HAPPENING AND DOING : -


If one has to become better through riyaz one must appreciate the difference between happening and doing. When one is practising any movement it is called doing. The routine aalaps and combinations of notes are done repeatedly in riyaz. Suddenly something extraordinary happens and the quality and effect of that particular movement is far superior to what was being done before. One attempts to do it again but it cannot be done. This is the moment for which riyaz is being done. Every such extraordinary happening leaves a memory trail, much like a trail left by a boat passing in water, which can be repeated mentally for fifteen to twenty seconds. Afterwards this memory becomes faint and then it totally disappears. If one repeats this extraordinary movement mentally immediately after it happens, it happens more frequently. Gradually it happens so frequently that one starts getting control of that movement and then one can bring it into doing. Riyaz is to bring such happenings into doings. This brings unknown into the known. This is the moment when the Spirit touches the artist. If the artist fails to grab this moment of happening he remains mediocre in spite of his or her riyaz. A great artist is one who is aware of these happenings and brings them under his control or in doing day by day. He also remains aware of the immensity of the unknown possibilities and therefore humble. All great traditions describe the performance of the enlightened artists by saying that they sing without singing and play without any instrument. All our endeavours are in the known. We do riyaz to bring something of the unknown in our repertoire but very few even venture to comprehend the unknowable. We can perceive the world through our five senses. There is lot more to this world beyond these five senses and this is the unknowable. A master gets in this realm through his riyaz.