Teaching me about, and getting me involved in, the worship of Ganesha was part of Vimalananda’s grand design for my development. As he explained, “Our method is very systematic: first you worship Ganesha, at the Muladhara Chakra; then He gives you the permission, and the know how, to worship His mother, Ma, Who takes form with the help of your Kundalini Shakti. Ma teaches you how to worship Her Grand Consort, Lord Shiva, at the Ajna Chakra, and once you achieve Shiva He will take you to Vishnu in one of His forms: Jesus, Rama, Narayana or, if you want it and you are destined for it, Krishna, in Goloka.”
Vimalananda was an expert musician, both vocal and instrumental, and many mornings I sat quietly for hours listening to him practice, sometimes accompanying him on the tanpura. Once or twice a week Narayanrao Indurkar, a reputed tabla player, would come to accompany him, and after the practice was over I would serve them tea while they told stories of the old maestros. It was in the aftermath of one of these sessions that, following Narayanrao’s departure, Vimalananda introduced me to music as a sadhana.
“What is music?” he asked rhetorically as I lit him a cigarette. “People have been trying since the beginning of time to find out. What is that thing which can please us with its harmony? Sound, when it becomes music, is the only thing which can so possess people that they drop all their inhibi tions and, just for a moment in this precious life, they dance! That is the real
(181)
AGHORA II: Kundalini
music. ‘If music be the food of love, play on!: Shakespeare, Twelfth Night. I think I remember my Shakespeare."
“You certainly do.”
“Real music has emotion in it, and this is why real saints love music so much; it helps them do their work. Shiva is rhythm, the father of music, and His Shakti is the mother, the sounds or notes. The child is Ganesha, the song: Rhythm + Notes = Song, Ganesha has an elephant’s head, so he never forgets; he remembers everything, just as through song you can remember your true personality. And the musician? He is the bee who car ries the pollen from flower to flower, giving rise to creation. And it is he who really enjoys the bliss of this creation. The gods, and especially the avataras, are those celestials who create and who enjoy the music of the spheres.”
I had read that scientists have learned that the sun is ringing, just like a bell; probably one component of the physical aspect of the “music of the spheres," I thought to myself.
“The greatest music is written by gandharvas, celestial musicians who incarnate on earth. When a gandharva comes down to Earth he can’t remember his previous state, but subconsciously longs to return to it. Gan dharvas find it as hard to relate to ordinary humans as humans find it hard to relate to animals, and most gandharvas lead miserable, misunderstood lives. Many of the great Western musicians were gandharvas, like Beethoven, Brahms and Mozart. Even Strauss was a gandharva, but he was lucky; he had a son to follow him, someone who could understand him.
“All this emotion comes out in the music. A gandharva will be a prodigy, a musician right from the beginning, and anything he produces will be good, no matter what variety of music he might learn in this lifetime. Think of Beethoven, who composed some of his greatest work after he became deaf! What concentration he must have had, and what innate talent!
“Gopal Naik was a gandharva; music flowed from the very pores of his body. Unfortunately he lived in the time of the Emperor Akbar, and Tansen, Akbar’s chief musician, became so jealous of his prowess that he conspired to have him killed. Gopal’s body was dumped in the deep jungle.
“When Gopal Naik’s mother learned of her son’s murder she set out to find his bones so that she could burn them. When people asked her, ‘How will you know whether or not the bones you find are his?’ she would tell them, ‘He had music right down to his bones; I will know them.’ As she wandered through the forests of North India she would hold up to her ear every human bone that she found, and would listen to it intently.
“Finally one day she heard faint music coming from one of the bones she
(182)
MUSIC
held up to her ear, and then she said, “These are my Gopal’s bones.’ She col lected them and cremated them.”
This story may well be apocryphal, but Vimalananda cared nothing for historical accuracy. He was interested only in “emotional accuracy," that attention to emotional detail which enables a tale to so possess a person that he drops all his inhibitions and, just for a moment in this precious life, he weeps from the fullness of his heart.
“Jim Reeves was a gandharva; that’s why I love his songs. Like many gandharvas, he had an untimely death. He died in a plane crash; he ‘fell to Earth.’ What a rich baritone voice he had! And the wordings to some of his songs are really beautiful.
“My favorite song of his is ‘You Love Me Daddy.’ I don’t know why, but I always cry when I hear that song. It’s about a little boy who doesn’t always do what his daddy wants him to do but whose daddy loves him anyway, because the little boy is his own son. No matter how naughty a child is its parents always love it. Whenever I hear this song I think of my own Big Daddy, my mentor. No matter how much I have disobeyed my mentor he has still loved me, in a way in which no one else has ever loved me. I don’t think anyone else will ever be able to love me in the same way; certainly not a human.
“In fact, why don’t you turn on the cassette player and let me hear ‘You Love Me Daddy’ right now?"
I did so, and the song brought tears to all four eyes in the room, as we both knew it would. After it was over Vimalananda was silent for several minutes while the wave of emotion swelled, broke, and receded, and then he spoke again.
