Edward Salim Michael

Edward Salim Michael

Edward Salim Michael (* 1921 in Manchester , England; † 2006 near Nice , France) was a composer of symphonic music and the author of books on spirituality and meditation. Edward Salim Michael viewed himself as a Buddhist, but since his writings are based on immediate spiritual experience, he did not hesitate to quote the Bhagavad-Gita, the Gospels, Christian mystics, or Sufis to illustrate his own words.

Life

childhood

Edward Salim Michael's family roots are Indo-European. His parents, who met in Iraq , were in Manchester, England at the time of his birth. Three years later the family returned to Iraq, which was then under a British mandate. Edward Salim Michael was around twelve years old when his parents left Baghdad to settle in Syria . His family later moved to Egypt and Palestine . His childhood was marked by poverty and insecurity, several times he escaped death only through happy circumstances. Because of the many changes of location, it was not possible for him to go to school. Shortly before the Second World War , the family returned to London . At just 19 years old, as he was a British citizen, he was drafted into the Royal Air Force as a simple soldier with the ground crew.

Musical career

When he joined the army, he could neither read nor write, and could hardly speak any English. The camp's Anglican pastor took care of him and taught him to read and write. The vicar's wife, violist, noticed Edward Salim Michael's special ability to reproduce music from memory and she began teaching him the basics of music theory and composition , which he learned with ease, as if he were just thinking about something needed to remember that he already knew , as he said later. Two years later his first work, a scherzo for orchestra ("The Dionysia"), won a competition in London, where it was performed in the Royal Albert Hall by the London Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of John Hollingsworth.

After the war he began to study music at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. He studied composition with Berthold Goldschmidt (a student of Paul Hindemith ) and with Mátyás Seiber (a student of Zoltán Kodály ) and violin with Max Rostal . In 1947 he won a prize in orchestral conducting and began a career as a solo violinist. He had around thirty-five concertos, fifty sonatas, and more than two hundred other pieces for violin in his repertoire, and had already made a name for himself as a violinist when he decided to go to Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger .

For health reasons he had to give up his career as a violinist and conductor and from now on devoted himself exclusively to composition. He composed many orchestral works, including a mass. In 1954 he won the Vercelli Prize for a psalm for male choir. Two years later his mass was performed by the Radio France orchestra, conducted by Eugene Bigot. A year later, his Nocturne for flute and orchestra won the Lili Boulanger Prize in the United States. The jury included Igor Stravinsky and Aaron Copland .

Edward Salim Michael never wanted to leave tonality . His music shows a deep understanding of the laws of harmony, combined with a perfect mastery of the musical structure. His orchestration is abundant. Mystery and poetry combined with a dramatic character determine his often mystical inspiration.

“... He makes the remarkable attempt to integrate oriental scales into occidental music, with everything that it can bring in terms of suppleness, color and new expression; … E. Michael translates the deep movements of a soul directed to the heights of philosophical and religious meditation ” (Jean Hamon,“ Combat ”, June 1954).

Spiritual awakening

In 1949 he saw a statue of Buddha for the first time in his life , which touched him so deeply that he stood petrified in front of it. This experience gave his life a new turn. Returning home, he immediately put himself in the same position and, with his eyes closed, began to focus on an internal sound that he heard in his ears and in his head, not knowing that what he was doing was meditation, and that the tone on which he focused was called nada in India - a form of concentration known to both Hindus and Buddhists. He now began an intensive meditation practice and, since he had no one to guide him spiritually, developed specific exercises for himself.

Thanks to the high level of concentration he had developed as a composer, he soon had deep spiritual experiences. Since his parents were not involved in any religion, there was no religious conditioning to color his spiritual insights and understanding. The lack of schooling and knowledge of books turned out to be an advantage for his spiritual path, as his mind was free from fixed ideas and projections. He followed the path of direct experience, beyond dogma.

After four years of intense spiritual practice, at the age of thirty-three, he had a powerful experience of awakening to what might be called Buddha-nature or the infinite in oneself.

In addition to his spiritual exercises, he continued to compose and fought for the performance of his musical works. As his music (which he signed with his first name Edward) remained tonal , it became increasingly difficult for him to perform. Eventually he decided to give up composing and went to India , his maternal grandmother's country, to devote himself entirely to inner life. He spent almost seven years there, during which he continued his practice of meditation and concentration until his spiritual awakening became permanent.

In 1974 he returned to France and began teaching Hatha Yoga , which he practiced thoroughly for several years. Soon his students were more interested in his spiritual teaching and specific practices than in hatha yoga. At her request, he began writing his first book, The Way of Inner Vigilance , published in London in 1983. He signed it with his middle name Salim. This first book, written in English, was followed by other books, this time written in French. He also edited a translation of the well-known Buddhist text Dhammapada together with his wife Michèle .

