Tuesday, September 23, 2025
Every day is like a music lesson. You’ll demonstrate, and you’ll get feedback. Now, it’s important to remember that no one gets to become the maestro in a terminal sense. Even the “first chair” players, the concertmaster, and the maestro herself are working on ongoing skills.
Every person on the planet is a student and earth is a perpetual education – consider it eternal lessons. It’s a training ground with no culmination. Maybe, the wise sages and gurus are graduate students or teaching assistants, but they too are being admonished, shaped, and are practicing virtuosity.
A virtuoso is a person highly skilled in music or another artistic pursuit. Is anyone the most virtuous? If they are, a religion will form up around them, and they might lose themselves as an unaware deity! Not even the maestro of a symphony is the most virtuous. Virtuosity is related to virtue. Vir means “man” in Latin; Virtus means “valor, merit, or moral perfection.” If you embody the character of the moral superior – look out. You’ll lose yourself in your own delusion.
I’ve seen videos where Leonard Bernstein says to a young conducting student, “Admit to the players you screwed up. It’s OK. They’ll love you for it.” We’re all vulnerable and susceptible. Even Lenny – “the maestro” – who couldn’t even stop smoking, dying of mesothelioma at 72.
It’s endearing to stay rooted in susceptibility. Virtues are faith, love, generosity, etc. How are your practices ? When you’re asked, “How was your day?” They are implying, “How was your lesson?” Did you demonstrate virtuosity? Tomorrow’s another lesson. I’m practicing diligently too – so was The Buddha, and Lenny, and Gandhi, and Jesus the practitioner and healer! My messages are just as much for me as for you. As far as Maestro Status – don’t go there in your mind. An ashram might arise around you. Do you really want to be worshipped?