Music
The Giver
Do we not meet people every day who know less than we do? It is in our power to tell them things which may be useful on matters such as food, clothing, exercise, work and recreation. It is our duty to give them knowledge as it is our duty to give bread to the hungry. An ignorant man does harm to himself and he does harm to those around him, just as the bad flute-player made the Brahmin suffer. Did you ever hear how that happened?
One day a Brahmin was walking through the countryside when he was surprised to hear a voice coming from a pipal-tree. The voice spoke to him several times bidding him not to bathe in a tank, not to perform his evening worship, not to eat and not to go away.
So he cried out: “Who are you to forbid me to do things which have no harm in them?”
The voice from the pipal-tree replied: “I am a Brahma-Rakshasa. In my last life I was a Brahmin and very learned in the art of music, but I was unwilling to impart my learning to others. I kept my knowledge to myself. And now I am doomed to be a Brahma-Rakshasa and every day I have to listen to a piper, and I cannot tell you how badly he plays. It is terrible. How often I have wished I could come out of the tree, snatch away his instrument and show him how to use it, where to place his fingers, how to use his breath. But it is not possible and I am forced to hear his awful tunes…. ”
I cannot tell you the rest of the story here, except to add that fortunately a way was found to rescue him from his torment. But you see how miserable we can be as a result of the bad work, the bad art, the bad music of people around us.
– “Words of Long Ago”, Collected Works of The Mother, Vol. 2, (p.245 & 246)
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