Beyondism · African Renaissance · Self-Actualization
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On Feeling Melodies as Irritating Noises
to be Kept at Bay at Any Cost
#13
What density of ENTHRALLMENT inoculates IRRITATION, as a function of lucidly listening to MUNIFICENT MUSIC?
True listening is a sacred act — a surrender of the ego to the sovereign stream of sound.
When enthrallment deepens into full absorption, irritation dissolves like mist before the sunrise of genuine cosmic attention.
The question is not whether music soothes — but whether the listener has yet become spacious enough to receive it.
USIC — A UNIVERSAL HUMAN PHENOMENON — is structured tonal sound moving in time and space. From its origins in the primitive imitation of nature's sounds — songs of birds, calls of animals, and waves of the ocean — music has evolved into organised forms that have varied in style and idiom from century to century and culture to culture. Sound is an ordinary natural phenomenon. Music, on the other hand, is the result of the human being's conscious development of sound into an art and a science — and ultimately, into a pathway toward Self-Actualization and the awakening of Cosmic Consciousness. The African Renaissance recognises music as among its most potent instruments of liberation, communal healing, and civilisational renewal.
"Jazz is a music which is perpetually in motion, a living music which will never fall...into the funereal sleep of many chefs d'oeuvre.
Jazz — perpetually alive, resisting the pickling of frozen tradition — mirrors the eternal flow of cosmic music itself. It breathes because the African spirit within it refuses death.
"The blues is an art of ambiguity, an assertion of the irrepressibly human over all circumstance... constantly remind us of our limitations while encouraging us to see how far we can actually go.
In the African tradition, limitations acknowledged become doorways — the blues transforms suffering into transcendence, sorrow into an act of sovereign self-definition.
"We are the music makers, we are the dreamers of dreams... World-losers and world-forsakers, on whom the pale moon gleams: we are the movers and shakers of the world for ever, it seems.
The music-maker as cosmic agent — each age a dream dying or being born; the artist as midwife of civilisational renewal and the Beyondist ideal incarnate.
"We are finding that the universe is composed not of matter but of music.
From ancient Pythagorean harmonics to quantum vibrational fields — the cosmos hums at its deepest frequencies. Matter is merely music made temporarily solid.
"Music is one of the attributes of matter... Infinitesimal portions of air plash and sing about the angles and hollows of sand-grains, as perfectly composed and predestined as the rejoicing anthems of worlds.
Music is not invented — it is discovered in the very grain of reality. Nature sings before human ears are formed to hear it. We are latecomers to an ancient choir.
"Music is my mistress and she plays second fiddle to no one.
The African genius consecrated entirely to sound — a sovereign devotion exemplifying the Beyondist ideal of total self-giving, elevating a people's collective soul.
"O body swayed to music; O brightening glance, how can we know the dancer from the dance?
In music's fullness the self dissolves into the song — the highest Beyondist attainment: ego subsumed by cosmic flow, the dancer one with the eternal dance.
BEYONDISM hereby consolidates the definition of MUNIFICENT MUSIC thus:
- MMeritorious mode of expression which is essentially cross-cultural.
- UUniversal means of communication, due to its nonverbal nature.
- NNourishes personal growth and boosts psychic development.
- IIt is an eminently functional, adaptive as well as aesthetic modality.
- FFacilitates learning and the acquisition of essential Life skills.
- IIts intrinsic qualities organise the individual as well as groups.
- CContributes to the attainment of the goal of Self-Actualization.
- EEffects personal change and is key in oiling interpersonal relations.
- NNurtures physiological and mental responses by energising the Self.
- TTruly penetrates mind and body directly due to its sound stimulus.
- MMediation, stimulation, evocation and expression of joy.
- UUnravel and release old patterns, habits and beliefs.
- SSpiritual awakening and accessing the elemental powers.
- IIntegrating the body, mind and soul for utmost working.
- CCommunication conduit to access the Divine dimension.
"There is music in the air, music all around us: the world is full of it, and you simply take as much as you require."
— Edward Elgar · British composer, conductor & violinist · 1857–1934
"See deep enough and you see musically; the heart of Nature being everywhere music, if you can only reach it."
— Thomas Carlyle · Scottish essayist & historian · 1795–1881
"Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything."
— Plato · Greek philosopher · 428–348 BC