Music is God’s thinnest disguise, inviting us, even luring us into the spiritual realm. When we follow music to its source we discover ourselves in the silence, the undisguised God.

Our minds have the sense that we are separate from music, the music is coming from somewhere or someone else and we are observing it from a distance, as an objective critic. This approach works when music has some element of mental formulation – otherwise the mind has no foothold, no means of understanding; it is all at sea.

Sri Chinmoy’s keyboard improvisations can never be grasped or understood with the mind, because the mind plays no role in their inspiration, conception and performance. They come from realms far beyond the mind, and would lead us thither.

This music is universal in its aspiration and transcendental in its liberation. It points directly and only to its source – within.

When listening, imagine you are the performer. You are the music. You are its source. You are expressing yourself, your own inner consciousness, experiences and realisations. You are not constrained by the formulation of words, melody, harmony or language; you are simply a fountain of light and bliss, pouring yourself forth; you are the beauty and fragrance of the flower; the exhilaration of exploding fireworks; you are the sweetest smile; the thrill of love; the dance of the stars; the earthquake shaking the world; you are the skies expanding beyond the sky – and withal poised, still.

This music cannot be interpreted or described. It can only be welcomed, felt and become. To embrace this music is to discover it as ours, as flowing from – and leading to – our own universal source. That source, owning, releasing and transcending it all – is silence, our own God-silence.

Listen to Sri Chinmoy playing the pipe organ at the Sydney Opera House: