Because you've asked...

... I decided to tell you a bit about myself, although I believe that my chief function here should remain one of imparting information about Joseph Marx. For those who are remotely interested in how I keep myself busy and what occupies me, read on! One can also read more about the "Marx Maniac" (as I have been nicknamed by Steven Sloane, the conductor of the Bochum SO featured on the Joseph Marx Orchestral Works CD series), if one reads through the entries in my personal travelogue.

If you expect to find a recitation here of my performance credits and music degrees, prepare to be disappointed: I am neither music pedagogue, nor professional performer. Indeed, I have absolutely nothing to do with the professional musical world. Not surprisingly, I am usually asked in emails why I do what I do, and especially why I am so passionate about the subject of Joseph Marx.

How I got this way is recounted in the chapter entitled The Adventure Begins but the origins of this current situation is found in my distant past. From my earliest childhood, I sought to learn about "the Ultimate" in almost every walk of life, and in the musical realm I found it, above all, embodied in the so-called classical music. But in spite of my years-long study of such masters as Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, et cetera, the music of the late Romantic and Impressionistic periods (roughly, tonal music composed after 1880), remained my personal favorite (my earliest favorite composer was Sergei Rachmaninoff). In the mid 1980's I gradually began accumulating a CD collection that first focused solely on my own area of expertise - the piano concerto. As the years went by and my collection grew, I became familiar with the names of hundreds of lesser-known composers and their symphonies, orchestral songs, and symphonic poems. In the process of exchanging recordings with other, international collectors (primarily in England and America) I discovered many rare recordings, and expanded my collection to include a huge number of recently released CDs and exquisite recordings of late Romantic and Impressionistic works from radio broadcasts and original LPs that are rarely heard today (totaling approx. 1,800 CDs, 250 tape cassettes etc.).

It was through one such exchange in early 2000 that I first became acquainted with the name of Joseph Marx. His "Romantisches Klavierkonzert" was absolutely the first composition that satisfied my insatiable longing for perfect melody and euphony. After falling hopelessly for his second piano concerto "Castelli Romani," this love story, as read in The Adventure Begins and following chapters, began to write itself. And so, in early 2001 this website about Joseph Marx was established.

When I began this project, I had no idea that it would one day be so wide-ranging as to involve not only the establishment and maintenance of a website, but would also prompt the planning of a series of recordings of orchestral works in which I would be asked to act as project advisor to the parties involved. The multitude of contacts that I made during my months-long research naturally paved the way for the project's ultimate success, but basically, it seems as though this tapestry wove itself, and I merely helped a bit here and there.

I would also like to point out that, other than the payment that I received for writing the texts of the CD booklets, I have never gotten paid for what I have been doing for years, and in no way do I stand to share in the profits generated by the sale of these CDs. However, one can't indulge in such a time-consuming "hobby" if one doesn't, at least occasionally and in one form or another, receive some recognition; in my case, through the effusive praise and thanks of music-lovers from all over the world. What is today a pleasant way to spend my free time required in the early months of my research, an inordinate amount of effort (and in the meantime, also an inordinate amount of money), and I am truly grateful that this work has finally leveled out, so that I can at last put it aside for a time. Email correspondence with the different project participants, as well as with musicians, specialists, and Marx-fans from all over the world occasionally got the upper hand (and answering emails can, therefore, take a while…), but I've somehow muddled through the many inquiries and requests, and I am grateful for the respite.

First and Last Name: Berkant Haydin

Birthdate: August 1969

Family Status: I found my life's companion around 12 years ago. We have one cat and two rabbits.

My current residence: I'll have to disappoint you Austrians, as I live in Germany, and other than my connection with Joseph Marx (probably the most noteworthy of the Austrian late Romantic composers), I've really had nothing to do with Austria. However, during my unforgettable trip to Austria in the summer of 2003 (see Travelogue) I discovered the many natural beauties of your land, and I would very much like to return at some point.

Occupation: I freelance as a federally approved, state-licensed and certified translator. I have been involved with this work, including the editing of foreign publications, since 1988 (since 1994 as my principal occupation). My working languages are German and Turkish. In addition, I speak English and I can understand French. A quick hint: My English vocabulary is comparatively limited, as any expert visiting the English-language version of my website will recognize… Unfortunately, I can't express myself in English as subtly as in German, but thanks to countless Email conversations with a multitude of Americans and Englishmen, my written English has drastically improved over the last few years. Nevertheless, this section of the website was translated from the German by Dr. Brian Pfaltzgraff who obviously did a great job.

