The secret of self realisation

At last I found out the secret of self realisation. The date was 23rd January 2010 and the day "Saturday". The venue happened to be the Music academy at the TTK road. You may possibly wonder how the ultimate goal of self realisation could be in any way related to that venue. Well, let me elucidate one of the defining moments of my life.

On that day two legends of hindustani music world came together for a musical concert at the above mentioned venue. They were Pandit Shivkumar Sharma - the santoor vidwan and Zakir Hussain - the tabla ustad. What they created on that stage was, as the cliche goes "history", "musical history" to be specific.

In the beginning, pandit Shivkumar sharma made a brief monologue about their musical journey and let the audience know what they were going to play for the evening. He uttered words such as ragas, aalaps and few others which frankly speaking I didn't understand a bit. It got worse as he announced which raagas they would play and also the style in which they would play them. I felt like listening to a Greek orator. It was precisely at that time when I started to wonder where the heaven I have ended up!, the magic commenced.

Till then I knew nothing about music. It made me feel like i know everything about it
Till then I was of the opinion that the purpose of music is enjoyment. It made me realise that the purpose of music is to feel it.
Till then I thought of it as just another musical concert. But it was a sort of personal revolution within me.
Till then I was just a man. It made me feel like a self realised man.

For the entire duration of that experience which approximately lasted for two hours fifteen minutes I was in suspended disbelief, I felt like I was in a state of tranquility, a state of thoughtlessness, a state of oneness. Then it struck me that the way to self realisation is through music.

The sad part is I actually didn't realise myself, but the good part is I felt like I had self realisation. That itself was an emancipating feeling.

Someone asked a great violinist whose name I couldn't recollect now, "I would give my life to play the way you play" for which the violinist replied "I did". Well, anybody who had listened to the musicians on that eventful evening would know that they had given their lives to their music. It was the evening that shattered my belief that there is no such thing as perfection, only excellence. The music was nothing but perfection which made me believe that perfection is a state that we ordinary mortal beings can just fancy.

Finally as Charles lamb wrote "You may break, you may shatter the vase if you will, but the scent of roses will hang around still", eventhough later that evening I returned to my home and indulged in the mundane routine of my life, that feeling of immense whatever one can name it, joy, bliss, happiness, ecstasy; it will be there with me forever.

Epilogue: One good news is that they promised to return to Chennai very soon. Whenever that happens you know where to find me on that day! :-)