“The right kind of music acts as a way of bringing light into one’s con sciousness. Music is a manifestation of sound, and sound exists wherever there is energy, which means heat, which means light. When a Siddha hears music he can self-identify with it, and with his astral body he can go to wherever the music is. When a sadhu hears music he is so overwhelmed with emotion that from an exuberance of joy things begin to happen.
“And it doesn’t matter if it is recorded or live music. Whenever I hear ‘La Paloma’ I am always reminded of my guru and the fun we had together. After I hear it a few times the work just gets done on its own. You’ve seen it happen, Robby; you know. People have made millions out of me by playing ‘La Paloma.”
He looked at me sideways for a moment, and then said, almost in the tone a child would use to beg candy from a well-meaning but uncompre
( 183 )
AGHORA II: Kundalini
hending adult, “Would you play ‘La Paloma’ for me, just once?"
He knew that, after his heart attack, intense emotion would not do that organ any good. He also knew that Roshni, his foster daughter, was stricter in enforcing this sort of restriction than was I. I knew that he could perfectly well turn the stereo on himself, so I acquiesced and turned on his current favorite of the many versions of ‘La Paloma’ in his tape collection.
This time he did not weep; his face became calmer and clearer, and when he spoke again he did so resolutely.
“My Senior Guru Maharaj is the shrewdest possible person. Normally no one can get anything out of him. But if you give him the right type of music he will experience such intense emotional bliss that he will give away the results of years or decades of penance without knowing it. Only when the emotion leaves him will he realize what he has done.
“Once he and I and a Mr. Bilimoria hosted Acchan Maharaj, a descendent of the court musicians of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah of Oudh. Wajid Ali Shah was a ruler who had been a gandharva. On Earth, he became a great devotee of Krishna, though he was a Muslim by birth. When his musicians Kalika Prasad and Bindadin played for him he would go into Bhava Samadhi, emo tional highlights, and Krishna would enter his body and dance. Wajid Ali Shah was an expert at the variety of dance known as Kathak, and this exper tise was passed down to Acchan Maharaj. His son Birju Maharaj is today the greatest Kathak dancer in all of India.
“So Acchan Maharaj had a good pedigree, and we were all looking for ward to his dance. When he arrived, he sat down and drank one and a half bottles of whisky-alone. After quite some time had passed we asked him if he would kindly consent to show us a little of his artistry, but he snarled, ‘Who can play percussion for me?’ While we were thinking of how to deal with this problem he drank the last half of the second bottle of whisky straight from the bottle.
“Suddenly my Senior Guru Maharaj took me aside and told me to pre pare my car for a drive. We drove to a lamppost in south Bombay under which a Muslim man was standing. The man never said anything, and never looked up, but just got into the car. We returned to the house, and when Acchan Maharaj was shown his accompanist he snorted, ‘No one has yet been born who can accompany me.’
“To make a long story short, not only did that Muslim fellow accompany Acchan Maharaj, he began to make Acchan Maharaj dance to his own ‘tune.’ And when a percussionist can do that, well, he is something. We all watched amazed, entranced both by the artistry of Acchan Maharaj, who
(184]
MUSIC
Sulll.
was indeed great, and by the wizardry of that Muslim on the tabla. My Senior Guru Maharaj, music-lover that he is, was ecstatic. Finally tears came out in Acchan Maharaj’s eyes and he said, ‘I’ll pay anything to have this man as my permanent accompanist.’ But my Senior Guru Maharaj said, ‘He doesn’t play for money.’
“All this time the tabla player had said nothing, nor had he looked up. Nor did he look up when I dropped him off in front of the same lamppost from which I had picked him up. I doubt that he was a human being, the way he was playing. What a night!”.
Silence descended for a few moments, and then lifted again.
“If music can affect its listeners so powerfully think what it must do for its players. A real musician becomes completely devoted to his or her music. There was one sarangi (Indian fiddle) player I knew who used to carry a bamboo with him everywhere he went. Even when he went to buy vegeta bles, he would haggle about the price and pay with one hand while con stantly practicing fingerings on the bamboo, as if it were the neck of his sarangi, with the other. This is real dedication to music, the kind of dedica tion that is necessary in sadhana also.
“Music should not be an end in itself for you; it should be a sadhana, a means of getting to your goal. Mantras are one way in which to make use of sound in sadhana; music is another. The Vedas are mantras set to music, but the Vedas are too far away for most of us, while music is available to everyone. If you are lucky, meaning if you have worked hard in previous lives and God is kind to you, your music can be sufficient to draw God to
you.”
“Regardless of whether it is Western-style or Indian-style music,” I inter rupted.
“Of course. Western religious music is very good, but it is limited; it can only make you realize the love of a servant for his master, or of a child for its father. Indian music can make you realize your deity in any relationship: as servant or father, and also as lover, spouse, or friend; as your own child, as your mother.