Free time: Writing short stories and poetry; reading; composing (I've written countless piano pieces that are essentially spontaneously improvised); listening to melodic electronic music (as an ideal background while I work; but I also work well to classical music, or in silence); bicycling in the country; working out at home; watching meaningful and unusual films (in my opinion, "Matrix, Part I" is the most important and deepest film of the last decade; it draws countless lessons and symbolism from countless philosophies, teachings and religions, and its complex message can be transferred to practically any world-view); tying up loose ends on the Marx website; talking about, and meditating on, life in general; watching people, animals, nature, and current events watching (including myself); discovering new places and things to do; broadening and sharpening my perceptions in an attempt to educate and develop myself continually; to be there for my friends and all those who need me, wherever that might be.

What I find important:

• International political developments since 9/11 are cause for concern, but I still remain optimistic. Since most of the news reported by the mainstream media seem obviously are not really reliable, I try to keep myself informed by reading websites of independent news services.


• Because of my strong inner connection to nature and animals, I wrote several articles about humanity, ethics and cruelty to animals for a friend who, similar to the well-known animal rights organization PeTA, advocates the humane treatment of all animals, and investigates and reports instances of animal abuse. These German articles are available here.


• At this point, I'd like to take this opportunity to write about my "take on things." I didn't plan on doing this initially, but in the meantime I've decided that since I created this website, I could be allowed, just this once, to describe myself to you a bit more fully. I hope that the visitors to this site will understand, and that I, if they wish it, can provide them with some interesting insights into my own worldview. Only after I wrote the following anecdotes did I notice the common thread that runs, unplanned, through the many different themes (philosophy, ethics, religion, mysticism, metaphysics, cosmology, psychology and international politics), but I hope that the readers of this site will allow themselves to be inspired to reconsider their own thoughts and opinions.

An old man sat in a bus, holding a gorgeous bouquet in his hand.
A young lady could hardly tear her gaze from the flowers. She would look away, but when her glance would inevitably fall on the colorful blossoms, she would smile shyly. Shortly before the next stop, the old man rose, and crossed to the girl. He handed her the bouquet and said, "I couldn't help but notice, that you are yearning for these flowers. I bought them for my wife, but I think it would make her happy if I gave them to you, instead. I'll just go and tell her that I gave the bouquet to you. All right?" The beaming girl accepted the flowers.
The old man climbed out of the bus, and as the grateful girl watched, he crossed the street and entered the gate of a small cemetery.

My life began to take a clear direction roughly ten years ago, made notable through a series of amazing, but sometimes difficult experiences and phases with long-lasting meaning and effects on my life and sensitivities. Because of my experiences, I've come to view the world differently, and I lead a spiritually directed life.

One of the milestones on my path to spiritual fulfillment was to completely reorder my diet. I could no longer reconcile eating meat with a life I seek to lead in harmony with Nature and the Universe in which and from which we live, so in the mid-1990's I resolved to become a vegetarian. I later decided to pursue the vegan lifestyle (no milk or milk products, no eggs; and avoiding the use of animal byproducts such as leather), also due to health considerations. As a result, over time I've had fewer health problems (including susceptibility to contagions). In the last few years I've gradually moved to the crude diet, an even more natural form of sustenance (fruits, vegetables, nuts, etc.). However, I don't wish to set limits for myself, rather, I wish to protect my freedom, because as long as a feeling of temptation exists, one is not following the correct path.

My personal experiences and observations have shown me that the human spirit is capable of achieving extraordinary acts. New research into psychosomatic conditions has proven that bodily functions ("material") can be regulated and influenced at will. Countless individuals from all over the world have recounted stories of the so-called "extrasensory" phenomena that our will is capable of producing, and how one can influence, and be influenced by, one's events and surroundings. Those who study this subject intensively will eventually recognize definitively, that "Material" is not static, but must remain changeable and dynamic, and that our Universe functions as a giant whole, in such a way that everything communicates with, and affects everything else. For example, in recent years we have heard more and more about people who communicate nonverbally with animals via a form of telepathy. I have had such experiences, and I can attest that it actually works, and is not nonsense, as so many believe. If one spends enough time observing plants, one will eventually recognize that they too, have a degree of consciousness; it therefore can't be humbug to talk to plants in the belief that they react, and sometimes even answer. Even a stone could be viewed as no longer merely a solid, dead object, rather as a living colony of countless molecules that are in constant motion. Certainly everyone has wondered aloud what stories the stones on the side of the road would tell, would they but speak.

Such thoughts are not simple flights of fancy, but spring from a hidden Ur-consciousness within us all; a collective memory which we all can and should seek to tap. Many experts and scientists of our own time (for example, theoretical physicists on the trail of the origins of the world) have finally recognized what peoples more attuned to nature have always known, that all of Existence is bound together by an invisible, basic substance and all consciousness in the Universe is emitted from one source, similar to our DNA code, that blurs the boundary between the material and the spiritual world.

