What Is Music Made Of?

Rupert Spira

Q. “What is the real experience of the body?”

Rupert: Go to the experience of music; a wind instrument, like a flute. Imagine that before the
flute player takes their flute, there’s just breath. Yes? Totally silent. It can’t be seen, it can’t be
heard, it’s just no-form, empty, transparent, silent, nothing, no-thing. Yes? Then, you put the
flute to your lips, and you do the same thing. You put some fingers down, and this silent,
transparent substance appears as sound. What is the sound made of? Just the silent breath. The
only substance there is the silent breath. And yet, the music somehow makes this silence hear-
able.

But when we ask ‘what is the sound (in this case, the note, this music); what is it made of? The
only stuff there…, (because in the flute, there is nothing. It’s just a hollow tube with some holes
in it. The flute is not doing anything. It’s just modulating this transparent, silent breath. But the
only substance there (the pre-modulated substance) is silence. But this silence contains within it
the possibility of all sound. So, then, the music starts; and there’s a tremendous multiplicity and
diversity of sounds. There’s music. Yes? But it’s all a modulation of this silent, transparent
substance. But it’s colorful, and tremendously varied, and differentiated minutely. But it’s all the
same stuff.

Now, let’s just transpose it through two stages. We’re going to go to the body via thinking. So
take the experience of thought. First of all, just be without thought for a few moments.

Now just allow a thought to arise; any thought. It arises in you, yes? Now, what substance is
there present in you prior to the arising of the thought, out of which the arising thought is made?
What is that substance?

We could call it the ‘unconditioned mind’. It’s before mind. Just as the silent breath is
unmodulated, so now this, whatever thought arises from and is made out of, has not yet been
conditioned, has not yet been shaped into a thought. We could call it ‘the silent mind’ or
Awareness is the obvious name. But all there is there, prior to the arising of thought, is this silent
substance. And the thought, in all its colorful multiplicity and diversity, however wonderful or
awful the thoughts are, are only modulations of this thought-free substance.

Now, take the next step. The body. We know the body through sensation and perception. We see
it, we feel it, we touch it. Yeah? Let’s just call it perception and sensation. Now, (this is a little
artificial now, but) imagine being without perception and sensation. (You can’t quite do that).
Now, rub your hands together. A new sensation appears. And in appears in you. We are using the
‘I am nothing’ model now. This sensation arises in ‘the sky of Awareness’, a new cloud-like
sensation. Now what is there, before the arising of the new cloud-like sensation; what is there in
you out of which this cloud-like sensation arises? This same unnamable, transparent, empty sky
of awareness. The sensation that arises in it is in-potential in this emptiness; is a modulation of
this emptiness.

Just like the music, before the music tells us anything, before the music tells us a story or a
feeling, it announces its reality. First and foremost, it tells us about this transparent, silent breath.
In fact, the entire piece of music is shining all the way through with the silent breath out of which
it is made. In the same way with the body, in all its various forms; before it tells us anything
about a body or movement or action or a person or whatever, it tells us about this pre-sensation
substance; this empty, unnamable, pre-sensation substance called our Self, or ‘I’ … (or pure
object-less experiencing would be another way of putting it).

And that is present. All the colorful multiplicity and diversity of experience, whether it’s the
body, the mind, is a modulation of this transparent experiencing.
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Transcript for “What Is Music Made Of?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-4U_a_UA8g