of music.
Whether Gregorian chants, Jewish Nugunim, Sufi Samá, Japanese Hocchiku, or whatever, sounds emanating from a center of worship are serene music. Atheists may be on the mark intellectually, logically, and even scientifically in some of their anti-religion stances, but it will be a sad day if in the atmosphere there are no more vibrations produced by church bells, calls to prayer from minarets and bhajan songs, nor chants in Buddhist pagodas or secluded monasteries.
It is no coincidence that the word music (in Western languages) is derived from the Muses who accompanied Apollo, also the God of the mind and imagination. Euterpe with two flutes was regarded as the patroness of music.
There is no religion where melodious music, sonorous drum-beat, or recitative rhythm has not found its way in longing for the Divine, and in worship modes.
For some, like Thyagaraja, music is a path for spiritual fulfillment (gána márga). Johann Sebastian Bach believed, like Martin Luther, that the sole purpose of music is to glorify God and recreate the human spirit. His every manuscript started with the invocation In Nomine Jesus: In the Name of Jesus.
In the path of music, the composer opens the ears and hearts of countless others too. Thus, music is shared ecstasy. That is the wonder of music, and such is the contribution of the musical geniuses in all traditions who have enriched millions.
As Shakespeare put it in The Merchant of Venice ”The man that hath no music in himself, nor is not moved with concord of sweet sound, is fit for reasons, stratagems and spoils…”
Spurts of Thought 