Contact Us/Newsletter
Scroll down for earlier newsletters, most recent first.
Dear meaningofwilderness newsletter subscriber (2/22/2023),
2 ½ years ago someone with better hearing than I advised me all my videos had a high-pitched hiss to them. By great good fortune at that time a new superior virtual piano had been issued. So, I’ve been spending all my time since then redoing all my piano renditions, and thanks to this piano having many microphone options, by endless trial and error I think my current videos are equal or superior in sound to almost everything around. All my videos are at the link below. I have also added Schubert’s Sonata in C minor, and the greatest rags by Scott Joplin, my favorite composer since Schubert.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLqF6mBzKwOSJycY6Z6kV1A
also, the link below lists all of the music that has given meaning and direction to my life — as I’ve written, I don’t know where I’d be, if I’d be if it weren’t for these profoundly spiritual works.
https://www.meaningofwilderness.com/music-of-cabeza/
Two weeks ago my older sister, after a brief bout of pneumonia that affected her heart and kidneys, died, at age 82. At that time I wrote to her children and grandchildren that Beethoven called us: “Finite beings who are the embodiment of an Infinite Spirit.” I wrote then, the finite being is doomed to dissolution, but the Infinite Spirit is beyond time and space. I consider that the following proves this:
Two months ago I saw Dr. Jean Joseph for a prostate biopsy after having an elevated PSA test. My biopsy gave a Gleason score of 6 which normally does not progress therefore I am just pursuing active surveillance. I wrote some of the following to my cousin Dan who also has prostate cancer. (See the below page of my website for dietary means of preventing or controlling prostate cancer and scroll to number 30:
https://www.meaningofwilderness.com/eating-right-to-save-oneself-and-the-planet/
Dr. Joseph is actually a pretty neat guy. An African-Haitian-American with a French accent, has two sons who were violinists in the Eastman student orchestra. He lectures around the world on robotic surgery. The first time I saw him he asked what I did, I said I was retired. He asked what I did before I was retired. I laughed and said I’d driven a school bus and done housecleaning with my wife so that I would have time for meditation and the piano. He then asked why I got into meditation.
I laughed again and said in my teens I had made three suicide attempts. Then at age 20 on an LSD trip feeling utterly crucified, I had the late Beethoven sonatas playing in the background and their infinitely profound meaning of all-embracing eternity slowly seeped into my mind. And I started meditation two months later.
Then, after more discussion, he looked me up online, and my website regarding my book. We talked more and then on the way out he introduced me to a Chinese-American woman — I don’t know why —
telling her I was an author and a pianist. So I felt obligated to leave a copy of Cabeza with the receptionist for him. At my biopsy he thanked me and assured me he’d read it. Below is an
email I sent him after the biopsy:
Dear Dr. Joseph,
As you seemed especially interested [what I printed in bold of Stephen Hawking] in this, I will give you more information, some of which may make it into a revised and updated version of Cabeza (as endnotes) — either at my website or possibly in print. All of it is essentially in the chapter And the Stars, in more detail, without however mentioning The Anthropic Principle by name.
“What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing? Is the unified theory so compelling that it brings about its own existence? Or does it need a creator, and, if so, does he have any other effect on the universe? And who created him?……
However, if we discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe do exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason — for then we would know the mind of God.” — Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time, pages 174-175 [the bold quoted in Cabeza, pages 38, 177, etc.]
From The Anthropic Principle: Man As the Focal Point of Nature, by Reinhard Breuer [1st published in 1981 in German and somewhat out of date. The books mentioned in Cabeza may be better]: “We are here in this quite fantastic universe and have hardly an inkling of whether our existence has a real meaning.” — Fred Hoyle. (Hoyle also was said to have exclaimed, [as quoted in Cabeza, page 176], after reflecting on the “carbon resonance,” without which . . . we would not be here [see earlier on page 176], “The Universe is a put-up job!” Meaning, it is designed for life.)
