The soul that rises with us, our life's star

Hath had elsewhere its setting,

and cometh from afar;

Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God, Who is our home.

Heaven lies about us in our infancy."

Intimations of Immortality

...William Wordsworth

The music seemed to radiate from all sides instead of originating at a speaker or even at several speakers. When I asked about it later, I learned there was a ring of speakers encircling the compartment. The design and the materials used to make the speakers varied in order to best reproduce sound in several different ranges. The high range of audibility was extending upward with the refinement of the human bodies on the earth, and so I was not able to hear some passages of music with my less sensitive auditory system.

I asked if we might listen to some of the composers that I knew. Alice herself was a talented musician and played the violin with their community symphony orchestra. I had already learned she could discuss at length the music and composers familiar to me. She asked if I would like to know how children were taught to appreciate music. Enthusiastically, I answered that I would.

"First, David, we learned to begin their training in the cradle," said Alice. "Our understanding of the effect of music on physical-mental-spiritual health has been expanding with each passing year. You probably remember the early experimentation done with plants, showing that music had an effect upon their growth."

"Why, yes, I do, Alice," I said. "I seem to remember that even some popular music was better than no music, but classical music was best."

"As you may surmise, David, the effect of music upon the growth of small children was more apparent under controlled conditions than it was upon plants. The human body is a more intricate life form than any other upon earth, and thus, more responsive."

"Isn't tampering with the response to music of small children like brainwashing?" I questioned.

"There is more to a baby than a brain and a physical body. Other faculties which are developing need kinds of nourishment generally disregarded in your day. We discovered that music provided nourishment for the developing of psychic faculties and other spiritual attributes which the incoming soul strives to bring with it into materiality."

"But shouldn't each child have a right to develop its own particular taste in music? Surely you are creating a nation of musical stereotypes," I objected.

"Oh, David, didn't the study of nutrition establish certain standards for feeding babies and growing children? Did this create a nation of stereotyped eating habits?"

"Well, no, but food for the body plainly shows its value by the results it produced," I said.

"Do you think that this is not equally true of the nourishment provided by music for the developing intellectual and intuitive faculties of a child?" asked Alice gently. "Isn't it an obligation of society toward its children to see that none lacks proper nourishment through circumstances over which the infant has no control? The idea of condemning a child to malnutrition, poverty, ignorance and abuse because its parents are irresponsible or incompetent is unthinkable to us. It was just as unthinkable in your times except that the disciplines which your society needed to impose upon itself in order to correct these conditions were equally unthinkable. The incentive was lacking for society to fulfill its obligation to its incoming members. Once an understanding of the natural laws governing rebirth was established in the minds of the people, it became a sacred trust to themselves to make equal opportunity and care the birth right of every child. This requires self sacrifice and discipline on a national scale."

"What you say sounds so right, Alice," I answered. "I've been brainwashed to think of freedom as the absence of strictly enforced rules and disciplines. When you tell me of the application of your social discipline, I'm inclined to visualize a nation of automatons. After I think over what you say, I realize you are telling me how age old ideals and dreams are being put into practice and only their application startles me, for these are not new ideas. The fast vanishing freedom in America stemmed from our unwillingness to discipline our industry, our politicians, our entertainers, our food producers, our waste handling, our media of mass communication, our educational system, and our own appetites and desires."

"Shall we go back to a discussion of musical training for children?" Alice asked with a twinkle in her eyes. She did not conceal a trace of humor at my rebellion toward ideas which represented the fulfilling of my own ideals for the race in the first place.

I had to smile at myself when I thought about it. "Please do, Alice. Perhaps, I can listen to you without getting self righteous for a little while."

Alice smiled and began again. "After our experimentation with plants and animals had given us indications that musical rhythm and harmony affected growth and we learned that almost any kind of music was helpful, then we set out to learn how its rate of acceleration and its character would vary with the kind of music used. A marked difference resulted when the same music was used with different types of plants and animals. Eventually we were able to determine how to produce varied responses in different parts of the human body. We found that we could stimulate or retard the functioning of each of the endocrine glands with a particular type of musical vibration and that each individual had his own overall musical tone. Miracle-like healing techniques resulted. Our sound therapy causes the rapid knitting of bones, the disintegration of undesirable growths and the regeneration of lost limbs and organs. A system of classification according to individual tone response has been established in order to best minister to the musical needs of each person. The astrological signs, hand prints, and refinement or level of spiritual development are all related, and so is the type of music most conducive to the health and well being of any particular individual. We have seven general music classifications which embrace the full range of human evolutionary status in the world. It is needful to have both `low brow' and `high brow' music, just as we range from elementary arithmetic to calculus for different stages of one's educational development."