Main musical works

For string orchestra

• Mass for mixed choir, two string orchestras, celesta, harp, carillon and percussion instruments. 36 '(E. Ricordi)
• Initiation 18:30 (E. Choudens)
• Les Soirées de Tedjlah (The Evenings of Tedjlah) for mezzo-soprano, two flutes, piano and string orchestra (Vercelli Prize). 20 '(E. Transatlantique)

For symphony orchestra

• Nocturne for flute solo (or Ondes Martenot ) and orchestra (Lili Boulanger Prize). 6'30 (E. Transatlantique)
• Fata Morgana, symphonic poem for orchestra. 8'30 (E. Ricordi)
• Le jardin de Tinajatama (Tinajatama's garden) for orchestra. 10 '(E. Ricordi)
• Elegy for orchestra. 5'30 (E. Ricordi)
• Le festin des Dieux (The Festival of the Gods) for orchestra. 6 '(E. Choudens)
• Trois Tableaux (Three Pictures) for orchestra. 11'30 (E. Transatlantique)
• Le rêve d'Himalec (The Dream of the Himalayas) for orchestra. 13 '- 1946 (E. Transatlantique) 13'
• Rapsody concertante for violin and orchestra. 14 '(E. Choudens)
• Kamaal, magical story for speakers and orchestra. 40 '(E. Transatlantique)
• La Vision de Lamis Helacim (Lamis Helacims Vision), symphonic poem for large orchestra (E. Ricordi)
• La rein des pluies (The Rain Queen), choreographic poem for large orchestra. 8 '(E. Choudens)

Books

German:

• The path of inner vigilance. Editor Michèle Michael. 2015
• Inner awakening and practice of Nada yoga. Editor Michèle Michael. 2016.

French:

• La quête suprême (The highest search)
• Les obstacles à l'illumination et à la liberation (obstacles to enlightenment and liberation)
• Les fruits du chemin de l'éveil (The fruits of the path of awakening)
• S'éveiller, une question de vie ou de mort (awakening, a question of life and death)
• Dans le silence de l'insondable (In the silence of the unfathomable)
• Du fond des brumes (From the depths of the mist), published after his death
• Lumières dans la nuit (Lights at night), stories
• Dhammapada, translated by Edward Salim and Michèle Michael, from English into French

His biography was edited by his wife Michèle Michael who collected his memories and thoughts:

• The price of a remarkable fate. Life and Spiritual Path by Edward Salim Michael. Author and editor Michèle Michael. 2016.

His spiritual teaching

As man normally is, he is cut off from his divine source. He has to recognize this source through direct experience in meditation, in other words, in the enlightened state. This is the goal of life, which can no longer be reached after death, since we need the conditions of the manifested world to achieve it. The greatest mystics of various religions have all pursued this aim; their writings reflect the similarity of their deepest experiences.

Edward Salim Michael directs his teaching to the seeker or aspirant who, as he said, “is one who has embarked on a spiritual journey to find his true identity, a state of wide consciousness that is already within him but obscured by his ordinary mind and incessant thoughts. It is a man or a woman who is fighting for enlightenment and liberation. "

Characteristic of his teaching is the importance he attaches to what he calls a moment of true presence, which the seeker can recognize through deep and sustained concentration in exercises such as those described in his books. In fact, it is only in such intense concentration that he can feel the difference from his usual state and begin to understand how he usually "sleeps" within himself without knowing it. At the moment when the seeker clearly feels the difference between his usual state of "daytime sleep", where he is immersed in the "vortex of his mental world", and another state of being in which he is aware of himself in an unfamiliar way and is present, he will know in which direction his efforts must go in the future.

There are many hurdles to overcome before one can hope to experience and recognize this transcendent source from which all things arise and into which they are reabsorbed - whether called Buddha-nature , Nirvana , Brahman or God , ever depending on whether you are Hindu, Buddhist or Christian.

When the aspirant has achieved enlightenment , his work will continue on another level, since enlightenment is not yet liberation. He will then have to struggle patiently to find this other state of being and consciousness again and again that he has recognized in himself, until he will finally come to stay in him permanently. Only then will he have achieved liberation .

The path that Edward Salim teaches Michael is the path that he himself followed. He is without dogmas; his own experience and understanding are his criteria and that is also the reason why Edward Salim Michael saw himself as a Buddhist.

Web links

• Homepage dedicated to the spiritual teacher
• Website dedicated to the composer
• Evidence of awakening

References

• This article is largely a translation from Edward Salim Michael
• Michèle Michael: Le Jeu d'un Etrange Destin. Guy Trédaniel, Paris 1995 , ISBN 2-85707-642-8