December 2000

Music of The Universe
Excerpts from an interview with Maharishi on February 8, 1991

Interviewer: Maharishi, can you explain Gandharva Veda?

Maharishi: In the whole universe, there are so many galaxies, so many solar systems, so many worlds, and they all are moving in perfect harmony. There is a rhythm, there is a flow, there is an order in the rhythmic patterns of the evolutionary process in the universe.

The ever-expanding universe, with its mechanics of creation and evolution, is all very rhythmical, very melodious. And this rhythm and melody is the field of Gandharva Veda.

So we say Gandharva Veda is the music of the universe. It’s the melody of the fundamental intelligence of Nature, which administers the infinite diversity of everything in the universe in the most orderly way. Gandharva Veda is the music of Nature which governs the universe from point to infinity.

We have been teaching Transcendental Meditation in the world for the last 35 years, and every Meditator feels that they begin to move with Nature. Life becomes more harmonious, more melodious, more nourishing.

Melody nourishes life, it nourishes the process of evolution, it helps everyone to evolve. And this is the effect of Gandharva music.

We became fond of Gandharva music as a means for creating an integrated world consciousness, harmony in world consciousness, and world peace. Gandharva music concerts create a more melodious, melting, harmonious, healthy, nourishing influence in the whole world consciousness.

We use Gandharva Veda as a means to purify world consciousness in the same way we use Transcendental Meditation to integrate mind and body—consciousness and matter. This integration is also the characteristic of the Gandharva melodies.

Interviewer: Can you find Gandharva Veda in all music?

Maharishi: All music is some expression of Gandharva Veda. When the Gandharvans sing, we feel the harmonizing influence rising from the transcendental level of consciousness.

Gandharva music has its ground on Transcendental Consciousness—pure consciousness—that infinite level of intelligence from where all the Laws of Nature emerge, from where all the activities in the universe emerge. So anything in the field of speech, any music, has its source in Gandharva Veda.

Interviewer: You want to bring Gandharva Veda music to the whole world. What will be the influence?

Maharishi: Elimination of pollution; elimination of negative tendencies, crime and quarrels; elimination of imbalance in the physiology and behavior. Better quality of life, better behavior, better health. Gandharva Veda generates balance, harmony and integration. It’s a very great influence.

Just as through the group practice of Transcendental Meditation, harmony increases in the environment, and when 7,000 people practice Transcendental Meditation and Yogic Flying together, this harmony extends to the whole world, we see a similar effect on the collective level of consciousness through Gandharva Veda.

Those who listen to it will have the direct effect of it. Even those who don’t listen will benefit, since the quality of the environment rises in the character of harmony and integration, neutralizing negative trends and tendencies in the world. Gandharva music goes along with Transcendental Meditation. Everything that is good will improve, and what is not useful to life will simply fall off.

Gandharva music is one of the programs that we are sponsoring in the world in order to create all good everywhere, to create Heaven on Earth.

Heaven on Earth—we have heard that angels are there, always rhythmical, always melodious, always floating in bliss. That is what we want for life on earth.

Maria Stüken is a radio journalist in Germany.