The Intoxication of Music
Music, besides power, is intoxication. When it intoxicates those
who hear, how much more must it intoxicate those who play or sing
themselves! And how much more must it intoxicate those who have
touched the perfection of music and have meditated upon it for years
and years! It gives them an even greater joy and exaltation than
a king feels sitting on his throne.
According to the thinkers of the East there are five different intoxications:
the intoxication of beauty, youth and strength; then the intoxication
of wealth; the third is of power, command, the power of ruling;
and there is the fourth intoxication, which is the intoxication
of learning, of knowledge. But all these four intoxications fade
away just like stars before the sun in the presence of the intoxication
of music. The reason is that it touches the deepest part of man’s
being. Music reaches farther than any other impression from the
external world can reach. And the beauty of music is that it is
both the source of creating and the means of absorbing it. In other
words, by music the world was created, and by music it is withdrawn
again into the source which has created it.
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