“As we look out into the universe and identify the many accidents of physics and astronomy that have worked to our benefit, it almost seems as if the universe must in some sense have known that we were coming.” Physicist Freeman J Dyson
Page 8: Weak Anthropic Principle: because there are observers in our universe, the universe must possess properties which permit the existence of these observers.
[The implication is that there must be an infinite number of universes and we can only exist in the one that was just right. See Cabeza chapter, And the Stars. But this also implies there are an infinite number of me's writing this and an infinite number of you's reading, and the next instant there will be an infinite number of each of us just an infinitesimal different from that, etc. etc. Many otherwise sane physicists actually believe this. But I find it philosophically utterly unpalatable.]
Strong Anthropic Principle: the structure of the universe and the particulars of its construction are essentially fixed by the condition that at some point it inevitably produces an observer.
Zen master Huang Po: "This pure Mind, the source of everything, shines forever and on all with the brilliance of its own perfection.… Where do you keep your enlightened mind and your ordinary mind?… How many minds have you got?" Also, the strong anthropic principle proves Carl Sagan's "We are THE way for the universe to know itself." Why should the Universe care about creating an observer unless for some reason it needs to understand itself? As Karen Armstrong writes, reflecting on English mystic Lady Julian of Norwich: “Julian stresses the paradox of God’s mysterious need for mankind.” [Page 275, Cabeza].
Similarly, the “father of American psychology,” William James, writes [Cabeza, page 392], “If this life be not a real fight, in which something is eternally gained for the universe by success, it is no better than a game of private theatricals from which one may withdraw at will. But it feels like a real fight—as if there were something really wild in the universe which we . . . are needed to redeem.” I.e., isn't this life Something more than a game of reproductive success [discussed in depth in Cabeza], Something far beyond our comprehension, Something far beyond words (James’ use of “wild” and “redeem” being, I'm sure he knew, merely provisional) . . . but Something not beyond our finest intuitions? Please, dear reader, look again at the cover of Cabeza. Don't you too sense there's Something more?
Finally, Beethoven had copied out in capital letters, under glass on his work table, the following quotations from ancient Egyptian sources (which he likely learned from his first piano teacher, a Freemason).
I am that which is. I am all that was, that is, that shall be.
No mortal man has lifted my veil.
He is of himself alone, and it is to this Aloneness that all things owe their being.
Egyptologist Jan Assmann considers the above to have influenced the Old Testament where God says to Moses, “I Am That I Am.”
And this brings us to some of my final words to you: The Mind that breathes fire into the equations… IS… your, and my, very own mind. As I write in Cabeza “Thus, therefore, thereby … I sit” (meditate, four hours daily). To “allow mind to know Mind; Being to permeate being.”
Since you seem to have recognized this as being important, I do hope you read Cabeza (preferably straight through), as well as listen to all the music I’ve put on YouTube and put links to at my website. There is also more on the anthropic principle at Wikipedia.
Your fellow observer, Phil Grant
PS I should note that having started at age 19 and perhaps lacking the necessary genes for “talent,” all the practicing in the world (previously four hours daily) was insufficient for me to render these virtuoso works — especially the Beethoven — to the perfection they deserve. But just playing through them, however imperfectly, made me realize how much all concert pianists I have heard did not understand. In fact, if they truly understood (though some do to a degree) they would drop 90% of their repertoire … and do four hours of meditation daily as I do.
But most fortunately, thanks to digital technology, virtual pianos were invented. Every note is recorded at up to 100 levels of intensity and accessed in the computer by means of an electronic keyboard, creating what is called a midi clip — which has the great virtue of allowing absolutely unlimited editing: fixing wrong notes, playing them louder or softer, speeding up, or slowing down to allow unlimited nuances of expression, etc. I make a recording, getting as close as I can, and then spend many months perfecting it. Thus I feel, I know, my renditions of these works on YouTube are the most expressive and technically perfect around.
