Hafiz, the great Sufi poet of fourteenth-century Persia, told the following legend:
"God made a statue of clay in his own image, and asked the soul to enter into it; but the soul refused to be imprisoned, for its nature is to fly about freely and not to be limited and bound to any sort of capacity. The soul did not wish in the least to enter this prison. Then God asked the angels to play their music, and as the angels played the soul was moved to ecstasy, in order to make the music more clear to itself, it entered his body."
Hafiz is said to have added:
'people say that the soul, on hearing that song, entered the body; but in reality the soul itself was the song."
And Hazrat Inayat Khan comments:
"This is a beautiful legend, and much more so is its mystery. The interpretation of this legend explains to us two great laws. One is that freedom is the nature of the soul and for the soul the whole tragedy of life is the absence of that freedom which belongs to its original nature; and the next mystery that this legend reveals to us is that the only reason why the soul has entered the body of clay or matter is to experience the music of life, and to make this music clear to itself."
(excerpted from: The World is Sound by Hans-Joachim Berendt)
A most beautiful expression of the power of music was created by those singers
who stand at the outset of Christian and Jewish poetry (and music!): the psalmists.
Thousands of years ago, in the four final hymns of the Psalms (from Psalm 147 to 150),
they created the following verses, which have inspired musicians and composers
(from Johann Sebastian Bach to Duke Ellington) time and again in the course of centuries
to musical settings filled with thanks and praise:
Sing unto the Lord a new song....
Let them praise his name in the dance:
let them sing praises unto him with the timbrel and harp.
- Psalm 149
Praise ye the Lord.
Praise God in his sanctuary: praise him in the firmament of his power.
Praise him for his mighty acts:
praise him according to his excellent greatness.
Praise him with the sound of the trumpet:
praise him with the psaltery and harp.
Praise him with the timbrel and dance:
praise him with stringed instruments and organs.
Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high sounding cymbals.
Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord.
- Psalm 150
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