"Music to me is something mysterious in its power to affect human nature," I said. "In a way, I'm inclined to leave its beauty unanalyzed. Getting scientific about music seems like cutting up rose petals with a scissors."

"Oh, David, your thinking is out of date. This would have been true in your times. The shattering disharmony of your society with our precious and beautiful natural environment speaks for itself. In your time, the beauty of a river might well have been examined `scientifically' and evaluated by how much industrial waste it was capable of carrying down to the sea." Alice spoke these words softly and without a note of criticism.

"I'm sorry, Alice. I surely did not intend to get pompous again. Your patience with me is a wonder. Let me try again to listen to you without bringing up my prejudices. I know that I can understand and learn far more if I will restrain myself from either agreeing or disagreeing and just listen with inner silence as Rama Sandlob instructed me. I have much self discipline to learn with regard to listening to others. Please go on about music."

"Music comes to us from higher realms of consciousness. The very Essence of Life is the Source of inspiring melodies and rhythms, but there is a science behind the mathematically harmonious vibrations in air which we call music. Should one understand why a particular piece of music is considered beautiful and why a melody touches the heart strings, he would have an insight into the Well Springs of Life." Alice said these words with such reverence that I was silent until she spoke again.

"We begin to awaken the soul of an infant to respond to its developing awareness of sound first with simple melodies in clear notes and a rhythm that is similar to a mother's heartbeat. Like their eyes, the ears of the infant must become coordinated. Music develops their ability to respond and gives the infant a sense of both security and joyous adventure. The music reminds the soul of higher realms of consciousness and helps to keep it aware that it is a soul rather than a baby. Heavenly music is nourishment which builds the connecting link between the physical and the spiritual body. It ennobles the mind and improves its capacity for the comprehension of any subject. Music has the power to generate moral courage and steadfastness, nobility of thought, and beauty of character. It provides a universal language which can sharply contrast impurity and weakness with the noble ideals of the race. A combination of music and fairy tales can have an impact upon the developing mind of an infant that will guide the soul entity while it is in a three dimensional state of consciousness." Alice paused with a smile to await my comments.

"You have stimulated my recollections about the power of music. How well I remember the way martial music caused a man to hold his head erect and determine in his heart to act courageously. I remember also how that all which was lovely in the relationship between man and woman was set aside by some of our popular music composers. You need not tell me that music is no longer permitted to be an unwholesome influence in the lives of youth," I said thoughtfully.

"If music could not be misused, it could have no power for good, David. It is a tool to channel the activity of the unconscious mind and thus a matter of exercising discipline and knowledge to insure its constructive use."

"What kind of music is generally good for everyone?"

"We have found that popular light music like Strauss waltzes, Hungarian dance music, folk music and Polkas is best to aid the forces in the body to establish normal health and growth. Such music has a life stimulating rhythm, does not demand concentration to be enjoyed, and produces a sense of well being. Other music which demands concentration from the listener can provide elevating spiritual experiences even to the point of producing a spiritual awakening. This type music is best reserved for such listening but to use it carelessly can be irritating and dulling to one's higher sensitivity."

"Do you teach all children to listen to symphonic music?"

"Only the youth who can respond to the more involved harmony and rhythm; and they first learn to concentrate for at least ten minutes," Alice answered. "We begin training in concentration by asking them to take a simple object like a stone or plant or seed and to keep all of their thoughts upon it. They may contemplate how it originated or what its chemical composition may be, just as long as they do not let their minds wander to another subject."

"That is more difficult than it sounds," I commented.

"Yes, this is true. It was more true in your times."

"What is the next step after they have mastered the training in concentration?" I asked.

"They are asked to listen to a well loved symphony, giving it their rapt attention and awaiting the sounding of each note with joyous anticipation. They are taught to notice what part of their body responds to each note of music and encouraged to see bursts of colors, sparks, as from an exploding rocket, or shimmering rainbow, as well as taking notice of the response in parts of their bodies. They learn that the music actually exists first in their own body and so they should listen with every cell of it rather than just their ears."

"Such an exhilarating experience as that a person could not possibly have while eating a meal or playing a card game or holding conversation," I offered.

"Music may open the doors to an awareness of the Divine Life within and prepare one's consciousness for entry into the Holy of Holies, the very presence of the Maker."

Alice said these words so reverently that I could sense she knew well the experience of which she spoke.