About Classic Music and RAGA
 

    The relationship between the human soul and God has a central place in spiritual thought. Awareness of the soul's unity with God is the fruit of genuine spiritual experience. And it is only a small step to perceive a spiritual dimension in the artistic creations of mankind. Indian culture, which has never fallen foul of the temptation to regard "spirituality" as something divorced from everyday life, regards music as a reflection of the divine spirit; and the musician's role is often spoken of in terms of a spiritual quest or sadhana. For musical sadhana, the mind must apprehend the Self and its myriad relationships with the Raga, in intensely personal and subjective ways, so that its nature is deeply felt and emotionally assimilated.
A Raga is a a matter of notes and, more importantly, it is also a run of colors, of feelings, of subtle intimations of spark of life sleeps in it and wakens every time it is sung or played. Raga is not scientific, nor is it and art; it is organic.
Without life a raga does not exist. And the source of a learning of Raga music consists in its essence in intensifying lives. But until one has discovered a RAGA for oneself from the stuff of our own life, it is of no use, of any life. That is why the life one lives, becomes the spirit and the essence of the RAGAS one sing or plays. As the famous Bismillah Khan said: "Ragas cannot be coerced. If you force them, they at once become scales, and who wants to listen to scales? you have to give them life and they cannot get life from anywhere else except from you. So the measure of your music is how much life you have to give the Ragas you sing or play".

Ragas open up directions for growth and discovery.
Ragas are infinite; they have no containing limitations except the human being. IN order to make them temporal they are embodied in varying kinds of structures and forms. But these are growing forms. And none of this music is written.

How is Raga made? First, you make a scale. Take any five notes, minimum. Then, lay them in such a way that they have an up-scale (Aroha) and a downscale (Avaroha) direction for its motion. Then it must have two notes (Vadi and Samavadi), one in each tetra chord, towards which the motion of the Raga must flow in a marked manner. The characteristic combination of notes of a Raga is called Pakad. With all these conditions fulfilled, you have a scale that has the potential becoming a Raga. The musician's capacity to fill the scale with life is what is now left for him receptacle of the scale and the Raga wakes to life. That is why a Raga can never be repeated in the same way it was played. Essentially unrepeatable, life life itself, its forms are reborn afresh each time they find expressions. *