I heard a fabulous youtube “satsang” talk the other day by a fellow whom I follow online named Burt Harding. He’s a lovely guy from Canada who teaches people about awareness, love and the effortlessness “being” a human “being”.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7awJTBeZfoc]
His talks are full of insights, some of which I myself have experienced, and I am sure you have too. I particularly love seeing how self realizations are similar to musical realizations.
In a day and age where music schools and computers boil music down to concrete elements, we must remember that the silent spirit in between the notes is the true life and soul of music.
Burt was talking about this idea of not really always being able to experience the now moment, even though we talk about the “now” so often. We find ourselves on a road either looking ahead to the future or back to the past. Like driving a car, we look ahead and back constantly.
What then, is the way to be in the present moment? How can we get out of this time-line way of being. Remember – the time line is not “out there” in reality, it’s “in here” – in our heads. That’s how our average waking state is, and that’s how we were created.
Burt presses the question of “how can we be present” and gives an answer.
Love takes us out of this and brings us to an entirely different dimension. Wow. Heavy information! A state of love brings us into a timeless dimension, and busts up this “timeline” paradigm completely.
We’ve all experienced that when we love someone, something, an animal, or what we do – time slips away. I myself forget to eat when I am playing my instrument, so I know this first hand.
And then it came to my mind, how I see the constant error of musicians thinking that music in reality is like it appears paper, and that a metronome with beats spaced apart makes a perfect dribble of equally spaced beats – making so called perfect time. Nothing could be “wronger” 🙂
When you slip deep into musical joy, it is another form of this love – which lifts one up out the timeline completely and effortlessly. A “timeless” dimension is perceived and presence is a glowing effortless now moment.
I then thought about so many experiences I have had – dancing with people (chicks mainly!) at college DJ parties and in an instant feeling a sense of “loving” them spontaneously. The same for musicians…I have been in clubs where I ended up on stage with musicians whom I never met before, and love was present when we played even though we never spoke a word.
Groove is one of the fruits provided by the tree of love!
It’s a “zone” I am talking about which can’t be known by the mind, it must be experienced. If you’ve ever loved anyone or anything fully – a real groove feels just like that. No future, no past….just a warm loving big fat funky “now” moment. Like a downbeat with a gorgeous tone.
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We don’t only share the love of guitar! Living in the Now, the most life changing words I have ever heard. Eckhart Tolle’s teaching is all about that and as a Tommy’s freak I heard him preaching that on stage too! 🙂 Haba na haba…
Ciao, Gianni