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Song as a Symbol of Creation and of Illusion

“The sun had vanished behind the western peaks and darkness had descended on the lake. The dog sat just outside the circle of light. Its eyes gleamed. Gabriel leaned back and patted it. “Good dog” he said lovingly. “Are you my friend?”. As a reply the dog rested its head on his shoulder. It sighed and looked pensively into the fire. Gabriel was listening, and just like the dog, he sat for a long time without moving his gaze from the dance of the flames.

The world was nothing but them, the song, and the mountains below the infinite space of sky. The melody intertwined elegantly with the eternal, which was its subject and its source. Reality became song and the song was the world. Once the words, which again and again emerged and vanished in the undulating rhythm of the notes, had escaped the throats of the singers, it spread out from them and unfolded like vast spirals, whose message travelled into infinity.

Gabriel sensed the prayer of their meaning move towards the outer limits of the universe and simultaneously settle around the fire, like a vibrating dome of protective spells. He looked at the singing faces in the flickering glow of the flames. The old man and the young man. Their peaceful features and closed eyes. He knew them. He had known them forever. The current of the song became fainter. Without it being possible to put a finger on exactly where it had ended, the song finally disappeared. Like fog it dissipated into silence. The voices retracted to their hiding place in the crackling of the fire and the distant rush of the river. “Life is a song”, the old man said. “A song?” Gabriel thought but did not open his eyes.  “Yes, a song… it is sung by you, but the song is not you. When it is sung it is not really there and when it is over it is not gone. It is not born and never dies. A song is eternal, immortal and intangible”. The old man laughed faintly, “But…  the singer dies”. He looked patiently at Gabriel’s knitted brow, and smiled lovingly as he shook his head, extended his thin arm, and grabbed the end of Gabriel’s black scarf”. Like Two Rivers, from the Chapter, the Vanishing Point

In chapter 0, The Source, the hermit Babaji is singing the ancient song Shivoham, which though not understood by Gabriel until much later, sets the tone for the novel.

The talented musician and singer Jakob Weise, who is also the artist behind the beautiful musical score that accompany the videos about the novel, has recorded the song of the sage. See below.