Tuning Life Like a Veena
As soon as you begin to look within, a new Spring is born within you, where a new leaf grows, a new bud appears, and a new flower blooms. Vasant Panchami is the fifth day of the new spring season that we celebrate in the warmer half of the month, a festival where people everywhere honour wisdom. It is also an auspicious day to begin a child’s educational journey. It is an auspicious day when children write their first letters as part of a ceremony called Vidyarambham.
Vasant means where there is happiness; the word Santas means bliss. We have five senses, and when we feel good in what we see, hear, and speak, we experience this inner spring with our senses.
Beyond the calendar and custom, this day celebrates something subtle-the moment when wisdom begins to flower within. Knowledge does not dawn when the mind becomes more active; it dawns when the mind becomes subtle. A subtle mind is relaxed, receptive, and capable of recognising harmony where effort alone cannot reach.
You know, in this country, education has never been divorced from spirituality. Spirituality is an integral part of education. Knowledge was never seen as something floating or transient. If you look at the symbol of Saraswati, the Goddess of Wisdom, that appears in schools across the country, she is seated on a rock. Knowledge is always rock solid. It is steady and brings stability to life. Once knowledge dawns, it stays with you; it does not vanish. Saraswati is said to be born out of the creator, yet she stays with the creator as an inseparable part; if knowledge leaves, creation cannot exist. This is why knowledge has always been revered.
Next to Saraswati is the peacock, which symbolises beauty and celebration. Knowledge should bring beauty within. It should make life graceful, not dry. In one hand, she holds a book, representing intellectual excellence, and in the other hand, there is the Veena, one of the oldest Indian stringed instruments. Music must be part of education. Scientists also say that the left brain is associated with logic, and the right brain is associated with music. It cannot be that you use only the left brain or only the right brain. You need to balance both. And then there is the japa mala or rosary, which signifies meditation, experiential knowing, and balances both parts of the brain. Learning music improves your right brain, while logic and study sharpen the left brain.
If any one of these components is missing, education is not complete. Intellectual knowledge, music, art and culture, dance, and meditation together allow wisdom to dawn. Swadhyaya, the study of knowledge of both the world and the self, has always been a part of our education system. Anything that aids the development of the spirit is spirituality. In this sense, logic, art, culture, music, and meditation all belong together.
The Veena carries a deeper meaning too. The Veena represents the human body. Just as the Veena has seven strings in all, our human body is also made out of seven dhatus (fundamental tissues-plasma, blood, muscle, fat, bone, marrow, and reproductive tissue). Also, the seven layers of existence (Body, Mind, Breath, Intellect, Memory, Ego, and Self) need to be tuned well to connect with cosmic energy. When the Veena is tuned properly, the music that comes out of it is melodious. When life is tuned well, what comes out is divine music. Similarly, the various aspects of life have to be tuned properly. Our relationship with our Self, the people in our family, in the workplace, and in society-all these need to be tuned from time to time. If the strings are too tight, they snap. If they are too loose, there is no music. Life also needs similar tuning.
The purpose of music is to create silence deep within you, and the purpose of silence is to make you dynamic in life. So, silence that does not make you dynamic is no good, and that music which does not make space for silence, peace, and harmony within oneself is no good either. Music is one blessing that binds us all together. Across races, religions, and continents, if there is one power that unites everyone other than love, it is music. Music and meditation cleanse your being. They make your feelings softer and lighter. When feelings are purified, thoughts get purified automatically. Then the right thought comes up in you. This is where intuition awakens. Intuition comes when the mind becomes quiet. When the mind is agitated, it cannot grasp anything subtle.
There are different levels of knowledge. One level is where you get knowledge through the senses; intellectual knowledge is another, but beyond both is intuitive knowledge, which comes from within.
As the mind becomes more subtle, free from cravings and aversions, this subtle knowledge becomes available to us.
Meditation is experiential knowledge. It is not something you merely understand; it is something you experience. When the mind settles down, clarity dawns naturally. Meditation does not make the mind dull; it makes it sharp. When the mind relaxes, the intellect becomes sharp. A calm and collected mind is not docile; rather, it is a source of creativity and dynamism. That is why meditation has always been an essential part of education.
Music and spirituality are among India’s most unique and timeless gifts to the world. Music is that rhythm and harmony that flows from the universal to the individual, from the cosmos to the finite. Spirituality brings resilience, peace, strength, and inner silence to the soul.
Spirituality and music together can uplift people, get them out of depression, and help them start a new life with enthusiasm.
As we celebrate Basant Panchami, remember that movement stretched is dance, mind stretched is meditation, sound stretched is music, and life stretched is celebration. A mind that knows how to celebrate remains light, whereas a heavy mind carries stress even in success. Knowledge that has touched life always carries lightness.