“The greatness of Western music is that many musicians together can cooperate to create a tone poem. An Indian musician paints his complete musical picture with one instrument only. Indians are good solo artists, but large ensembles and orchestras don’t thrive here. But then, after all, sadhana should be done alone.
“In Indian music each raga (melodic scale) has a specific picture which must be visualized as you play or sing it. If you do it right the true image of
[185]
AGHORA II: Kundalini
that raga will manifest. For the Raga Megha (the Cloud Melody), for instance, you must imagine a cloudy sky and all its background. If you want rain you play Megha in a certain way and rain will come.
“If you play Darbari Kannada Raga properly, you will see the court of Akbar the Great, Emperor of India. He will be there smoking a little hookah; then he lifts a flower to his nose. Tansen wrote that raga by using the raga called Kannada and changing it slightly. If you play Kannada you won’t get the same effect, because the tonal patterns are different.”
“Isn’t it true that one of the meanings of the word raga is ‘passion?”
“And that is what music should be: a matter of passion. Tansen had so thoroughly mastered the Raga Deepaka (the Kindling or Igniting Melody) that when he sang it at dusk all the lamps in the palace would light them selves, automatically. Once he sang Deepaka for too long, and he became overwhelmed with heat. For six months he was in agony; nothing relieved the heat until in a village he came across a pair of sisters, Tana and Riri, who were experts in Megha. When they sang Megha for him the heat finally abated. Even music can be dangerous!”
“And this had something to do with the Surya and Chandra Nadis.”
“Naturally. The whole purpose of music is to help you stimulate your consciousness so that Kundalini can be triggered up. When Tansen overdid it his prana was affected."
“Maybe he should have been self-identifying with a deity instead of with a flame,” I put in.
“Maybe so," said Vimalananda, laughing: “The great benefit of Indian music is that it helps you self-identify with your deity. Whenever Narsi Mehta (a famous poet-saint from Gujarat) played the Raga Kedara (the Field Melody), for example, Lord Krishna would come and dance before him."
“Can anyone learn to call Krishna with Kedara?”
“No, Kedara is not specific for Krishna; you would not necessarily see Krishna even if you learned to play Kedara perfectly. It is only because Narsi Mehta visualized Krishna dancing whenever he played Kedara that Krishna Himself would come to dance.
“You mean he used Kedara like you use ‘La Paloma,’ to remind him of Someone he loved.”
“Yes, he made Kedara into his sadhana, and it got him into serious trou ble one day. A sadhu asked Narsi for some money to go on a pilgrimage. Narsi wanted to help the sadhu but was broke, so he mortgaged Kedara to a
grocer in order to get the money.”
(186)
MUSIC
“He mortgaged Kedara? How could he mortgage a raga?”
“He promised never to sing it until the money was repaid. Back then peo ple’s words were their bond. If a man mortgaged his moustache to you, for instance, he would not fail to repay you because he would rather die than have his moustache shaved off. Think of what a tremendous penance this was for Narsi! He mortgaged the thing he loved best-the dance of Lord Krishna, which he could see whenever he played Kedara–to help someone else out.
“Unfortunately the sadhu never returned. That in itself would have been bad enough, but meanwhile those people who were jealous of Narsi Meh ta’s success had been busy poisoning the king’s ears against him. Finally the king, Rao Mandlik, called for him and said, ‘I hear that whenever you sing Kedara Lord Krishna appears. Do it now! Prove to me that you are not a false saint.
“Narsi Mehta told him, “Maharaj, I can’t do it; I have mortgaged Kedara.’
“The king of course lost his temper at being refused, and said, ‘Well, I see now that you are indeed a false saint. Tonight you shall be tied to a post in front of the Krishna temple so that you can reflect upon your crimes. If Krishna does not save you by tomorrow morning you will be executed.’
“Now Narsi Mehta was really in a fix. There was nothing for him to do but remember Krishna as he waited for sunrise. But Lord Krishna is never so cruel to His devotees. He loves His devotees more than anything else in the universe. That evening a mysterious person—it was Krishna in disguise went to the grocer and paid Narsi’s debt, and just as day was dawning the cancelled mortgage note wafted from out of nowhere into Narsi Mehta’s hand. Narsi began to sing Kedara. Suddenly the locks on the door of the temple undid themselves, the doors flew wide open, and the necklace which was around the neck of the deity flew through the air and landed around Narsi’s own neck. The cords binding him to the stake dropped away.
“This of course created a big commotion among the people who had gathered to watch Narsi’s execution. They started to mob him, to get him to intercede with Krishna for themselves, and he started to run. They pursued him, close behind.
“Outside of town an Aghori was sitting, enjoying the excitement. As Narsi approached him, frantic, the Aghori said to him, ‘Here, take the shel ter of my back.’ By the time the crowd arrived there was only the Aghori in sight, and Narsi Mehta was never again seen in the world of men.”
[187]
AGHORA II: Kundalini