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What they call Interests, those have gone;

New ones in their place must be born;

I sit, pensive, pensive ’bout nothing –

Nowhere to go and nothing to sing –

And when I try, ’tis the world’s own discord;

But I can still listen to the Lord.

What they call Passions, those I control;

For if I don’t, they’ll cause misery untold;

I sit motionless, thinking about but nothing –

The heavens to attain if thought but took wing!

But such’s not to try, for it moves of its own accord;

Yet, in such dimness, I can listen to the Lord.

What they call Strength, in me I don’t witness;

Call it or strength, or life, or passion, or finesse;

All’s sapped into but a single thought –

A thought of nothingness, one large Nought;

No Should nor Ought for me now. I can’t afford

Not to keep listening and listening to the Lord.

Beethoven-Lord empowers the survival-will

Of those by Life made miserable-ill;

I go to him who Acts not on Whim;

For dear life now I hang by Him.

The system of time division of the ancient Hindus features a profoundly interesting pattern: Mathematically, it builds up from Man to God (see Beethoven and the God-Conception), and experientially, it builds up according to the time dilation and expansion we have, at some time or the other, experienced.

From Wikipedia: One tithi (lunar day) is the time it takes for the longitudinal angle between the moon and the Sun to increase by 12 degrees. Tithis vary in duration from approximately 19 to approximately 26 hours.

One paksa (lunar fortnight) consists of 15 tithis.

One Maasa (lunar month) is twice the above.

One Hritu (season) lasts 2 Maasa

Three Hritus make one Ayana, two of which make a human year.

This is one day of the gods (the devas).

4,800 divine years equalling 1,728,000 human years equal one Satyug (one grand era of perfect peace).

3,600 divine years, equalling 1,296,000 human years is one Tretah Yuga (one grand era of relative equanimity).

2,400 divine years, equalling 864,000 human years is one Dvaapara Yuga, which is one grand era of degenerated lawfulness.

1,200 divine years, which is 432,000 human years, equals one Kali Yuga, an era of the present kind.

So, 12,000 divine years, summing the four Yugas, equals 4,320,000 human years; this is called one Mahaa-Yuga.

A thousand Mahaa-Yugas equal a Kalpa, which is one day (only the day; not the night) of Brahma, the Creator.

From the Music we have heard, we may devise a similar, albeit not perfectly accurate, system of time:

One Music-Microcosm is the time it takes for the Mind’s eye to broaden by 12 degrees. Music-Elements vary in duration from 19 to 26 minutes; 60 Music-Microcosms, by repetition, comprise a Music-Element.

One Theme (or Variation), for us a fortnight’s worth of truth and music, consists of 15 Music-Elements.

One Theme & Variation pair (for us, a month’s worth of truth and music) is twice the above.

One Movement lasts 2 Themes.

Three Movements make one Master-composition, two of which make a human year. This is one day of the Gods (any of the four Masters).

4,800 Mozart-years (equalling 1,728,000 human years) equal a grand era of perfect peace.

3,600 Schubert-years, equalling 1,296,000 human years equal one grand era of sad equanimity.

2,400 Brahms-years, equalling 864,000 human years, is one grand era of cunning victory, which also encompasses sentimentality.

1,200 divine years, which is 432,000 human years, equals one Beethoven-Era, an era we have as our Legacy.

So, 12,000 divine years, summing the Grand Years of the Four Masters, equals 4,320,000 human years; this is called one Mastermusic-Aeon.

In contrast with the system of the ancient Hindus, in the Music of the kind we have heard, time lies condensed within time: A thousand Mastermusic-Aeons equal one Supreme-Beethoven, the last movement of Opus 131, String Quartet Nr. 14 in C# minor. Ludwig van Beethoven’s Mastermovement, unheeding to – yet irrevocably part of – one Mastermusic-Aeon is contained within the Scheme of Time He Himself decides. With this, His Day is done (cf Wagner).

Beethoven is the god, and the name is a symbol; the tangible is the music. If I were to have said “this is music,” and generalised it with the sounds we hear, and with other music like pop music, then there would be no Master.

Yes, that is indeed a possibility; it is music for its own sake — and then it would carry infinite potential for degeneration:

Music for its own sake >> Entertainment, for self >> Recreation (which can be useful) >> Fun (where recreation takes on a form where I am the centre) >> The opposite of boredom; a connection with something at all, instead of disconnection from the world including myself, which is death >> Just a means of passing time, where anything else would do and anything really will do to pass the time, because nothing is required >> And therefore, emptiness.

From there, one comes to: If Beethoven indeed is a god, and the symbol of one, and the music is the tangible, can we extend the above idea to our gods, to “God”? The answer is a resounding Yes. Because:

(a) The idea of Beethoven as “God” might be innate to me, but that innate idea of God we all carry; and

(b) When the tangible is music, it blends with the ordinary, the “real,” with what we call life. Music, as has been explored by the intellectuals and as has been experienced every day by the millions, is the bridge between the sensual and the sublime. (That phrase – “the bridge between…” is someone else’s creation; I do not recollect the name.)

Yes, we can extend the idea. But what does that mean? What is it that is useful which emerges from the extension? It is this: To take oneself away from the idea that the symbol is more than the symbol; and hence, to take oneself towards the tangible. That transition is useful.

The example now is Beethoven and the music. When one is stricken by the symbol, one asks: What was that man’s childhood like? Is it a myth that his drunken father forced him into piano lessons, or is it the truth? Was there really a woman whom he called the Immortal Beloved? Did he frequent prostitutes at some stage of his life, or was he celibate to the point of his death? These questions have led to the matter of countless papers and chapters of books, of voluminous speculation, all of which is considerably less constructive than the question of whether one should, or can, or wishes to, consume food of Italian as opposed to Mexican cuisine for lunch.

When one detaches from the symbol, one arrives at the tangible: In this case, the music. After the Appassionata, one hardly needs to question what the man behind the music – two hundred years ago – ate. After the ninth symphony, one does not necessarily wish to know what kind of person the composer was. After op. 131, one scarcely cares whether there was a human responsible for those godly sounds we hear.

So often I have asked people, “Why do you care who the man was? – Why not just listen to the music?” The answer, I suspect, is the all-too-common petty interest in people, which in turn arises from the fact that it is easier to look at a person than to look at a thing. My humble submission is that, were one to genuinely listen to the Mastermusic, one would not care for the human entity behind it. The sublimity is present in the music; no-one need bother about the sublime nature, or otherwise, of the man – and whether this view of the man as Master is valid or not.