Music divine

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Mystic Mantra Author:

The voice of god,” is how Lata Mangeshkar described the the late Pakistani ghazal singer Mehdi Hassan. I am neither a musician nor do I understand Urdu well and nor can I claim to know much about the life of the maestro, Hassan Saab.

What I do know is that whenever I have found myself suddenly losing my concentration in the middle of a serious conversation, it is because something more beautiful and heart-rending has stirred my innermost being — and usually it’s ghazals rendered by Hassan Saab.
To generalise that music lifts one’s soul would be doing great injustice to the likes of the king of ghazals and to those ghazals which Hassanji immortalised with his sonorous voice. All music is but an amazing blend of just seven distinct musical notes along with half, or quarter, sharp or flat notes that fall between them.
It is true that monasteries, temples, mosques, churches and gurdwaras have, and continue to play, a major role in the evolution of inspirational, spiritual music which readies one’s soul to meet the divine. Rightly, therefore, in 2003, the monks of Sherab Ling Monastery in the Himalayas won the award for the Best Traditional World Music Album at the Grammys for their album Sacred Tibetan Chant. Similarly, the Gregorian chants of the monks at Stift Heiligenkreuz, a Cistercian monastery in Austrian woods, made it to Europe’s best-selling charts last decade.
Some of the best nasheeds and qawwalis I have heard were at Moinuddin Chishti Dargah in my hometown, Ajmer, and they still resonate in my soul. In fact, one of the reason I like to pass through the precincts of the Golden Temple in Amritsar again and again is to drink the emotive Gurbani sangeet.
Music is the universal language of the soul. Aldous Huxley once said: “After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.” It is no wonder then that the very being of illustrious musicians appears soaked in the divine. The famous German musician Johann Sebastian Bach says, “Where there is devotional music, God is always at hand with His gracious presence” and, “the aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul”.
While a large portion of the multi-billion dollar music industry is entertainment centred, the real font of sacred music is one’s own soul.
As the Bible says, “My heart is steadfast, O God; I will sing and make music with all my soul (Psalm 108:1-3),” and “Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, sing and make music in your hearts to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 5:19).