TO TRULY comprehend the how and why of human genius— like Mozart or Blind Tom—we are led to consider reincarnation and karma.
Teilhard de Chardin’s idea that we are “spiritual beings immersed in a human experience,” only begins to explain the many contradictions of life on Earth.
Yet, we all have a knowing sense of individual identity, an “I am I” consciousness that comes embedded in our spiritual tapestry. It’s a no-brainer feeling.
Trauma patients with memory loss, still know they are, even if they can’t say who they are. They may forget their legal name, address and family, but they never lose their feeling of I-dentity—a sense of individual nameless personhood.
What’s Your Name?
“The name is nothing,” says W. Q. Judge, “It is given to you by your parents, just as much without your consent as is your body.” The worldly person you have forgotten, it was not the Real You.
In every rebirth, we get reconnected to our preexisting, personal and collective karmic web. The lessons (karma) of this web are ongoing opportunities—steps leading to our growing self-awareness, and enlightenment.
Body of Work
A physical brain and body are required to complete our human experience. The invisible “zeros and ones” of a computer program, for example, must be connected to a hard drive or they can’t be read or used. A musician needs his instrument, a painter her canvas.
This is explained in the first Fundamental Proposition of The Secret Doctrine:
“…it is only through a vehicle of matter that consciousness wells up as ‘I am I,’ a physical basis being necessary to focus a ray of the Universal Mind at a certain stage of complexity.”
The Inner Buddha
Marianna Rydvald's "Enlightenment"
Like the youthful Prince Siddhārtha, in the beginning, our genius lurks undiscovered, and thus often unexpressed.
In Swedish artist Marianna Rydvlad’s painting above, we see the Prince symbolically meditating under the Bo tree, to achieve enlightenment and liberation. To the ordinary passer-by, he could have been a homeless person asleep. In one context, this would have been true—he was searching for his home.
Under the Bo tree, with its heart-shaped leaves, Siddhārtha was challenged by a host of distracting temptations, just as we are every day. But he was determined to do something about it—to awaken his inner Buddha.
Siddhārtha’s example emphasizes the importance of regular meditation. Where self-examination is concerned, (paraphrasing de Beaumarchais famous saying about love,) “even too much is not enough.”
“Look inward, thou art Buddha”
(The Voice of the Silence)
The distractions of our social, work-a-day worlds, can nudge our Buddha into the background, and difficult times may lead us to desperation. As the familiar saying goes, we find ourselves “hanging by a thread.”
But this is only our worldly tapestry, woven by the threads of our personal brain-mind, and ruled by our turbulent senses—an often perplexing tug-of-war.
In each life, there are many threads from which we can choose to hang. These comprise what is called our “lifetime meditation.”
Yul Brynner, as the King of Siam in “The King and I,” said it best:
“Tis a puzzlement!”
Anna & The King
Parsing the Puzzlement
Siddhārtha’s struggle to defeat his weaknesses, and engage his inner ruler, is best exemplified in The Dhammapada, Ch. 11, (153-154), translated from Devanagari:
Many a House of life Hath held me—seeking ever him who wrought
These prisons of the senses, sorrow-fraught;
Sore was my ceaseless strife!
Thou Builder of this Tabernacle—Thou!
I know Thee! Never shalt Thou build again
These walls of pain,
Nor raise the roof-tree of deceits, nor lay
Fresh rafters on the clay;
Broken Thy House is, and the ridge-pole split!
Delusion fashioned it!
Safe pass I thence—deliverance to obtain.
The Warp and Woof
What the world sees is only a small section of our total soul fabric. We are challenged to become “all that total of a soul”—a phrase used by poet Sir Edwin Arnold, in The Light of Asia, where he describes Siddhārtha’s enlightenment:
“Thus Life’s thirst quenches itself
To seek not, strive not, wrong not; bearing meek
All ills which flow from foregone wrongfulness,
And so constraining passions that they die
Famished; till all the sum of ended life -
The Karma – all that total of a soul
Which is the things it did, the thoughts it had,
The ‘Self’ it wove – with woof of viewless time,
Crossed on the warp invisible of acts -
The outcome of him on the Universe,
Grows pure and sinless…”
Savants, like all great geniuses, appear different to us because of their amazing ability to focus tirelessly on specific tasks. Yet, paradoxically, many require support for daily living and working at their jobs.