What is below I am adding for just the newsletter: Cabeza, page 175: The previously mentioned Stanford physicist Andrei Linde has written (Scientific American, November 1994), “[Will] understanding . . . our universe . . . require a deep investigation of our nature, perhaps even including the nature of our consciousness?” Very likely, in my view.
Thus, thereby, therefore . . . I sit.…
However, and very interestingly, Linde also adds that it may be that “Our cosmic home grows, fluctuates, and eternally reproduces itself [through inflationary “bubbles”] in all possible forms, as if adjusting itself for all possible types of life it can support.”
“As if . . . for . . . life.” Interesting. And, as if . . . for . . . consciousness? Linde goes on to say, “We are together, the Universe and us. The moment you say that the Universe exists without any observers, I cannot make any sense out of that. I cannot imagine a consistent theory of everything that ignores consciousness. . . .” Paul Davies writes in Cosmic Jackpot: Why Our Universe Is Just Right for Life (p5; the above quote of Linde is also found in Cosmic Jackpot), “Somehow the Universe has engineered, not just its own awareness, but also its own comprehension. Mindless, blundering atoms have conspired to make not just life, not just mind, but also understanding. The evolving Cosmos has spawned beings who are able not merely to watch the show, but to unravel the plot. What is it that enables [this]?”
Below are some quotes from his more recent book, What’s Eating the Universe: And Other Cosmic Questions, by Paul Davies
Page 126 Middle: “My Own feeling is that, even if the Multiverse exists, it doesn’t explain everything. In the eternal inflation version of a Multiverse, for example, there needs to be a universe-creating mechanism — a bubble generator — based on some physical laws. In the inflating superstructure itself uses the laws of quantum mechanics and general relativity. The origin of those laws remains unexplained. You could cook up any number of different Multiverse models with different overarching laws in different bubble universe generators. So, the problem is just shifted up a level: instead of “Why this universe?” One can ask, “Why this Multiverse?” There may be no end to this ontological paper trail.”
Page 155 “the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it’s incomprehensible.” — Albert Einstein
Page 157: “It seems to me that if we can extract since from nature, then there must be something like “since” in nature. By this I mean that nature is “about” something, and interconnecting rational scheme that for some reason can be grasped by the human mind.… [158] how has this come about? How have human beings become privy to nature subtle and elegant scheme? Somehow the universe has engineered, not just its own awareness, but its own comprehension. Mindless, blundering atoms have conspired to spawn beings who are not able merely to watch the show, but to unravel the plot, to engage with the totality of the cosmos in the silent mathematical tune to which it dances.”
Page 159 bottom: “Every scientist who ops to work on profound cosmic questions is confronted by the stark choice: either like Sean Carroll, take universe for what it is — and inexplicable fact — and get on with the practical job of doing science, or accept that the entire scientific enterprise rests on a deeper layer of rational order. If the latter is the case, a pressing question is whether science will ever advance to the point where we can fully grasp that deeper layer. That is the biggest of all the big questions discussed in this book.”
Best, Phil
Hello subscriber to www.meaningofwilderness.com newsletter,
I have just posted on YouTube Beethoven Sonata 30, Opus 109. Instead of my photos which I’ve posted with my other videos, this time I’ve used deeply expressive portraits of Beethoven, which give us an idea of everything he went through to compose his most spiritually profound last works. With these are his own words and those of Rainier Maria Rilke, which give us further insights. (I have however just posted at my website photos from a recent trip to Canyonlands National Park’s amazing Maze District. Click here.)
Below is an excerpt from Cabeza regarding the Sonata, followed by further discussion and excerpts:
“. . . . . . And part of me, a mysterious and silent inner part of me . . . just watched the whole thing.
And somehow—I don’t know how, I didn’t try to make it happen, I didn’t want it to happen—somehow that still, unmoving, unmovable part, throughout that long night, began to take precedence. All the other turmoil was still there but . . . it was as if there were a glow in my mind, albeit behind a curtain, not fully revealed by a long, long, long shot, but still . . . a glow . . . as if the entire Universe were right there . . . gently . . . and ever so tenderly. . . .
