- Narada then proceeds to learn the intricate skills of singing from the Owl Ganabadhu. The knowledge of music and the art of singing called “Gana Vidya” cannot be acquired by doing Tapa because it requires practical training and practice, besides the involvement of the emotions of the heart and memorizing of the verses needed for singing a song. One must learn the skills of music and singing from the Guru with due diligence and sincerity. Narada prostrates before his music Guru in the form of an owl, Ganabandhu and before Vasudeva without any feeling of egoity, followed the instructions given, and began to systematically learn music and singing.
Ganabadhu advised Narada that :
- One should not be shy and feel hesitant or reluctant while singing.
- One should not sing in a coarse or blunt voice, or in a deep grunt like an inaudible, murmuring and conspiratorial voice, or in a place that is small, dense and thickly covered (because the sound will be muffled and suppressed) or with hand spread out and mouth wide open, or with a protruding tongue which is held outside the month or dangling from it.
- One should not sing while looking attentively at the part of one’s own body or at the body of someone who is very near and dear and loving to the singer.
- One should also not sing with a raised hand or while looking upwards.
- Similarly, singing is to be avoided while shaking with laughter or trembling with fear and hunger, while one is under mental distress and is feeling sorrowful, while one is thinking of someone else or when his mind and attention is focused in the memory of someone who is dear to him, and also while one is thirsty (because all these distract him).
- It is also not advisable to sing while keeping the beat of the rhythm with only one hand (i.e. both the hands are needed to keep the beat of the rhythm, e.g. clapping of the cymbal).
- One who is distressed or tormented by hunger, fear and/or thirst (including for wealth, name & fame, position & power) is never advised to sing.
- Similarly, one should never sing in the darkness.
This is how a singer should carefully discriminate between the proper and improper method, circumstance and environment necessary for good singing.
- Under his tutelage, advice and guidance, Narada studied, learnt and practiced the art and skill of singing along with the intricacies and finer nuances of music systematically for a thousand glorious years (divyavarsha sahasrakam). With this rigorous training, he became will versed with all the aspects of singing, including the initial warm-up phases, besides learning all the notes of the Indian lute. He learnt well all the forty six thousand one hundred (ayutani ca sattrimsatsahasrani satani ca) fine shades of the notes, modes and tunes of Indian classical music tradition. The throng of celestial musicians and singers, such as Gandharvas and Kinnaras respectively, lived happily with the sage (Narada) and enjoyed his company. Narada and Ganabandhu bless each other on conclusion of their tutelage. After the expiry of one kalpa, Ganabandhu the owl, would be transformed into Garuda and attain Sayujya. Thus, teaching music to a true devotee has Sat Sangha and Sayujya as its fruit.
- Narada with the arrogance born of knowledge of music goes to challenge Tumburu to challenge him in a competition and defeat him. When he came to Tumburu’s place, he saw numerous people, both men and women, with deformed, disfigured, mutilated and dismembered bodies. Some had their hands, legs, thighs, noses, breasts and heads cut off, others have their fingers and other parts of the body either severed or deformed and disfigured. Dazed, surprised and mystified, Narada asks them who has rendered your bodies to such a horrible condition? All replied together that Narada is responsible, they being the personifications of various tunes and modes of music. When you sing out of tune and beat we are symbolically reduced to this horrible state. When the master Tumburu sings, our decrepit bodies are restored back to their former selves. This shows that when one sings with arrogance and ego the swara devatas get deformed whereas they regain their original form when arrogance and ego are absent while singing.
Narada then went to see Janardhana in Swetadeepa. The Lord said to Narada : you have not still become fully enlightened and haven’t reached the zenith or pinnacle of singing and music even after learning it from Ganabandhu for such a long time. You have not reached the same high standard and stature achieved by Tumburu. He asks Narada to meet him in Krishna Avatara and remind him of this incident so that Krishna can bless him with the best knowledge pertaining to music and song.
