Creativity Quote by Ravi Shankar

Ravi Shankar isn’t being quaint here; he’s drawing a hard line between music as entertainment and music as devotion. Calling instruments “like part of God” reframes them from tools you own into presences you answer to. The intent is partly cultural translation for Western ears that might hear “classical Indian music” and file it under exotic mood-setting. Shankar insists on another category: sacred craft, where the object carries an ethical demand. You don’t just play a sitar; you approach it.

The subtext lands as a quiet critique of disposable, gear-obsessed modernity. In many pop contexts an instrument is a brand, a prop, an extension of celebrity. Shankar’s phrasing turns that upside down: the musician is the temporary vessel, the instrument is enduring, worthy of ritual care. It’s an argument for humility disguised as reverence. Respect isn’t sentimental; it’s discipline, the willingness to submit to years of practice because the sound matters more than the performer.

Context sharpens the line. Shankar spent decades acting as a bridge figure, introducing Indian classical traditions to audiences primed by rock, jazz, and the 1960s counterculture. Spiritual language was often consumed in the West as vibe. He uses it strategically but not cynically, asserting that raga is tied to lineage, time, and intention, not just a “trippy” texture. By sanctifying the instrument, he sanctifies the entire relationship around it: teacher to student, musician to audience, sound to silence. That’s why it works: it upgrades listening from consumption to encounter.