I always thought it would be really cool to be playing the drums

On the Spirit Beyond the Stage and the Journey of the Soul Through Sound

In the realm where music becomes prayer and rhythm becomes heartbeat, Bill Kreutzmann, drummer of the Grateful Dead, once spoke words that shimmer with both mystery and wisdom: “I always thought it would be really cool to be playing the drums in the show and then have your astral body or whatever travel all through the audience and dig whatever it's like out there.” At first hearing, these words seem to belong to the language of dreamers — a whimsical musing on the strange and mystical. Yet beneath their playfulness lies an ancient truth: that art, when pure and alive, is not bound by the body. It becomes a spiritual communion, a dance between souls.

To play the drums, for Kreutzmann, was not merely to strike the skin of an instrument — it was to awaken the pulse of existence itself. The drummer, he understood, is the heartbeat of the song, the steady rhythm that holds chaos in balance. Yet in his vision, he longed not only to create the rhythm but to feel it — to leave his body behind and wander among those who received it. This desire is the mark of every true artist: to transcend the boundary between performer and listener, between self and other. He wished his astral body — that spirit beyond flesh — to move among the people, to sense their energy, their joy, their awe, and to be united with them in one great cosmic pulse.

This idea is ancient. The mystics of Greece spoke of ekstasis, the sacred state of standing outside oneself — a condition where soul and spirit dissolve into the infinite. In India, the sages called it samadhi, the merging of the self with the essence of all things. When Kreutzmann dreamed of his soul floating through the audience, he touched that same truth. The artist’s calling is not simply to perform, but to commune, to bridge the invisible distance between hearts through the medium of beauty.

We see this same yearning in the story of Beethoven, who, though deaf in his later years, continued to compose and conduct music he could not physically hear. When his Ninth Symphony was first performed, the audience erupted into thunderous applause, but Beethoven stood unmoving until a singer turned him toward them. In that moment, his spirit — deaf to sound but alive to emotion — seemed to soar beyond his body. He had not only written a symphony; he had entered the souls of those who heard it. Like Kreutzmann’s vision, it was a moment of spiritual flight — the astral body of music transcending the cage of human form.

For Kreutzmann and all who create, this desire to “travel all through the audience” is not ego but empathy. It is the wish to feel oneness, to dissolve the boundary between giver and receiver. The Grateful Dead were known for this very magic — their concerts were living rituals where musicians and listeners melted into one great circle of rhythm, sound, and shared spirit. To “dig whatever it’s like out there” was to taste that unity — to understand how deeply art could awaken something divine in ordinary people.

And yet, this vision carries a lesson for all — not only musicians. Each of us, in our own craft, can learn to let our spirit travel beyond our own body. Whether we teach, build, heal, or love, we must not be confined to our own vantage point. We must learn to feel the heartbeat of others — to see the world through their eyes, to let our essence mingle with theirs. For in empathy lies the secret rhythm that binds humanity together.

So let these words of Bill Kreutzmann be remembered not merely as the musings of a drummer, but as the teaching of a sage disguised in sound. Let them remind us that every act of creation is a chance to step beyond ourselves. When you speak, speak not just to be heard — but to feel the echo in another’s soul. When you work, let your energy ripple through those around you. And when you live, live so that your spirit, like an astral body, may drift freely through the world, touching hearts unseen.

For the highest art — and the highest life — is this: to be fully present in the rhythm, yet utterly free of the self. To drum the heartbeat of creation while the soul dances among the stars.