The Teaching of Hazrat Inayat Khan

Create a Bookmark

I do not mean to say that music of this kind can be universal music. It belongs to some rare person in a remote place. In India musicians are dying now for the reason of lack of appreciation. Those potentates, those gurus, those teachers of high inspiration who lived in the past, they appreciated this music. Even in India people are becoming industrial and civilized and music is dying away. There are no more now those musicians of before who would make all those who listened spellbound; they do not exist any longer. Among millions there are perhaps three or four, and they will have vanished in a few years. It maybe that one day the western world will waken to India's music as now the West is wakening to the poetry of the East, as it is beginning to appreciate such works as have been written by Rabindranath Tagore. There will come a time when they will ask for music of that kind. And then it will not be found, it will be too late. But there is no doubt when that music which is magic, which is built on a psychological basis, when that music will be introduced in the West, it will root out all such things as jazz bands. People seem to spoil their senses; this music is destroying people's delicacy of sense. Thousands every day are dancing to jazz music, and they forget the effect it has upon their spirit, upon their mind, upon their delicate senses. I know of a prince of Rampur who wanted to study music from a great teacher. And the teacher said, "I can only teach you on one condition."


 
Topic
Sub-Topic