The Secret of Being Happy-16.

(Spoken on October 19, 1972)
 16.

It is not the sound that a musician makes that pleases us. It is the music principle behind it. The principle of music is harmony, and harmony manifests itself in colour and sound. When harmony manifests itself in colour, we call it art such as painting, sculpture, architecture, etc. When art manifests itself through sound, we call it music. When art manifests itself through thought, we call it literature. That is the harmony of value manifesting itself through visual, auditory and intelligible mediums.

So what we love is not the musical sound that is made, but the harmony of the principle that is involved behind it. What we love is not a landscape or a flower or a painting or a sculptural image, but the harmonious element that is embedded in it dexterously by the artist. The mind gets attracted to the harmonious feature of the form. It is not the form that attracts; remember once again, it is the harmony that is implanted in that body that attracts our mind, whether it is through sound as music or through colour and form as in sculpture, painting, etc.

We mistake the qualitative harmonious eternal meaning behind things for the form in which they are hidden. So our loves are also sorrows. Anyone who loves must also weep one day or the other. The reason is that love is connected to objects. Love itself is good because it is a principle of eternity, but it is connected with an object which is perishable; therefore, it beings grief.

Swami Krishnananda
To be continued  ...