Smiling. . . . In stillness unutterably profound. . . .
I often wonder if there’s a single person out there who will like this book, even assuming I find a publisher. And I’m absolutely certain there are many who will hate it or just think, “This is ridiculous!”
But there’s at least one person who might have appreciated it: my buddy Beethoven. . . . . . .The sonata of his I’ve been working on for the last thirty-five years [now 50], No. 30, Op. 109 in E Major, which, when its meaning seeped into my mind at a time of great despair, changed my life and led me to meditation, has in the second variation of the third movement a phrase marked teneramente: tenderly. That entire last movement describes with the depth, precision, and intensity impossible for words, unimaginable through words, the “gently . . . and ever so tenderly. . . . Smiling” . . . Universe? God? Reality? Truth? Christ? Call it what you will, this IT is, in the English mystic Lady Julian of Norwich’s words, “The ground of our being.” And as the movement progresses the curtain dissipates, evaporates, and before our eyes heaven and earth break wide open . . . and all is radiance, sheer radiance, until the concluding “gentle and ever so tender” refrain returns.
The first movement might be summed up in Zen master Huang Po’s words: “glorious and mysterious peaceful joy.” But the second may seem totally and terribly out of place, as it reveals an inhuman and apparently demonic and chthonic power of infinite intensity that does not give one single whit for what we want. Think tsunami, which in moments wipes out the lives of a quarter million and the livelihood of many times that. (But the movement of the earth’s plates that caused it may be one of the many conditions necessary for making the evolution of complex life possible. See Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon In the Universe, by Peter D. Ward and Donald Brownlee.) Think asteroid, which extinguishes 90% of earth’s life including the supremely successful, but dumb, dinosaurs. (But makes conditions propitious for the evolution of a certain self-aware creature sixty-five million years later.) Think supernova, which vaporizes all in its vicinity. (But creates the very atoms necessary for life. See Atom, by Lawrence Krauss.) And, also, think of a certain sexually transmitted organism that so “tragically” foreshortened the life of a certain composer. (But led to the composition of some of the most sublime works known. [Schubert’s Sonata in B-flat — see my rendition on YouTube — and Quintet in C major]).
And now I shall present a view, learned from long and hard and painful experience, and from my “friends [Bach, Beethoven, and Schubert],” that I’m certain virtually every reader (if there are any left) will find completely unpalatable, indigestible, unbearable, and unendurable. To wit, that the first and third movements, and the second, are just two sides of the same coin . . . and that every last gram of human misery, not pain but misery and suffering, is due to our wanting and fearing . . . which themselves are rooted in our genes, driving us to attain reproductive success. Beethoven himself understood this profoundly, for he wrote, “We finite beings, who are the embodiment of an infinite spirit, are born only for joy and pain, and it could be said that the most distinguished of us know joy through pain.”
And also: Let us begin with the primary original causes of all things, how something came about, wherefore and why it came about in that particular way and became what it is, why something is what it is, why something cannot be exactly so!!! Here, dear friend, we have reached the ticklish point, which my delicacy forbids me to reveal to you at once. All that we can say is: it cannot be.
But, in the second movement of the Sonata and in the first two movements of the Ninth Symphony he drops his “delicacy” and reveals, in all its utterly terrifying glory, that “ticklish point.” But here, even in this movement of the Sonata we have not yet reached the limits of unpalatability.
There was a Zen “master” who said, “You must endure the unendurable.” I would not say “you,” I would not say “must,” I would not say “endure.” I will only say, for myself and at least a few others, it has been unavoidably necessary to experience quite considerable, to put it very mildly, mental and physical “discomfort,” learning ever so painfully slowly not to react . . . but just to let it sit there in the mind. Not attempting to do a single thing about it. In full awareness, without trying to be aware because as human beings we are aware . . . if we don’t try to deny that awareness.
