Tonight I had the opportunity to be a part of the audience to a traditional Indian music concert that included a violin, Tabla, (Indian Drum), and a jar harp. It was a devotional and improvisation performance that honestly threw my mind, body, and whatever else might compose this thing I call me into an entirely indescribable state.
The music put so much energy into me that immediately I knew there was going to be a battling between mind and body in order to keep me from dancing in a manner that surely would of disturbed some of the audience there. I found compromise in sitting in lotus and doing whatever bodily dancing is possible from in that position in a chair. Dancing would have probably been out of order, since the room was filled with an older group of people, all properly sitting in their chairs motionless. Still, I found sufficient room in my chair and mind to free the exuberant resonance that quelled ever so deep within.
So many stories of intense feeling were told through the combination of people playing these instruments. There were times I had to laugh out loud, smirk, smile largely, and at one point almost crying when realizing that what I was nearly laughing at what was maybe the saddest notes I ever heard. Then upon interpreting the feeling, bursting with more connectedness and love than the moment before the first realization and losing all sense of where I am.
There was no doubt that the performance spoke with a force so incredible, yet not intimidating, but instead welcoming and rejoicing. My eyes natural shut with the extreme stimulation of sound. The music brought me to a scene of people at sunset, wildly expressing everything they had ever felt, except no anger or sadness could be heard anymore. Everything just melded into compassion. Compassion itself, as a feeling, is incredible to a degree that I will hopefully never try to describe, but one can see the base form of the word is passion. That part of it comes out in an array of colors, all with a confident stride and a loving embrace. In that scene the people dance, eyes closed, but being a part of the world around them evermore for just that reason, not trying to relate to, just naturally being it.
In another part of the performance, I recall when the song was just beginning and one of the two violinist was “dueling” with the drummer. I felt it stopped the flow and grace of the music and started a story of two people having some sort of quarrel, in the infancy stages of a life of happiness. Then the fight became more intense and they seemed to be learning and giving all they had to defeat the other.
Suddenly the two started playing at the same time climaxing their potentials and hoping to see the other fall in defeat, but at nearly the same moment both of them coming to the thought that they were creating something so much more then they ever could of imagined doing by themselves. Quickly intertwining there talents together to cooperate, they begin receiving from the world all they could ever need to satiate them instead of struggling to take what they feel is not already theirs.
This went on for some moments, the relationship found itself to be perfect and time stopped for them. Very soon after the other two musicians who were silent joined in with the power of thousands since there was no longer any need to give these men space for their pride and they could easily join with everyone as friends once the walls were let down. The intensity furious now, my joints now threatening to send limbs flying away due to feeling so free and released from all that they ever held onto. Also, being so satisfied to flow with the grace of being part of what they are part of, that there is no way they could ever be in another spot.
As the music grew even further I could not break out in laughter at the intensity as I could not imagine it would match the potency of this last song. The man who played the jaw harp often let loose grunts in his extreme connectedness to the music being played. This added greatly to the music. It seemed all the performers felt so deeply for their music that it sprang upon me with a power that elevated me to a place, I will say, I do not mind. Ahhh wow, Kotopi.