Mozart
“On Which the Heart is Set”
A study on the importance of focus is found in W. Q. Judge’s article Meditation, Concentration, Will, where he explains:
“The mysterious subtle thread of a life meditation is that which is practiced every hour by philosopher, mystic, saint, criminal, artist, artisan, and merchant. It is pursued in respect to that on which the heart is set; it rarely languishes…every cell and fibre of the body and inner man will be turned in one direction, resulting in perfect concentration. This is expressed in the New Testament in the statement that if the eye is single the whole body will be full of light…”
“Savants—individuals with conditions that result in remarkable mathematical, artistic or musical talents are extremely rare,” writes Celeste Biever, in the June 3, 2009 issue of NewScientist, (How to unleash your brain’s inner genius.)
“But new findings about how their formidable brains work hint that we might all be able to develop similar abilities.”
Rassouli, "Endurance Triumph"
Soul Force
Normally, humans express a fairly wide range of talents. For most, our tendencies, capacities, and sympathies, when not pathological, tend to be fairly average. Our talents seem threadbare, when compared to genius.
Genius is living proof of the preexistence of a spiritual thread soul. The power of the soul’s innumerable life experiences, focused like water through a narrow pipe, greatly magnifies its force.
“Great Genius, therefore, if true and innate, and not merely an abnormal expansion of our human intellect–can never copy or condescend to imitate, but will ever be original, sui generis in its creative impulses and realizations.” -H. P. Blavatsky
Surely, the great genius Mozart must have stepped from one musically trained life, on which his “heart was set,” directly into another.
Blind Tom
One of those perplexing geniuses was Blind Tom Wiggins.
“The appearance of geniuses and great minds in families destitute of these qualities,” wrote Mr. Judge, “can only be met by the law of re-birth.”
Mozart, we know, born into a musical family, composed orchestral score as an infant—a clear proof of reincarnation. (Aquarian Theosophist)
“But stronger yet is the case of Blind Tom,” writes Mr. Judge, “[who] could not by any possibility have a knowledge of the piano, a modern instrument. Yet he had great musical power, and knew the present mechanical musical scale on the piano.”
“Where did he get the capacity?” Judge asks. “Heredity does not explain that. We explain it by reincarnation.” (On “Common Doctrines” -WQJ)
A Passion for Music
Born a slave in Georgia, Blind Tom died an international celebrity in 1908. He had an encyclopedic memory, all-consuming passion for music and mind boggling capacity to imitate – both verbally and musically – any sound he heard. His extraordinary savant powers rocketed him to fame and made his name a household word.
“Sutratma”
Like a beam of white light, the “thread soul” can be thought of as containing, in potential, all the colors of our numerous experiences, abilities, and character. We are able to spin only a small fraction of its infinite potency in a single life.
That spiritual thread, also called in Sanskrit, “Sutratma,” shines down through the “prism” of human existence, as explained in (The Key to Theosophy):
“…that which undergoes periodical incarnation is the Sutratma, which means literally the “Thread Soul.” It is a synonym of the reincarnating Ego which absorbs the Manasic [spiritual mind] recollections of all our preceding lives.
“It is so called, because, like the pearls on a thread, so is the long series of human lives strung together on that one thread.”
The Musical Genius of Derek Paravicini
Derek, now in his mid 20′s, was born premature, at 25 weeks, and weighed just over half a kilogram. As a result of the oxygen therapy required to save his life, Derek lost his sight, and his development was affected too. It later became apparent
t hat he had severe learning difficulties.
However, he soon acquired a fascination for music and sound, and, by the age of four, had taught himself to play a large number of pieces on the piano, of some melodic and harmonic complexity (such as ‘Smoke Gets in your Eyes’). Almost inevitably, with no visual models to guide him, his technique was chaotic, and even his elbows would frequently be pressed into service, as he strove to reach intervals beyond the span of his tiny hands!
Part 1
Derek Paravicini was born blind and with serious learning difficulties. But he only needs to hear a tune once to play it. Soon he will make his debut at the Southbank Centre, reports Chris Green.
