Ever wondered how one can attain six odd minutes of pure ecstasy and sheer bliss? No am not talking about any of those artificially induced highs that make you soar through forbidden territories and bring you back with a sickeningly real thud. I am talking about pure rapture, simple, unadulterated joy that courses through your veins, a sudden rush that fills every part of your being, leaving you blissfully drained but strangely satiated. And a feeling you never thought capable of feeling before, or rather never thought existed within your many, complex layers of consciousness suddenly permeates that hollow space, that space next to your heart, the space that ‘feels’…feels the clench when a terrible realization dawns upon, feels the warmth spreading with the hug of a loved one, feels the sharp stabs when aroused by the green eyed monster, feels the spasms of pain with the loss of a dear one…
Before I raise your expectations, let me tell you the wonder drug I am talking about is nothing but ‘The Moonlight Sonata’, by Beethoven. For those who have heard it, the first few lines will make perfect sense and for those who haven’t, I will quote Leo Buscaglia wherein he states that one cannot explain the masterpiece, one can only feel it. You have to listen to it…again and again and again, till the faint piano and the thuds of your feet are in perfect harmony with every breath of your body, till you feel the life around you coming to a standstill and you find yourself hungrily playing and replaying that mysteriously understated but profoundly powerful piece again and again. A sudden calmness descends over me and I can find myself drifting away into nothingness, paving my path to that illusory promised paradise…the paradise of a quiet, unassuming, innocent mind, a child’s mind, torn away of its deceits and terrors, trusting, believing, happy, calm and at peace with itself. That is what ‘The Moonlight Sonata’ does to me. Suddenly everything is simply beautiful and life seems strangely perfect, even if it is for those six fleeting minutes…for those six precious minutes, life is all it should be…all it can be…all it ever will be.
