Can Music be Owned?
At certain points in history there have been followers of spirituality which claim their relationship to the divine as the only one. That their practices, traditions, ideas, and saints are the only such example of a sincere relationship to God, the Universe, Brahman, the Self, and so on. Such a predicament is ironic, given the underlying understanding that we all share an essential nature, the nature of awareness. Arvo Pärt beautifully describes this in his acceptance speech of the International Brücke Prize in 2007. At the right depth, “we are all so similar that we could recognise ourselves in each other.” Rupert Spira claims the understanding being pointed to in all major spiritual and religious traditions is the same one, and that this understanding is available to every human being. It is the recognition of our essential nature. It is not gate kept by those who are more entitled, purer, or holier. The view that one’s relationship to our essential nature is entitled to some and not to others is born out of misunderstanding.
We can see this too, in the arts. I am inclined to focus on music however, as it is where my heart lies. When one feels as though their way, their relationship to music, is the right one, they must create all sorts of rules in order to justify it. This must be exhausting, and each rule will restrict the natural freedom inherent in the creative act. To think you own is to think you control, and to control is to seize to be free. Music created from this place cannot be free. Music is like awareness. Open, free, invisible to the eyes. It is an embodiment of the divine. It is a source of such beauty, joy, and love. It can also be a source of sorrow, despair, loneliness, anger. Just as awareness can hold space for such emotions, so can music.
The desire to monopolise the divine is a symptom of insecurity. As Alan Watts says, to try to control the freedom of awareness is like trying to bite your own teeth or lick your own tongue. Everything appears in awareness; it is the constant which exists prior to everything else. Can the clouds control the sky? They can obscure it, but they cannot control it. If the clouds would be motivated to try and control the sky, they would be misunderstanding the nature of sky. Andrei Tarkovsky believes the relationship to art is a spiritual one. In this regard, a relationship to music is a spiritual one.