Almost 25 years ago, Adam Ockelford was giving a piano lesson to a young girl at Linden Lodge School for the blind in Wandsworth, south-west London, when a couple and their five-year-old son who were touring the school 
opened the door to his room.
Moments later, the little blond boy was free of his parents’ grip and had sprinted over to the piano. There he pushed Ockelford’s unfortunate pupil roughly off her stool, depositing her on the floor.
“He was obviously manically determined to play, and began karate-chopping the keys, bashing them with his fists and his elbows,” he recalls.
“At first I thought he was completely bonkers, but suddenly I realised that not only was he playing “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina”, he was rampaging up and down the keyboard to fit in extra chords and scales. Then I knew he was a genius, not a madman at all.
Part 2
The second part of this amazing documentary about Daniel Paravacini, the musical genius who is both blind and autistic but can play the piano better than most professional pianists.
Note: In the video the introduction says “Daniel,” though it should say Derek.
Part 3
The third part of the documentary where we see Derek try to communicate emotions through his music. Derek prepares for his trip to the US where he meets Rex, a similarly gifted young boy. Together they must perform a duet in a concert and we see how they begin to prepare.
Part 4
In this part we see Derek meet his to-be duet partner in the concert and many other talented musical savants at a dedicated school.
Part 5
The last part of this documentary.
It’s concert day!
Savant Art
There is a collection of art created by various prodigious savant artists from around the world. Each piece of art has been chosen because it shines some light on the way the mind of a savant works.
See a gallery of savant art
Savant art: A window into their formidable brains
Daniel Tammet
An Unbroken Thread
(The Secret Doctrine 1-238-9)
“…the whole secret of Life is in the unbroken series of its manifestations: whether in, or apart from, the physical body. Because if —
“Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity…”
— yet it is itself part and parcel of that Eternity—for life alone can understand life.
“…that which remains from each personality, when worthy…hangs from Atma-Buddhi, the Flame, by the thread of life.
“The entire system of the Kabalistic numerals is based on the divine septenary hanging from the Triad (thus forming the Decade) and its permutations 7, 5, 4, and 3, which, finally, all merge into the one itself: an endless and boundless Circle.”
Alonzo Clemons
Matter and Mind
(The Secret Doctrine 1:252)
“…in the progress of time — as the faculties of humanity are multiplied — so will the characteristics of matter be multiplied also.”
“While it is perfectly true that the progress of evolution may be destined to introduce us to new characteristics of matter, those with which we are already familiar are really more numerous than the three dimensions. The faculties, or what is perhaps the best available term, the characteristics of matter, must clearly bear a direct relation always to the senses of man.”
Matter has extension, colour, motion (molecular motion), taste, and smell, corresponding to the existing senses of man, and by the time that it fully develops the next characteristic — let us call it for the moment Permeability — this will correspond to the next sense of man — let us call it “Normal Clairvoyance.”
KARMA
(Excerpt from Light on The Path)
CONSIDER with me that the individual existence is a rope which stretches from the infinite to the infinite and has no end and no commencement, neither is it capable of being broken. This rope is formed of innumerable fine threads, which, lying closely together, form its thickness.
These threads are colourless, are perfect in their qualities of straightness, strength and levelness. This rope, passing as it does through all places, suffers strange accidents. Very often a thread is caught and becomes attached, or perhaps is only violently pulled away from its even way.
Then for a great time it is disordered, and it disorders the whole. Sometimes one is stained with dirt or with colour; and not only does the stain run on further than the spot of contact, but it discolours other of the threads. And remember that the threads are living—are like electric wires, more, are like quivering nerves.
How far, then, must the stain, the drag awry, be communicated! But eventually the long strands, the living threads which in their unbroken continuity form the individual, pass out of the shadow into the shine.
Then the threads are no longer colourless, but golden; once more they lie together, level. Once more harmony is established between them; and from that harmony within the greater harmony is perceived.
This illustration presents but a small portion—a single side of the truth: it is less than a fragment. Yet, dwell on it; by its aid you may be led to perceive more.
What it is necessary first to understand is, not that the future is arbitrarily formed by any separate acts of the present, but that the whole of the future is in unbroken continuity with the present as the present is with the past. On one plane, from one point of view, the illustration of the rope is correct.
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