There are many in this world who look for wonders. If one only noticed how much there is in this world which is all phenomena! The deeper one sees into life, the wider life opens itself to one, and then every moment of one's life becomes full of wonders and full of splendors. What we call music in everyday language is only a miniature of that which is behind this all, and which has been the source and origin of this nature. It is therefore that the wise of all ages have considered music to be a sacred art; for in music the seer can see the picture of the whole universe, and in the realm of music the wise can interpret the secret and nature of the working of the whole universe.

This idea is not a new idea; at the same time it is always new. Nothing is as old as the truth, and nothing is as new as the truth. Man's desire to search for something traditional, for something original, and man's desire for something new - all these tendencies can be satisfied in the knowledge of truth.

In the Vedas of the Hindus we read: Nada Brahma - sound, being the Creator. In the works of the wise of ancient India we read: "First song, then Vedas or wisdom." When we come to the Bible, we find: "First was the word, and the word was God", and when we come to the Qur'an we read that the word was pronounced, and all creation was manifest. This shows that the origin of the whole creation is sound.

No doubt the word, in the way it is used in our everyday language, is a limitation of that sound which is suggested by these Scriptures. Language is made up of names of comparable objects, and that which cannot be compared has no name. Truth is that which can never be spoken and, what the wise of all ages have spoken, is what they have tried their best to express, little as they were able to do so.

There is in Persian literature a poem by Hafiz who tells us that, when God commanded the soul to enter the human body, which is made of clay, the soul refused. Then angels were asked to sing and on hearing the angels sing the soul entered the body which it had feared to be a prison. It is a philosophy which is poetically expressed in this story. Hafiz remarked: "People say that on hearing the song the soul entered into the body, but in reality the soul itself was song."

Those who have probed the depth of material science as far as modern science can reach, do not deny the fact that the origin of the whole creation is in movement, in other words: in vibration. It is this original state of the existence of life which is called in the ancient tradition sound, or the word. The first manifestation of this sound is therefore audible, the next manifestation visible. In the forms of expression of life, life has expressed itself first as sound, next as light. This is supported by the Bible where it is said that first was the word, and then came light. Again one finds in a Sura of the Qur'an: "God is the light of the heaven and the earth."

The nature of the creation is the doubling of one, and it is this doubling aspect which is the cause of all duality in life. This doubling aspect represents one positive part, the other part being negative; one expressive, the other responsive. Therefore, in this creation of duality, spirit and nature stand face to face. And as there is the first aspect, which I have called sound, and the next, which I have called light, at first in these opposite nature aspects, or responsive aspects, only the light works, and if the creation goes still deeper there is sound. In nature, which is face to face with spirit, what is first expressed is light - or what man first responds to is light, and what man responds to next is what touches him deeper: it is sound.

The human body is a vehicle of the spirit, a finished vehicle which experiences all the different aspects of creation. This does not mean that all other forms and names that exist in the world - some as objects, others as creatures - are not responsive to the expression of the spirit. Really speaking, every object is responsive to the spirit and to the work of the spirit which is active in all aspects, in all names and forms of this universe. One reads in the great work of Mevlana Rumi, a Persian poet and mystic, that earth, water, fire and air before man are objects, but before God are living beings: they work at His command - as man understands living beings working under the command of a master.

If the whole creation can be well explained, it is by the phases of sound or vibration, which have manifested in different grades in all their various forms in life. Objects and names and forms are but the expression of vibrations in different aspects. Even all that we call matter or substance, and all that does not seem to speak or sound - it is all in reality vibration.

The beauty of the whole creation is this, that creation has worked in two ways; in one way it has expressed, and in the other way it has made itself a mold in order to respond. For instance, there is substance - matter to touch - and there is a sense to feel touch. There is a sound, and at the same time there is the sense of hearing to perceive the sound. There is light, there is form, there are colors, and at the same time there are eyes to see them.

What man calls beauty is the harmony of all he experiences. What after all is music? What we call music is the harmony of the audible notes. In reality there is music in color, there is music in lines, there is music in the forest where there is a variety of trees and plants, in the way in which they correspond with each other. The more widely one observes nature, the more it appeals to one's soul. Why? Because there is a music there. And to the extent to which one sees more deeply into life and observes life more widely, one listens to more and more music - the music which answers the whole universe.

But the one whose heart is open - he need not go as far as the forest; in the midst of the crowd he can find music. At this time human ideas are so changed, owing to materialism, that there is no distinction of personality. But if one studies human nature one finds that even a piano of a thousand octaves cannot produce the variety that human nature represents: how people agree with one another, how they disagree; some become friends after a contact of one moment, and some in thousand years cannot become friends. If one could only see to what pitch the different souls are tuned, in what octave different people speak, what standard different people have! Sometimes there are two persons who disagree, and there comes a third person and all unite together. Is this not the nature of music? The more one studies the harmony of music, and then studies human nature - how people agree, and how they disagree, how there is attraction and repulsion - the more one sees that it is all music.

But now there is another question to be understood. What man knows is generally the world that he sees around himself. Very few people trouble to think that there is something beyond that which they realize around themselves. To many it is a story, when they hear that there are two worlds. But if one looks deep within oneself, there are not only two worlds, there are so many worlds that it is beyond expression. That part of one's being which is receptive is mostly closed in the average man. What he knows is to express outwardly and to receive from this same sphere as much as he can receive by himself. For instance, the difference between a simple man and a thinking person with deeper understanding is that, when the simple person has received a word only in his ears, the thinking person has received the same word as far as his mind. So the same word has reached the ears of the one, and the heart of the other. This man whose ears the word has touched has only seen the word, but he whose heart the word has touched has seen deeper.

If this simple example is true, it can be understood that one person lives only in the external world, while another lives in two worlds, and a third person may live in many worlds at the same time. When one asks: Where are those worlds? Are they above the sky, or down below the earth? - the answer is: All these worlds are in the same place as we are. As a poet has said: "The heart of man, if once expanded, becomes larger than all the heavens."

The deep thinkers of all ages have therefore held one principle of awakening to life, and that principle is: emptying the self. In other words, making oneself a clearer and fuller accommodation in order to accommodate all experiences more clearly and more fully. All the tragedy of life, all its sorrows and pains belong mostly to the surface of the life in the world. If one were fully awake to life, if one could respond to life, if one could perceive life, one would not need to look for wonders, one would not need to communicate with spirits; for every atom in this world is a wonder for the one who sees with open eyes.

In answer to the question: What is the experience of those who dive deep into life, and who touch the depth within? there is a verse in Persian by Hafiz who has said: "It is not known how far is the destination, but so much I know: that music from afar is coming to my ears." The music of the spheres, according to the point of view of the mystic, is like the lighthouse in the port that a man sees from the sea; it promises him that he is coming nearer to the destination.

Now one may say: What music may this be? If there were no harmony in the essence of life, life would not have created harmony in this world of variety. Man would not have longed for something which was not already in his spirit. Everything in this world which seems to lack harmony is in reality the limitation of man's own vision. The wider the horizon of his observation becomes, the more harmony of life he enjoys. In the very depth of man's being the harmony of the working of the whole universe sums up in a perfect music. Therefore, the music which is the source of creation, the music which is found near the goal of creation, is the music of the spheres. And it is heard and enjoyed by those who touch the very depth of their own lives.