Silence is music, pure music. The Zen people say that the ultimate enlightenment is like the sound of one hand clapping.
If two hands clap, then there is a clash, conflict. When only one hand is clapping, it is of course absolutely silent, there is no sound at all, and that silence is the ultimate music.
Love is the ultimate music to me. It does not even need the other. If the other is needed, it is animal love, or at the most human love. But when the other is not needed at all, then it is divine love. Then it is not a question of relationship, it is not even a question of being loving: you become love itself. Then you are the music, you are the song. It is no longer a quality, no longer an activity. It is your very being.
And when love becomes your being, there is great celebration inside. There is no sound, there are no instruments, but one bears a celestial music, a music which is not created – it is uncreated music. We are made of it, so if we go deep into our beings we are bound to find it. It is already there like an undercurrent. Once in a while in certain situations we become aware of it. Seeing a beautiful sunset, you suddenly fall silent- not that you practice being silent, or that you try to be silent, no. It simply happens. The beauty is so tremendous, it is such an awe that you forget to blink your eyes. It is as if for a moment, the heartbeat stops; for a moment, time stops, mind stops. Everything stops: you are in a complete nothingness. And then you feel great beauty, great joy.
Of course, logically you think it is coming from the beautiful sunset. It is not so. The beautiful sunset may have functioned as a trigger point. It may have triggered a process in you, but it is not the cause of it. And once you understand that there is no cause to it, you can simply close your eyes and you can fall into deep silence at any moment. That’s what meditation is all about: creating a situation independent of the outside world. No sunset is needed no beautiful full moon is needed, no beautiful woman or man is needed, no roses, no lotuses are needed. Nothing is needed because you have found that
Those are only trigger points – and it can be done by yourself. Just by becoming attuned to the inner, you immediately hear something; you immediately become full of something which cannot be expressed in any words whatsoever. It remains unexpressed, inexpressible, but love comes closest to it. So remember, love has to become the music of your life.
