If music be the food of love, play on…

Listening to the melodic sound waves coming from the vocal cords, strings and drums on stage was exquisitely pleasurable but my mind was trying to understand it. How many beats in this rhythm? What raga? Which set of notes? Whose composition? And so on… I was struggling to ‘know about’ it instead of relaxing and allowing it to reach my heart.

It was time to do nothing but feel the music. Immerse myself in it. After a while I was not there any more. All that was left of me was the tingling in my ear-lobes, the tapping of my fingers and toes, the goose-bumps on my skin, the tidal waves of love in my heart, the surges of pathos in my being, the soothing meditative calmness in my mind, the slow joyous breaths in my chest, the merging of the tunes with me, the submergence of my self in the sea of harmony, in perfect unison with it, whole and complete, pure and pristine, flowing, dancing, drowning …

“Oh Khusrau, the river of love
Runs in strange directions.
One who jumps into it drowns,
And one who drowns, gets across.”

–Amir Khusrao (https://allpoetry.com/Amir-Khusro)