- Narada sang the glories of Vishnu wandering through all the worlds including the cities of the dikpalas and Brahma. At the appointed time he met Krishna and reminded him of the incident. Krishna asked Jambhavati to teach Narada the proper and perfect way to sing the devotional songs. After a year, Krishna asks Narada to go to Satya and learn further from her. She also taught him for a year. Thereafter, Krishna sent Narada to Rukmini. When she taught music, Narada could not gather or understand and learn the different notes, modes and tunes of music having the fine shades of differences and variations that she taught. Nevertheless, Rukmini persisted in teaching Narada for another two years. Narada at last began to sing better but he still could not master the art and skill of playing the stringed musical instruments as they ought to be played with perfection. Then, Lord Krishna called Narada and began to teach him personally the best form of devotional music and song. When Krishna taught him personally, then all the arts and skills pertaining to the realm of music and song came there in a personified but subtle form and were made available to Narada who was finally able to grasp and learn the finer nuances of classical music. At this success Narada’s mind was ecstatic with joy and he felt exhilarated and fulfilled.
- From these incidents we learn that when the mind is immersed in Bhakti without desire, the son of a maid servant can become a son of Brahma, an Avatara Purusha in his own right and the Guru of an Avatar of God. But, when such a person seeks to sing for personal glory as opposed to pleasing the Lord, he has to study and practice for more than a thousand years, wait for the Krishna Avatara, learn from the servitors of Krishna for five years and only then learn from the Lord Himself to master music. Only a person who has the perseverance of Narada can learn music from Guru Krishna Himself. It is hoped that musicians learn a lesson in humility and devotion from Canto 7 of the Adbhuta Ramayana.
- It is natural for one to ask whether it is possible to attain God through music without undergoing such rigorous training and practice as Narada did. The answer is given by Krishna Himself in Chapter X of the Bhagavat Gita :
“ 9. With their citta engrossed and their vital energies deeply involved in Me, they are ever contented and delighted by mutually conversing about Me and My doings and enlightening each other thereby.
- To those who serve Me with delight (bhajataam preeti poorvakam) and are ever steadfast in spiritual communion, I bestow intuitive understanding by means of which they come to Me.”
- After the Govinda Pattabhishekam of the purvabhaga of the Dasamaskandha of the Srimad Bhagavatham, we find the Gopas attaining and communing with Brahman without any knowledge of music and only through their boyish play with Krishna :
“ 11. O King The Gopas now took Krishna to be Iswara Himself, and began to think longingly why how would not absorb them into his subtle being.
- Coming to know by himself of this innermost aspiration of his devotees, Krishna, out of mercy towards them, thought of a way of fulfilling their aspiration.
- In this world, due to ignorance and its offspring, desire and actions based on it, men are born in situations high and low and fail to realize their real nature.
14-15. Thinking thus, the worshipful Lord revealed to the Gopas his transcendent realm untouched by Tamas, which the sages, shaking off the hold of Prakriti, experience with concentrated mind – Brahman, the absolute Truth, infinite Consciousness, the eternal Being, the pure light of Self-consciousness that illumines everything .(Nirvikalpa Samadhi & Jivan Mukti)
- They are led to the Pool of Brahman (Brahmahradam) and submerged in it, after which Krishna lifted them up and revealed to them the transcendent realm of Vaikuntha, which was revealed to Akrura earlier (i.e. prior to the time of the Suka-Parikshit conversation).
- Nanda and others, who were saturated with Bliss by the experience, were astonished to find Krishna being extolled by the Vedas themselves.”
- The entire society of Gopas having become Jivan Muktas what is the fate of the Gopis? In Chapter I sloka 22 of the Bhagavat Gita Sri Krishna tells Arjuna : “ Just as a man gives up old garments and puts on new ones, so the embodied self abandons decrepit bodies and assumes new ones.”
In Skanda I Chapter 3 Sloka 34 of the Srimad Bhagavata it is said :
“34. It is when Maya, the power of the Lord, (which functions as both Avidya and Vidya for binging and liberating) is pleased to function as Vidya that the Jiva attains to Supreme Enrichment, which is nothing but abiding in his own glory as the Spirit, the Pure Being-Consciousness-Bliss.”
It is for this reason that the Gopis worshipped Mahamaya with the following Mantra, X.22.4 :
“O Devi Katyayani, Thou mighty cosmic power and mistress of all, Deign to make Nanda’s son my husband. My salutations to Thee. Repeating this Mantra, these maidens of Vraja worshipped the Devi.”
The result was that Krishna stole their clothes i.e. Krishna removed the Gopis’ consciousness that they are the body and made them spiritually elevated souls fit to commune with the Lord.
— to be continued.
— Dr.V.Meenakshi Jayakumar.