To Make Music Is to Die

In the beginning, I believed music was about beauty—melody, precision, a kind of practiced control. I learned to hit the right notes, to shape ragas with reverence. But over the years, a deeper truth revealed itself: music is not made by preserving the self, but by dissolving it. Music, at its highest, is not expression. It is surrender. And this surrender is a kind of death.

Several poems have shaped this understanding—verses I have returned to again and again, not as a scholar but as someone trying to survive the storm and still sing.

Kabir: Dying to Die

ਕਬੀਰਾ ਮਰਤਾ ਮਰਤਾ ਜਗੁ ਮੁਆ ਮਰਿ ਭਿ ਨ ਜਾਨੈ ਕੋਇ ॥
Kabeer, the world is dying – dying to death, but no one knows how to truly die.

ਐਸੀ ਮਰਨੀ ਜੋ ਮਰੈ ਬਹੁਰਿ ਨ ਮਰਨਾ ਹੋਇ ॥੧॥
Die such a death that you do not have to die again.

Kabir’s lines haunted me early in my journey. I was learning compositions from my guru, absorbed in the technicalities. But when I sat to sing, I often found I was still holding on—to ego, to identity, to fear of imperfection. Kabir says everyone dies, but no one knows how to die. What he means, I think, is that most of us clutch at life—our image, our story—even while calling it surrender.

In the moments where music flowed and I disappeared, something else emerged: a glimpse of what Kabir meant. A dying that was not painful, but necessary. The death of self-consciousness. The death of control. And in that dying, something lived. A note. A breath. A stillness that knew more than I did.

Rumi: Dying in Love

If you want to live, die in Love; die in Love if you want to remain alive.

Rumi, with his luminous paradoxes, gave me permission to feel what Kabir demanded. He writes that reason is powerless in the expression of Love. This struck me like thunder. In music, logic has its place—but it cannot take you beyond. Love can.

When I sang with love—not performance, not skill, but love—I found I was not trying to impress the audience or even the Divine. I was trying to disappear into the sound, into the presence the sound invoked.

To “die in love,” as Rumi suggests, is to offer oneself entirely to something greater: the composition, the shabad, the space between notes. I’ve experienced this especially when improvising or singing Gurbani kirtan. There is a moment when the song begins to sing you. That is the moment of death. And also of true life.

Ghalib: Two Steps Ahead of My Shadow

Ajab nashāt se jallād ke chale haiñ ham aage
ki apne saa.e se sar paañv se hain do qadam aage

Ghalib’s lines are stunning in their bravery. He describes walking joyfully toward his executioner, so deeply surrendered that even his own shadow cannot keep up. This isn’t merely poetic bravado—it’s spiritual liberation.

There have been times when I have feared releasing a song. Wondered if it was “good enough,” if I was “ready,” if I was “doing it right.” But then Ghalib whispers: walk joyfully to your beheading. Leave the shadow of expectation behind. Be two steps ahead of your fears, your plans, your self.

To make music is to walk willingly into this kind of annihilation. The kind that strips you of your name but gives you a sound that belongs to no one.

Guru Nanak: The Game of Love

ਜਉ ਤਉ ਪ੍ਰੇਮ ਖੇਲਣ ਕਾ ਚਾਉ ॥ ਸਿਰੁ ਧਰਿ ਤਲੀ ਗਲੀ ਮੇਰੀ ਆਉ ॥
If you desire to play this game of love, step into my lane with your head in your hand.

This shabad has become my compass.

Guru Nanak doesn't invite us gently—he warns us. The game of love is not easy. It requires the ultimate offering: the head, the ego, the “I.” And once you give it, he says, do not hesitate.

Every time I sit to compose or sing, I ask myself: am I willing to lose my head today? Am I willing to die—not physically, but spiritually, to all that separates me from the song? From truth?

This is the radical call of art. And it is the sacred gift of music-making: it doesn’t just require your voice—it requires your death.

Why These Poems Matter

These verses are not merely literary treasures. They are my teachers. In a world where music is often commodified—measured in streams, likes, and views—these poems bring me back to the sanctity of surrender. They remind me that the best music I have made has come not from ambition, but from obliteration. From love. From trust.

They remind me that I am not here to “make it.” I am here to disappear into the sound. To die—again and again—until only the song remains.

Until there is no more dying left to do.