28-Nov-03 (Created: 28-Nov-03) | More in '05.10-Letters To My Daughter'

The antidote for sin is high art

The word "sin" and "art" are very broadly referred to in the above statement. As human beings we strive every day. This is the nature of human beings, perhaps of life itself. A non-verbal life form may not be able to tell us, but perhaps they do this as well.

In the path of human striving stand certain human afflictions. These are the obstacles that stop us or hinder us or bother us or nag at us that stop us from accomplishing what we need to accomplish in a state of joy. Unfortunately there are many of these. To list 4: Desire, Anger, Power, and Envy. This list is not that important as there could be more. But by knowing these you will know how to recognize the rest. None of them are perhaps not bad in their own account. But when you let them control your life, you can't reach your goals.

Realization of "high art" is how you can control those.

To put our wants before the others. To see the world only through our eyes. To think we are greater than some one else, to think that we are less than some one else, To please someone in return for thinking that they will respect you better or that they have a high opinion of you, To give regard to someone elses approval, To lie for fear or for praise, Failing to see the true nature of pleasure. These are all sins.

What is high art then? How can high art energize you? High art is art firt of all. Music, paintings, writings or any creation. The nature of "high" art is that it tries to elevate you from these normal human emotions into a realm of truth and hence a sense of truly what is important and what is not. In this state "high" art removes your self from your body and allows you to see how fruitless our day to day affairs are. This is because the "high" art shows you in contrast "what is" and "what can be". Once you have a sense of "what can be" then you can ignore the trivialities we seek for.

This is not meta physics. If it sounds like that, then I do not know how to convey the meaning of what I have in my mind. Hopefully in a series of writings in the future I will be able to use better mechanisms to convey this.

One way to see a glimpse of this is to listen to music. Of all the artistic media I am able to connect with music more. Perhaps it may be a different media for you. Ofcourse there is a lot of loud lousy music out there. And perhaps what works for me won't for you. Actually it is wrong to isolate this to music. When I say music it has the following components

	. Writing
	. Vocal
	. Instrumental 

All three of them play equally important role, perhaps slightly in that order. It won't happen every time. Only once in a while. When this happens it seem as if your thoughts and cerbral matter has taken the shape of a smiling person. And I seem to be connected to a broader purpose. There seem to be a certain lack of care for the physical comfort or physical condition. The condition seem to point out to me that: There is a path for going from earthliness to Godliness among each one of us.

I believe it is this strong sense of something higher that will prevent us from falling prey to our fallacies and incapacities that we can in general call sins. Because perhaps "high art" points us to a better goal, better ideals, truer pleasures to seek.