"Sound and Silence"

  excerpt from
  "The Healing Forces of Music "
  by Randall McClellan Ph.D.

"All energy. all forces of the universe, are movements which emanate from one point - their own center - and radiate in circular waves in all directions. manifesting themselves as vibrations or oscillations. The manifestations cease only when the forces that have got out of balance regain their primordial state of equilibrium, the divine unity. Hence when we speak of the primordial state we mean the state in which all material phenomenon have ceased to exist. In its true essence matter too, is motion and if this motion comes to a stop, matter must necessarily cease to exist."

from Initiation
by Elizabeth Haich
copyright 1974, Seed Center Publications

All that exists in the manifested state does so because it has a complementary unmanifested state that is its source. We perceive light, therefore, in the manifested state only because there exists an unmanifested state which is total darkness. We perceive sound only because there is an unmanifested state of absolute silence, the state from which all sound originates. We hear sound only because there is silence; we experience silence only because there is sound. Therefore sound is the source of silence and silence is the source of sound. All sound dissolves into silence; silence tends to manifest into sound. It is because of this principle of sound and silence that esoteric musical philosophy recognized two complementary components which in Sanskrit writings are referred to as "struck sound" - which we can hear - and "unstruck sound" - which we cannot hear.

Unstruck sound is the center from which all struck sound emanates. Through the practice of music one may experience the state of absolute equilibrium, absolute balance, perfect unity and harmony which exists both at its center and our own, for both are identical to and inseparable from the unmanifested creative state of the entire universe. At the center lies the perfected emptiness of total union to which we, music, and all manifested things aspire. "Things", in essence, are not "things" but processes in a state of continual becoming. Therefore music, as a manifestation of energy, is a force that interacts with the physical world for music influences our thoughts, our emotions, our dense physical bodies and the electro-magnetic field that surrounds us. Because all of the physical universe is in continual movement, Lama Govinda concludes...

"All things or beings produce sounds according to their own nature and to the particular state in which they find themselves. This is because these beings and things are aggregates of atoms that dance and by their movements produce sounds. When the rhythm of the dance changes, the sound it produces also changes. . . Each atom perpetually sings its songs and the sound creates each moment dense and subtle sound forms. Just as there exist creative sounds, there exist destructive sounds. He who is able to produce both can, at will, create or destroy."

from Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism
Lama Anagarika Govinda
copyright 1969 Weiser Books

These philosophical concepts became the foundation upon which all musical practice of the ancient world was formed. The musicians, shamans, priests, prophets and philosophers held one philosophical concept in common - that music represents a microcosm of the order of the universe and follows cosmological laws, and that through the practice of music one could better understand these laws as well as the intelligence behind them. The ethereal quality of music was regarded as a miniature of the ethereal substance that filled the vast spaces of the cosmos within which the celestial bodies moved. The rhythm of music, for example, reflected the movement of galaxies, stars and planets, of the sun and moon, the cycle of seasons, days and nights, the tides of the seas and the birth and death of our own cells. Music was regarded as the force that could bring about harmony within the mind and body of Man, within the human community and ultimately with the heavenly bodies themselves - the fluidity of energy changing and merging with energy, the primordial force of the universe.

this entire excerpt is from the Introduction to
The Healing Forces of Music
by Randall McClellan Ph.D.
copyright1991 Element Books
ISBN 1-85230-255-0

This book has been out of print for some time, but was recently re-issued by iuniverse.com, an online bookseller devoted to out-of-print books. Visit their website for more info.