Speaker: Through the mystic eye, eminent personalities from various walks of life
in conversation with Sadhguru.
This week features world renowned Pandit Jasraj,
in a rare exchange with Sadhguru,
exploring the depths of Indian classical music.
Pandit Jasraj rich, soulful voice has touched the hearts of thousands of music lovers around the world.
Known for his unique ability to effortlessly glide over three and a half octaves,
Panditji’s rich compositions and unique Jasrangi Jugalbandi are one of his many contributions to Hindustani music.
Awarded the Padma Vibhushan in 2000 and the Sangeet Natak Academy Ratna in 2010,
Panditji has founded the Padit Jasraj Institute of Music,
to offer this art form to many more.
Watch as the maestro and mystic together, unveil the profound intricacies of Indian classical music
and their innate connection to the human system.
Pandit Jasraj’s musical performance…
Pandit Jasraj: (Speaks in Hindi – not transcribed)
Sadhguru: See when I was young,
when you're young naturally your body is dominant you know,
so though my parents are steeped in classical music, we completely hate it.
We can't stand it. We are into western music, okay. We just, not one time have I ever heard, if they switch it on, I will go (Laughs).
But the moment I started meditating, suddenly the classical music just became suddenly music for me.
What I could not stand, the moment I became quiet immediately,
I want to listen to this.
It just changed my whole perspective of the sound, because I became silent within myself.
Suddenly the Indian classical music became so important for me
and wherever it is, I've, just almost like a beggar I'm going there to listen.
Madurai Mani Iyer is my father's favorite voice.
If they turn on Madurai Mani Iyer, me and my brother will run away somewhere (Laughs).
But once I started meditating, there was no way. This is the only thing I could listen to.
All the other music just fell apart in my mind.
So the connection between the right utterances of sound and meditation is so, so right there (Laughs).
Pandit Jasraj: (Speaks in Hindi – not transcribed)
I was addicted to western music and (Speaks in Hindi – not transcribed).
Sadhguru: From nonexistence to existence, the first reverberation itself is a sound.
This is not something that only we are talking about in the yogic culture.
This is something that's recognized everywhere.
Well, the Bible itself starts off like this.
First there was a word and the word was with God and the word itself is God.
Word is a human interpretation of a sound.
Right now I'm only making sounds,
you're making up the words because you assume you know English language.
When he was talking,
I'm sure Elizabeth was sitting there and it was just pure sound for her (Laughs).
There were no words for her (Laughs).
You feel the words if you are chatty, all right.
If you become very attentive, you'll feel the sound.
If you become absolutely still, then you won't even feel the sound, everything will be just one pure silence
and everything plays on the surface, but it's just there.
Something else far bigger than the sound is just there.
Now in the night if you look at… look up in the sky,
you will see a whole cosmos out there, okay, millions and millions of stars.
But you see that only because your eyes are attuned in a certain way.
But actually the largest presence out there is emptiness.
It is the silence which rules the existence,
nothingness which rules the existence – sound and forms are a small happening.
Today modern science goes about proving to you – I'm sure every musician feels it in some way –
If you feed any sound in oscilloscope, which is a sound measuring instrument,
depending upon its frequency, amplitude and other dimensions, it gives out a form.
This is how the whole science of what is referred to as mantra, yantra, tantra has been developed.
Mantra is a sound; a pure sound is mantra.
A lot of the music that they're doing is pure mantra, no… no meaning, it's just sound.
If you utter a sound, it gives out a form naturally.
So, if you observe carefully enough, every form is throwing out a certain sound in this culture, based on this we created language.
Language is not something made up for the sake of communication.
Language is like the blueprint of the existence.
That what kind of sound does this relate to, the corresponding sound is the name for this form.
So if you master the sound, you have mastery over the form.
So this whole science of wanting to use the sound as a passageway through the existence.
Music is a beautiful way of doing it.
There are other hard ways of doing it. Chanting (Laughs).
Chanting is a hard way of doing it, pure science.
Music is a beautiful way of doing it.
Sounds can be used for well-being, for health.
Right now I don't know the names of the raga, I am completely ignorant of those things. But if he sings various ragas,
I will tell you this raga if you sing your blood pressure will go down right now.
And you can check it.
One fifteen minutes raga, for the singer and the listener, your blood pressure will go down.
This people are experiencing in a concert, they may not be medically you know, measuring it,
but people are experiencing, they listen to something and they become like this.
