Music and the Enlightened Soul

I love music and I love to sing. It is a time when I can do something that really lifts my spirit and sets me on a better path. Music changes everything in my life, as it is a big part of life for countless millions.

Music can take a person from total depression to total happiness. It changes our very being from the inside out. Have you ever met a professional singer after they have finished a gig? You will see in their eyes that they have been in another place while they were singing; a trance state, which allowed the music to emerge from their very soul, and burst forth in total ecstasy.

I’m listening to a Western singer on the radio and he is singing about the men and women who were fighting in Afghanistan. A song about the heroes who have given so much for so little compensation, yet music that eulogizes the hard work of a few individuals for a job well done.

Singing is something that many of us can and do, whether it’s only in the shower, walking down a street singing to ourselves, or singing in a neighborhood choir, or perhaps on radio or television. We sing to enlighten our souls and bring a little joy into our life. Music of all kinds is what we need to es­cape from our daily life; a moment of recluse, a moment of escape from the world and our apparent problems.

As we listen to our favorite music, we can’t help thinking of the words and what they mean to us. For example: As I listen to George Beverly Shay singing “How Great Thou Are” I know that God is the source of all creation. That song literally opens me to God’s presence in my life.

We sing together and enjoy each other’s company. We sing to change our thinking. We sing to make a difference in the life of someone else. We sing to praise the Christ who came into this world and changed our life from a pagan non-scientific world to a world where we all have an opportunity to be educated and contribute to society.

Music started when man began to beat sticks together, and then graduated to making drums that had a sound that appealed to his soul. He even learned to use the drum to communicate with others while being many miles apart.

The sounds he produced mimicked his own voice as he beat out his message on specially carved out hollowed logs. From the hollowed out logs we graduated to a more sophisticated type of drum with an animal skin stretched over a circular frame. Perhaps a person found that he could produce sound that appealed to him as he beat a skin that was stretched on a frame that was used to tan the hide. This new type of drumming sound allowed man to produce a variety of drumming sounds in rhythm with the music of his soul.

Perhaps someone got an idea to take a piece of string made out of a thin piece of animal hide that he stretched between the “Y” of a strong tree branch – a crude harp. When he twanged the string, it made a particular sound. By placing several strings between the “Y” he was able to adjust the tension on the string and make various sounds. By twanging the strings in various order, he produced sounds that he like thereby making music that was pleasant to the ear. As he sang, he provably learned to twang the strings in rhythm with his voice, and later on added drumming to accompany his strings.

Who can say for sure when and how the first flutes were made? Maybe some one picked up a hallow reed and blew into it producing a sound he liked. From there he may have found other reeds with holes in them and when he blew into the read, it produced different sounds as he covered the holes with his fingers.

Musical instruments have been around almost as long as man - they are a part of life. Think about how music affects us, and even think about how a violin can be played in such a way, that it can make us cry one moment and laugh the next. There are very few instruments that can do this.

I would like to tell you about my younger brother. Dale was a musician from an early age. When my other brothers and I had given up on playing an instrument, he continued. He learned to play a mandolin, then a guitar, and my grandfather’s violin. From there, he graduated to playing the “button box”. An instrument he loved because he was able to play with a dozen or more other button box musicians and traveled around the United States play­ing in contests, entertaining people and just for the joy of playing it. He was good at it….

Music is indeed one of the few means that man has at his disposal that can change a person from being totally depressed to being totally happy in seconds. Music is being used to help men and women to become inspired in such a way that problems of all kinds are solved. Have you ever seen a man or woman who works with music playing in the background while they paint, sew fabric or making something else with their hands?

Music produces a means for a person to become totally enlightened through the opening of his soul. Music brings a person closer to his God than by any other means through the sounds produced by his music.