Shivpreet Singh
Shivpreet Singh
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W.H.Auden And A Summary of Musee des Beaux Arts

Musee des Beaux Arts is a poem that focuses on human suffering, tragedy and pain by contrasting the lives of those who suffer and those who do not. The vehicle by which this is achieved is the world of painting, in particular the work of the old masters.

This poem is about this particular painting ... everything goes on as normal despite the suffering of one man who’s falling from the sky because he flew too close to the sun with his wings made of wax:



Musee des Beaux Arts

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position: how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
Taking notes on how to Sing like Guru Nanak

  • What is not Guru Nanak's song: work hard, naam japo, vand chhako. How about fight the right fight? How about revolution? That is part of Guru Nanak's teaching. What is that part of? Working hard? I dont think so. Naam Japna ... not in the way it is defined here. Serving? A noble cause, perhaps this is what it is but I don't think so. 
  • The Baghdad analogy. Going elsewhere. Talking to someone who is not your kith and kin. And talking to convince. A whole different kind of love is needed.   
  • His philosophy is to sing. The learning how to sing is a lifetime objective. 
  • Why not just listen to exactly what he said. Naam Japo. But how. And even that he tells us. 
  • While I do get requests for me to teach singing. And before I hear thanks for this, let me remind you: Hold your praise or gratitude.  I am not doing this for you.  I am doing this for me. I am doing this so I can sing better. If you can sing better because of this, the gratitude goes to where the song originated, not to me.  

Remember Naam

Always. Guru Arjan's Saas Saas and Bhinni Rainariye. Perpetual Motion (Tony Hoagland). Incessant.  

Multiple ways. There is no one way - example composed something from upanishads. The freedom of music. The freedom of expression. It opens everything up. 

Truth.  Truth. The song reminds of the truths that cannot be questioned. Like John Keats says, "[poetry] should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance."

Learning. You don't have to be different. You can learn from many people. Picking the true guru. The key difference between the. The true guru directs you to truth.

Sehaj. The music comes naturally. The song happens. Like John Keats says, " if poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree, it had better not come at all." With ease. 

Love. Guru Arjan Dev's Stranger. 

Good deeds. Deh Shiva. Miles to go before. Bhai Gurdas -mullahs. 

Sweet words. [included in good deeds]

Good listening. [included in good deeds]

Travel. Travel into the mind. Guru Gobind Singh's Sanyasa. Tony Hoagland's Perpetual motion. 

Swimming - Crossing with ocean with Bhagat Namdev. [same as travel?]

Focus. This person is sending me Rumi quotes everyday. one instrument. one companion. focused on traveling for so long. then focused on farming. meditative practice which was morning and evening. He was able to accomplish so much because of focus.

Humility. Guru Nanak was first and foremost a student. The sikhs call him Guru. example I asked someone the meaning of these lines by Bhai Gurdas. falling on the feet. He fell at the feet of people? All the stories we have show how people fell at his feet. But Guru Nanak was different. He actually fell at the feet of those who were enlightened. 

Sources: 

John Keats: "... if poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree, it had better not come at all."

Keats: http://www.john-keats.com/briefe/270218.htm

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SHIVPREET SINGH

Singing oneness!
- Shivpreet Singh

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