They listen to a certain sound and become loving, they listen to a certain sound and become joyful,
they listen to a certain sound and become aggressive,
this is happening, isn't it (Laughter)?
This is happening, isn't it so?
Sounds are creating not only emotions;
they also are changing the very chemistry of your system.
So what kinds of sounds you're exposed to, does various things to you
or what kinds of sounds you are generating also produces… does various things to you.
Why one of the first things that you do if you want to go on spiritual sadhana, first thing is shut up.
Because stop uttering all the ugly sounds, just shut up.
You just stop talking, so many things about you will change,
simply because you are no more causing the damage by uttering the wrong sounds.
Pandit Jasraj: (Speaks in Hindi – not transcribed)
Sadhguru: The power of the sound that Panditji was saying is
the modern science we are trying to explain, it offers resonance.
If the shruti is perfect, on the two, naturally the string will break.
So just about anything can be cracked with sheer sound.
Just by something like this. If two people just do this, if it is a perfect match, you can bring the building down.
Being in absolute unison can create a certain energy, where one plus one is no more two, one plus one is a million.
So, classical music when two people sing, jugalbandi is never about two people singing together.
They're always setting this thing because the musicians who crafted this music are aware
or if two musicians are absolutely perfect, they could cause damage to the physical structure.
People may just attain, their bodies may break, it is possible.
Music is a good vehicle to transport yourself to that last point.
The whole process that you see in the existence is from non-creation to creation,
from unmanifest to manifest.
But the other process is also happening.
Today, cosmologists have recognized a whole galaxy will collapse into itself and become nothing,
it will become a black hole, is nothingness, and nothingness is recognized as the most powerful space in existence.
It is the energy which is the basis of sound. Because there is energy in this body, I can make this sounds, isn't it?
But at the same time, sound is the basis of energy on another level –
it is because of sound, that energy as happened.
When there is no sound, there is energy, but it's unmanifest, it is simply there.
So today modern nuclear science is explaining this in a certain way, you know,
you can see virtual protons and virtual neutrons being created, if you just as much as add energy outside, not connected to this chamber.
If you just play energy around, you will see virtual protons get created, that means creation is happening in a absolute vacuum space.
So, in a nonexistence which we are referring to as Shiva, existence is beginning to happen the first play of energy.
So we say this is Shakti. Energy is Shakti.
Once she begins to play, creation begins to happen. The first form of creation is always the sound.
The first there was word. And it's both ways.
See, we always try to understand everything logically.
Logic always move step by step. Creation does not move step by step.
There's no point trying to logically put it on a note… blackboard and say this, this, this, this how creation happens. It's a silly way to go.
There's only one way,
if you cave into yourself, use whatever, you use a… you use music, sound or a sledgehammer, use whatever the hell you want to use,
but if you just cave in, then you know it.
So the classical Indian music to a mathematical precision has recognized which sound can do what
and they have evolved these things in such patterns.
I feel unfortunately, there are exponents of music who know it by experience.
There are certain half-baked scientists who know something about the sounds and they know the benefits, they measured this and that,
but there is no one person who is like him at the same time a scientist who can do all those things –
when that happens it will be good or at least if two people get together like that it will be good,
where all these things can be explained in modern terminology.
Right now what he does is purely in experiential sense. People know it happens.
But if somebody comes and ask questions, “How does it happen?” They don't know. They say it's all your rubbish emotion, that's all.
You’re too identify with your Indian nonsense, so it happens to you (Laughs).
It needs to be put out, somebody needs to work on this where it is expressed as today's science understands it.
Today's science has a very rudimentary expression.
Why I say this is today's science has survived only because of technological devices it has produced.
If it does not throw out gadgets, nobody would value this science because it has no life significance of any kind,
except for producing conveniences and comforts.
So, this is a different kind of science.
Now, sitting here and singing about Shiva, what will you get? Nothing you will get,
but life will happen.
I thought we came here so that life happens to us.
Not because we get a camera or a cell phone or some damn thing. We came here because we want life to happen to us, isn't it?
The only reason why a human being is alive here is because he wants life to happen to him.
So this is the science of making life happen to you.
This is not a science of producing this and that.
That also could be done actually.
Using the sounds that also could be done.
But that's not the focus, that's never been the focus of this culture.
This is about making life happen in the highest level of intensity and beauty.
And music is the closest thing to meditativeness, that way.