The Indian philosopher Abhinavagupta, writing in 10th-century Kashmir, argued that aesthetic experience — particularly music — offers the closest thing to moksha available in ordinary life. He called this state 'rasa,' a kind of dissolving of the boundary between self and world that happens when we're fully absorbed in sound. What's striking is how precisely this maps onto what modern neuroscientists call 'aesthetic chills' or 'frisson' — that involuntary shiver when a piece of music hits you somewhere wordless. For Abhinavagupta, this wasn't mere emotion; it was a momentary glimpse behind the curtain of ego-constructed reality, a hint that consciousness is larger than the 'I' we usually identify with. On a Friday, when the week loosens its grip, it might be worth letting a piece of music do something more than entertain you.

When music has genuinely moved you, what exactly dissolved — and why don't you seek that state more deliberately?

Drawing from Kashmir Shaivism / Indian Aesthetics — Abhinavagupta