Prophetic and Awakening songs

[Teralek]

It is my impression that music can often worth more in spiritual awareness than all "sacred" textbooks. Their lyrics go to the core of humanity condition.

Here are a few examples:

O Fortuna (O Fortune) velut luna (like the moon) statu variabilis (you are changeable) semper crescis (ever waxing) aut decrescis; (and waning;) vita detestabilis (hateful life) nunc obdurat (first oppresses) et tunc curat (and then soothes) ludo mentis aciem, (as fancy takes it) egestatem, (poverty) potestatem (and power) dissolvit ut glaciem. (it melts them like ice.)

Sors immanis (Fate - monstrous) et inanis, (and empty) rota tu volubilis, (you whirling wheel) status malus, (you are malevolent) vana salus (well-being is vain) semper dissolubilis, (and always fades to nothing) obumbrata (shadowed) et velata (and veiled) michi quoque niteris; (you plague me too;) nunc per ludum (now through the game) dorsum nudum (I bring my bare back) fero tui sceleris. (to your villainy.)

Sors salutis (Fate is against me) et virtutis (in health) michi nunc contraria, (and virtue) est affectus (driven on) et defectus (and weighted down) semper in angaria. (always enslaved.) Hac in hora (So at this hour) sine mora (without delay) corde pulsum tangite; (pluck the vibrating strings;) quod per sortem (since Fate) sternit fortem, (strikes down the string) mecum omnes plangite! (everyone weep with me!)

I am a caveman I am an ape or a fish On the earth, all year round, I run in circles, I run in circles

I am only one, then millions I am a man with a lion heart At war, all year round, I run in circles, I run in circles

I am a man full of ambitions Nice car and nice house In the bedroom, in the living room I run in circles, I run in circles

I make love and revolution I analyze the facts of the matter I go forth, go forth backwards I run in circles, I run in circles

You see, I'm not a man I am the king of illusion At heart, may I be forgiven, I am the king, the king of fools

I've made the world my way Cast in gold and concrete Caged body and prisoned heart I run in circles, I run in circles

Sitting in front of my television I am the negation of man Pure convenience goods I've had it, I've had it

You see, I'm not a man I am the king of illusion At heart, may I be forgiven, I am the king, the king of fools

I control fire, I control the game I control the world, and behold what I've done with it A frozen land, a scorched land The land of men that men forsake!

I am a man with his back to the wall Like a freak of nature On the earth, with no other reason I run in circles, I run in circles

I am a man and I consider All the horror of my nature For my trouble, my punishment I run in circles, I run in circles

[Schaps]

Very well said! Music, poetry and art in general are the expressions of the human condition. I have always been fascinated by the language of music, the nuances that are unique to different cultures and the mathematical possibilities of sound in general. "Musicology" is the foundation of the elements used to play the elusive spiritual game described by Hermann Hesse in his magnum opus "The Glass Bead Game".

From Wikipedia: "The Glass Bead Game takes place at an unspecified date centuries into the future. Hesse suggested that he imagined the book's narrator writing around the start of the 25th century.[2] The setting is a fictional province of central Europe called Castalia, which was reserved by political decision for the life of the mind; technology and economic life are kept to a strict minimum. Castalia is home to an austere order of intellectuals with a twofold mission: to run boarding schools for boys, and to nurture and play the Glass Bead Game, whose exact nature remains elusive and whose devotees occupy a special school within Castalia known as Waldzell. The rules of the game are only alluded to – they are so sophisticated that they are not easy to imagine. Playing the game well requires years of hard study of music, mathematics, and cultural history. The game is essentially an abstract synthesis of all arts and sciences. It proceeds by players making deep connections between seemingly unrelated topics."

[3uGH7D4MLj]

Nice piece. Thanks. I sing and play every day for the simple joy of it. Sometimes I wonder What is a song? Why do we do this? How did this come to be so important? You can say that a song is just an advertisement for an object for sale, for a $15 piece of plastic. But it's more, much more.

Prophetic and Awakening? What do you mean?

I wish there was more singing and dancing in my culture.

[A Poster He or I]

In response to Post # 2,

Hermann Hesse's The Glass Bead Game is my favorite novel of all time. It is a deeply flawed novel, simultaneously Hesse's greatest achievement while essentially failing as a novel per se. After tackling the gargantuan task of trying to identify the relationship between aesthetics and the conscious intellect, all via a somewhat simplistic coming-of-age story, the novel is unable to achieve any actual synthesis and just sort of falls apart at the end. It is a masterpiece precisely because it so thoroughly reflects the inability to analyze the aesthetic solely in terms of the intellect, something I believe the novel is well aware of in its own telling. Hesse was very wise not to provide too many details about how the Glass Bead Game is played, even though it is central to the story. I used to dream about some auteur film director making a movie of the novel, but I now believe it would be impossible since we would actually have to see the Game in action which would destroy its metaphorical nature. It is an invention only possible in literature I've come to think.

[Schaps]

I agree that the GBG is a phenomenal work. I don't think it fails as a novel if one reads it as an exploration of existential choices similar to those Hesse explored in Siddartha and Steppenwolf ie, the wavering between a life as intellectual aesthete removed from the concerns of the ordinary vs a life of hedonism and confrontation with the good, the bad and the ugly of life. I have been so intrigued by the allusion to a Glass Bead Game that I developed a playable version as a teenager. It is in manuscript form and unpublished. There have been a few attempts to describe playable forms of the game but none seem to have been adopted to any extent. Some have described the web/Internet as a GBG but Hesse's vision was so much more than that ( I think.).

[A Poster He or I]

I should qualify my statement that The Glass Bead Game fails as a novel, by clarifying that I mean only that the literary form of a novel proves unable to accommodate the story Hesse has to tell, which is a story without resolution (at least for Hesse).

Both Steppenwolf and Siddhartha resolve their respective stories via the main characters' transcendence of their circumstances. Steppenwolf is particularly effective with its metaphor of the "Magic Theatre" to allow the protagonist to balance his hedonistic (Dyonisian) inclinations with his burgeois (Apollonian) sensibilities. Siddhartha is much less effective, IMO, but the protagonist still finds, via the lessons of the character Vasudeva, the means to transcend the dichotomy of worldly self-indulgence and the self-negation of Buddhism.

By contrast, GBG's protagonist merely leaves his situation behind him, is promptly thwarted, then the creative efforts of his youth are presented as some sort of legacy. Not a very effective conclusion, but a much better illustration of a life's consequences in my opinion.