I once related to my astute spouse Yogi Berra’s maxim, “Baseball is 90% mental; the other half is physical.” Instantly she put her finger on it: “They overlap!” Precisely, and most if not all of us have observed how our mental resistance, i.e. fear, can make physical pain far more intense, just as fear also dulls or diminishes physical pleasure. So, if in an incomprehensible manner all of our near-infinite resistance to pain can be let go of . . . then, and only then it becomes possible for the second movement to transform into the third. . . . . . .”
I have now also recorded Beethoven’s Sonatas 31 and 32 (Opus 110 and 111), with discussions of each.
For a discussion of 32 see the short chapter from Cabeza, Me and the Moon, at www.wildernessofmindzc.org/
Interestingly, not long ago I was thinking of the three last Beethoven sonatas, running their keys through my mind: E major, A flat major, and C minor.
First, I think he chose C minor for the last because it could be considered a revision of his famous C minor Fifth Symphony. Beethoven called us “Finite beings with an infinite spirit . . .” the Fifth Symphony is the embodiment of the finite being struggling, struggling , struggling mightily to overcome its fate. Cabeza:
“. . . . . .It is truly an extraordinary, revolutionary symphony, often paired on albums with Schubert’s “Unfinished.” But they are really quite dissimilar. It’s driving, haunting theme, described by Beethoven himself as “Fate knocks at the door,” pervades all four movements. The Fate that made him deaf. The Fate that drove him to think of suicide. The Fate that is at bottom Fear personified and demonized. And it is Fear Beethoven is showing us in its starkest, most terrifying intensity in this symphony. And showing us how he has . . . “conquered” Fear.
Oh, how gloriously he convinces us (and himself) that he has triumphed over Fate and Fear, stamping the knowledge deep into our minds with the last movement’s almost-unending final chords, exhilarating us too, to think that . . . we can do it too!
But perhaps in that work . . . a few too many “final” chords. . . .”
In the C minor Sonata, on the other hand, the finite being is indeed struggling, utterly in vain, through the entire first movement. But, Cabeza, Me and the Moon:
Beethoven’s last Piano Sonata, No. 32 in C minor, opus 111: Hans von Bulow, the late-nineteenth-century pianist and conductor, writes in the notes to my edition that the two movements of this piece may be characterized as “Resistance . . . Resignation, or, still better, Samsara . . . Nirvana.”. . . . . . A Zen koan: What do you do if you are trapped in a burning house with no escape? The answer . . . lies in the second movement. Von Bulow says “Resignation” but this is not accurate in its usual sense. Nirvana? A term trivialized by the perhaps justly cynical. One answer to that koan (there is no “right” answer to a koan because the “answer” is . . .) is given in The Three Pillars of Zen: Die, what else. Beethoven understood. The first movement—the last pages of which remind me of nothing so much as a bird fluttering wildly, hopelessly trapped in an inescapable net—literally dies away. And from the ashes arises. . . . . . .”
But getting back to the keys of the last three sonatas, thinking to myself, E major, A flat major, C minor . . . it suddenly hit me! E, A flat, C: that’s a tritone. The most unpleasant sound in all of music. It was even banned during the Middle Ages and called the devil’s chord. (See my commentary on my rendition of the Prelude and Fugue in C Major by Bach.) That’s what Beethoven had to go through to get to that “Nirvana,” bliss, joy, whatever you want to call it, that can only be found in the province of the infinite spirit. Cabeza, Me and the Moon, again:
“And then there is. . . . . . . Words are impotent here. They only have use in describing shared emotions and experiences. The second movement, the Arietta, is shared by few indeed. Not by me for sure until . . . Beethoven “spread ITs rays.” You could call it ecstasy, but there’s that drug and besides, ecstasy is something that happens to you. The second movement does not happen to anyone. It is, when there is no one there wanting. Or trying. Or fearing. Just “a condition of complete simplicity, costing not less than everything.” . . . . . . Let’s call it J-y. All-caring. All-consoling. All-suffering. All-embracing. All-loving. All-encompassing. All-knowing. All-everything.
