In the prologue of a book, ‘Free Play’ by Stephen Nachmanovitch, there is a story about a musician introducing the concept of Lila. Lila is an old Sanskrit world means divine play, the play of creation, destruction, and re-creation. The story is about an old Japanese musician’s journey to reach the ‘Divine play’, play like a god. The young, talented and diligent Japanese flute player started to learn the flute from an old master. Even if the young student mastered all the technical aspects of the flute, the old master always says ‘ something lacking’. The student practiced for endless hours, but the returning answer from the master was always the same for months on end. The young player got so frustrated and finally sneaked out of the place. He began to drink out of despair and he made his living by teaching flute to beginners. After living this way for years, one morning, the past master along with his young student came to him and said they are going to have a concert and they had all decided it would not take place without him. With some effort, they overcame his feelings of fear and shame, and almost in a trance he picked up his flute and went with them. At the end of the concert, his name was called and he realized that he had nothing to gain, nothing to lose. He sat down and played the same tune he had played so many times for his teacher in the past. When he finished, there was a silence for a long moment. Then the voice of the oldest man was heard, speaking softly from the back of the room: ” Like a god!” It was the moment that he finally reach the divine play, lila.
Reading this story, I became really curious about what it was that lacked in his previous play and what made it possible for him to reach the divine play that he couldn’t before in spite of all his efforts. If I could catch that, it would be a help for me to reach a free play and nurture my creativity. Sometimes, I feel that my musical knowledge , or some kind of purpose, or any kind of thoughts get in the way of my pure play of the music. Now I got a vague sense about what lila is and what made the flute player finally reach the divine play, but I still don’t have the clear understanding about it. Maybe my journey through the ‘creative process’ could give me the answer. I hope I can get the answer from it.
