Everyone knows that 'being in the moment' provides the highest quality on every level of life, music and art.

As a singer, being present here and now is absolutely necessary to sing freely and beautifully.

But for a long time I always thought that this is a dicipline which is very difficult to realise.

I thought that I had to overcome fear and that I somehow needed to quiet my mind, feel my body and breath good.

It always seemed something for a far or near future to reach that level of 'presence'.

 

Untill I saw that there is nothing but this moment.

This is not an idea, or a nice goal in order to feel happy and to be freed of worries.

It is simply everything there is.

There ìs simply nothing else than this moment.

Whatever your mind will think or say.

This simple understanding implies that there is absolutely no choice between being in the mind or being here and now. Whatever is the case, it is always and only now.

Every goal imagined outside here and now is happening here and now. You cannot escape this presence! It is absolutely impossible.

 

I'm not going to tell you what it means when you understand that there is nothing else then now. But perhaps you can imagine that the whole activity based on achieving something in the future, even one second further, stops.

Every creature stops fighting, when the ennemy is gone.

The ennemy was the presumption that something exists outside this here and now and that you, the centre of your life, is responsable for the outcome.

This presumption of a future has this hidden agenda: it keeps the idea of you as being the centre and the doer of your life alive.

In realising that there is no future in reality, it implies that 'you', as the responsable activator, is also a presumption projected in a future (or a past, which is the same).

 

But this is what your mind tells you every moment of you life.

It says that in order to sing beautifully, you have to maintain certain conditions, otherwise it will fail.

At the same time you're fighting the stress and the fears which go togheter with this conviction. You try to relaxe and bring your attention in a fearfree, but controlled state.

What a job! What a war!!

And all this is taking place her and now, and nothing outside here and now exits.

There is nothing that you can do in order to change the future. NOthing.

Because in your only reality, there is no future, there is only here and now.

You know this! Don't you? When you feel hurted you know it for sure!

How much hurt is needed to see this truth?

Do you see how totally useless the effort is to prevent hurt to be, when there is hurt? It is always to late!!

And do you also see, how enormous destructive this denial of what is already the case is? Fear, stress, anger, contraction etcetera is growing and growing in this denial.

The only thing which can happen is that you somehow see, that nothing exists outside here and now. That there is nothing you can do, but living this what is now the case.

This is precisely the secred of beauty.

This is the miracle.

 

When this presumption collapses, and it does right now, then the whole condition of your 'way of being' will change. And that change is not of your concern and has nothing to do with what you do or don't do.

That change is the simple, natural state of being which always was already the case, but was never embraced as such.

That change is what we call: Beauty. Stilness. Enlightment. Nothingness. And so on and so on.

When you remind yourself, everytime when your mind is making up some kind of a future, that this is totally insane, then directly this proces of awakening is activated.

It just happens by itself. And you will only remember when you really look good into this. When will this occur?

The spontanuous life of your true nature remains.

That's what is always already living, but was always overlooked.

 

And this is the only thing you can do when you sing.

Knowing and reminding this knowing that there only is; this. This moment.

No thing else.

Only this is eternity.

The eye of the needle is this now!

Always perfect, whole and beautifull.

 

Wanneer aandacht aldus samenvalt met de muzikale fenomenen zèlf, het zingen zèlf, en zich niet opsplitst en schijnbaar vastzet in projecties, dan zingt het moeiteloos en zuiver.

 

Deze 'directe' zang staat ook bekend als 'Speech Level Singing', en wordt gebruikt door alle grote zangers en popzangers (Michael Jackson, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, etc).

De directheid zit hem in het 'zingend binnengaan van de spraakbeweging', waardoor het hele energieveld vanzelf meedraagt aan de klank. Alle betrokken zangspieren gehoorzamen dan holistisch, als eenheid, aan deze klankgebaren.

 

Dit zingen is altijd meditatie; realisatie van de volheid van leven.

Mantra's, Gregoriaanse, Tibetaanse -en Soefiegezangen, zijn allemaal ontstaan om deze zangrealisatie waarin de geest opgaat in het Zelf, te laten zijn.

 

Binnenkort komt het boek 'Ontwaken aan de Muze' op de markt. Hierin wordt uitgebreid ingegaan op de natuurlijke verlegging van aandacht van denken en willen , naar hier en nu zijn, zowel in muzikale als in algemene zin.