Not much more I can say. It’s there, waiting: here . . . now . . . always. Listen to it . . . when you’re ready. . . .”
It’s also important to note that in the great slow movement of the previous Sonata, No. 29, the “Hammerklavier,” one of the most soulful pieces ever composed, there are two moments when he seems to reach a state of utter perfection, utter most profound infinite peace . . . . . . but then falls back. And the last movement is filled with to my mind, the very unsatisfactory manic striving — intentionally almost impossible to play? — of the fugue.
But sometime between finishing that Sonata and starting the last three . . . Beethoven’s finite being “resigned,” gave in, gave up, let go of the whole miserable mess of being human, let himself know those devil’s chords to the nth degree, and passed on to us three of the greatest treasures in all music, which are among the limited few which have truly guided my entire life. And it’s interesting to note that Beethoven himself said he composed those three sonatas “in a single breath.” While it took him from 1820-22 to get them down on paper, it’s obvious the same experience — of the infinite spirit — informed them all, as well as the Ninth Symphony, composed concurrently.
Getting to the quotations I put with the portraits of Beethoven (which incidentally are chronological, from 1818 to 1823), the first two were to Countess Erdody (on whose estate he seems to have attempted suicide by self-starvation after his failure in love in the famous Immortal Beloved affair, disappearing for days only to reappear highly disheveled; he also came very close to suicide in 1802 when he realized he was becoming deaf) in 1815:
1. “We finite beings, who are the embodiment of an infinite spirit, are born only for joy and pain, and it could be said that the most distinguished of us know joy through pain.”
2. “Man cannot avoid suffering . . . he must endure without complaining and feel his worthlessness, and then achieve his perfection, that perfection which the Almighty will then bestow upon him.” [Note the “feel his worthlessness.” This does not mean berating oneself through thought; rather, feeling intimately how incapable of approaching the infinite spirit the finite being is . . . through its own volition.]
And then, around the time he was writing the Ninth Symphony in 1823:
3. “There is nothing higher than to approach the Godhead more nearly than other mortals, and by means of that contact spread the rays of the Godhead throughout the human race.”
Also, Beethoven at the end of his life had on his worktable under glass the following quotes, copied out in capital letters, of inscriptions he had recently learned were found in the temple of the goddess Neith in lower Egypt:
I am that which is.
I am all that was, that is, and that shall be. No mortal man hath lifted my veil.
He is of Himself alone, and it is to this Aloneness that all things owe their being.
Interestingly, Jan Assmann writes in The Mind of Egypt that the religious understanding expressed in these quotes very likely influenced Moses, for in Exodus 3:14 (in the King James translation), God responds to Moses’ asking of his name: “I am that I am.” (In newer translations it’s “I am the Being One.” I also just saw Wikipedia that in Hebrew I am can also mean I was, or I shall be — or perhaps all three, since Being is beyond time and space.)
Then there’s the quote from Rilke: “. . . as soon as we accept life’s most terrifying dreadfulness, at the risk of perishing from it . . . then an intuition of blessedness will open up for us. . . . Whoever does not, sometime or other, give his full consent, his full and joyous consent, to the dreadfulness of life will have been neither alive nor dead. To show the identity of dreadfulness and bliss, these two faces on the same divine head, indeed this one single face, which just presents itself this way or that, according to our distance from it or the state of mind in which we perceive it—: this is the true significance and purpose of the Elegies and the Sonnets. . . .”
It’s clear to me that Beethoven understood from quotes 1 and 2 precisely what he needed to do. This was a very dry time for him but in 1816 he composed Sonata 28, Opus 101, the first movement of which is extremely beautiful (and which I’ve worked on) and shows his entering the realm of the Infinite Spirit. Then the slow movement of Sonata 29, in 1818 (which I’ve also worked on) brings him even closer . . . . . . until finally in 1820 . . . he breaks through. And “explains” it all to us over the seven years he has left, which also include his final masterpieces, Quartets 12-16.
