This is one of those passages in the Course that is just so beautiful it seems to call out to be set to music. And after all, it does use music as a metaphor for the experience of awakening to the one universal song beyond all songs and things of this world. Listen -- perhaps you can still hear that song in spaces between the notes…
lyrics
Listen –
perhaps you catch a hint of an ancient state
not quite forgotten;
dim, perhaps, and yet not altogether unfamiliar,
like a song whose name is long forgotten;
and the circumstances in which you heard completely unremembered.
Not the whole song has stayed with you,
but just a little wisp of melody,
attached not to a person or a place or anything particular.
But you remember, from just this little part,
how lovely was the song,
how wonderful the setting where you heard it,
and how you loved those who were there
and listened with you.
The notes are nothing.
Yet you have kept them with you, not for themselves,
but as a soft reminder of what would make you weep
if you remembered how dear it was to you.
You could remember, yet you are afraid,
believing you would lose the world you learned since then.
And yet you know that nothing in the world you learned
is half so dear as this.
Listen,
and see if you remember an ancient song
you knew so long ago
and held more dear than any melody
you taught yourself to cherish since.
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