Regarding the Rilke quote, he really just means it all depends on whether we view from the vantage point of the finite being, or the Infinite Spirit within us, that determines if we experience dreadfulness or bliss.
And the “No mortal man has lifted my veil.” I.e. no finite being. Interestingly Vincent van Gogh wrote almost the same thing as the second quote at the time of the famous incident when he cut off his ear. “To suffer without complaining is the one lesson that has to be learned in this life.” Sadly, he did not learn it thoroughly — do any of us? — and killed himself a year and a half later.
Van Gogh also wrote: ““How strange these last three months do seem to me. Sometimes moods of indescribable mental anguish, sometimes moments when the veil of time . . . seemed to be torn apart for an instant.” Indescribable mental anguish — for the finite being. But “the veil of time . . . torn apart” . . . allowing him to see “for an instant,” that state of utter perfection beyond time and space. See this page of my website and scroll down for more about van Gogh.
Finally, others have noted that the final bar of Sonata 30 has a pedal down indication, but not followed by pedal up. They take this to mean it’s meant to go on forever. But recently, when I played the end of Sonata 30 followed by 31 for my wife, she said she couldn’t tell where one ended in the next began. I think that perhaps was Beethoven’s intention, even to have all three performed in succession. Hans von Bülow frequently did this in recitals, even with all five of the last sonatas. In the excerpt above I mentioned how the meaning of Sonata 30 “seeped into my mind at a time of great despair, changed my life and led me to meditation,” but actually I had tape recorded the last three in succession and was playing them over and over and over . . .
But meditation, prayer, whatever you want to call it, is utterly pointless unless one learns what Beethoven so well in his last works showed to us, the eternal necessity of suffering . . . without complaining. Because this is the only way to find freedom from the finite being, created through 3.8 billion years of evolution. See Cabeza for more, but all of the meditation, prayer, techniques I’ve ever heard of — and I probably tried them all — ultimately end up as just a way for the finite being to stay in control. Maybe to have a nice experience from time to time . . . but never, never, never, find freedom from that finite being (which I call the unfree will in Cabeza). I think I show conclusively in Cabeza that the five spiritual teachers I’ve known the most about never found that freedom.
There is more at my review of Beethoven: The Man Revealed at www.meaningofwilderness.com , my other website pages, and especially my piano/photo videos of the greatest works of Bach and Schubert, all of which include discussion of the works.
Best, Phil
Dear www.meaningofwilderness.com newsletter subscriber,
I have recently posted at YouTube Schubert’s Sonata in B-flat D. 960, composed when he was dying of syphilis at age 31. Seven weeks later he was gone. Mitsuko Uchida said, in a New Yorker article, “And Schubert . . . is the one you will be listening to when you die.”
Beethoven wrote, “We finite beings, are the embodiment of an infinite spirit . . .” Schubert, knowing his finite being had not long to live, found within himself that infinite spirit, and passed on this extraordinary understanding to us. See the essay I have posted along with the music, “The Last Sonata,” for more (and the notes I recently added at the end). It may well be the most spiritually significant piece ever composed since, as I have written, while Bach and Beethoven, in their last and greatest works, may give us a clearer view of Truth, Schubert gives us more explicit directions.
Having begun studying the piano as an adult, I have by no means the technique of Uchida or any other of today’s greatest artists. Yet I feel, in part because of my own life experience, I understand this work to deeper level. Thanks to having a virtual piano (which I play by means of an electric keyboard through my computer) I record into what is called a MIDI clip which gives me unlimited editing abilities, making up not only for my lack of technique but also giving me the opportunity to put nuances into the music I frankly never heard done by others. I can only say the end result pleases me more, far more than the recordings of the countless other artists I have listened to.
So I suggest you may want to give it a chance. Also, if you click on my name at YouTube you will see my other videos, so far just some of the greatest works of Bach. In the future I will be posting more Bach, as well as the last three great sonatas Beethoven.
Thank you for your interest, Phil Grant
Print