I am convinced that we humans will one day throw off our self-imposed spiritual and mental limitations to reach our ultimate developmental potential; further, I believe that this process has been underway for ages. Perhaps then, the alternative energy form mistakenly called "Light" in today's terminology will be readily accessible, and accepted as a matter of course. By this I mean the energy that every living thing draws from its surroundings, in part physically through light and heat, but principally via non-physical means. This form of energy, recognized by most of the religions and cultures of the world and more particularly among the many noted philosophers and wise men of antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance. Alternately called "Ether", "Prana", "Chi", "Life Force", or "Universal Energy", it was pushed slowly out of our thoughts by the gradual industrialization and technological advances of Western Civilization.

I prefer to call this energy "Love", by which I mean the so-called universal, "godly" love described by the mystics that they surely sensed and experienced, when for example, on a summer's night as one stands under the canopy of stars looking outward, one feels a rare moment of oneness with the entire universe. I believe that in such rarified moments as these, when perfect silence and our inner peace is in complete accord, we actually have made "contact" with "heaven"-an experience or circumstance that many believe can only be reached through years of prayer or meditation. Without a doubt, many individuals need to expand their consciousness and to open their hearts - the source of all our emotions - but this is not the only path to fulfillment. Whoever experiences such a moment of clarity, and from that moment seeks to view each successive experience and encounter with other living things from that perspective, has taken a step on what many cultures have dubbed the path to Enlightenment; a condition of perfect happiness, wisdom and all-encompassing love, after which so many have striven their entire lives; by virtue of their failures to achieve it, ultimately believe it to be unreachable, nonsensical, and as fleeting as a dream.

However, to know that Love and absolute Trust is the mightiest and greatest power in the universe makes everything else seem as though it were a dream. Everyone can try this himself in his daily life, and will quickly come to the realization that those who live with fear, doubt, mistrust, and hate will in the long term always draw the short straw, while those who seek love, knowledge, trust, and peace will always find doors open to them, and, simply put, will succeed. At any rate, I have yet to meet a person who, in the deepest recesses of his heart, doesn't yearn for a harmonious existence. Feelings of isolation and hate stem from a doubting intellect and appear, once one has overcome them, as nothing but illusion. But the belief still persists among many people that good people would eventually be punished by Fate, and that life is a continual struggle. Those who affirm that this is so eventually succeed in creating such a reality for themselves, whether they like it or not. And this situation will continue to propagate itself until those mired in this self-created victimhood understand how to break the cycle, and consciously opt for the other side of the coin.

It's unfortunate that by their negative mindset and lack of trust, millions of people make their own and others' lives miserable. To counter this we find basic trust and the knowledge of the power of Love, a matter of the heart, and with it something constant and binding, but the majority never use it or don't yet know that it is there. However, we all possess this knowledge, having been born with it as part of our nature. And so it is that in our common history, it was never the masses of humanity who dragged entire nations into a hellish cycle of hate and sorrow, sowing disunity and discord throughout the world - but as a rule, it was the few power-hungry souls with their advisors and henchmen who longed for strife, war and carnage and placed them in motion. The sad results of this lust for power are reported daily in our newspapers. I am often very concerned about this "sickness" that currently makes itself painfully evident in the strife-torn political "hot spots" of the world, and in the subtle, unfathomable move of billion-dollar businesses to control resources throughout the world. The leaders of these businesses apparently haven't the slightest respect for life and conduct themselves on such a low level of consciousness, that one is often jarred into wondering whether they actually belong to the human race.

For all that, each individual is responsible for his own thoughts about the world, and is capable of sympathy. Man's human nature forces him to strive to overcome the illusions and snares of the Matrix in order to finally see the truth behind the veil. True humans long for peace and love. And since I have accepted this, I have not lost hope for a promising future.

Other manifestations of how we tap into the universal source are everyday occurrences for me; for example - as I've already mentioned - telepathic communication of thoughts and feelings between beings, or the intuitive sensing and knowledge of things about which sceptics insist, "it was impossible to know." In spite of this, we have all experienced a series of events that seemed to be tied together and had no other explanation than "divine" intervention. Or, consider the numerous accounts of out-of-body experiences that are even accepted by mainstream medical doctors: many people, declared clinically dead or who were in medically induced comas have been able, upon revival, to accurately recount every detail of the actions and conversations taken by the medical staff. Secular science insists that this is absolutely impossible, because it would indicate that the human consciousness has nothing to do with the brain. And this patently seems to be the case: our consciousness and these so-called extrasensory perceptions are the expressions of a non-material reality that exists parallel to the world we sense physically - a world that we only recognize when we have experienced it for ourselves, ideally without the aid of hallucinogens or the like.

But many people simply dismiss this evidence as supernatural humbug. At the same time, any sceptic knows that it is pointless to seek a so-called natural explanation that can be reproduced and expected from the real world - for such experience (at the very least, to the degree that he can no longer say that it is "completely impossible.") I believe that even a sceptic needn't always rely on scientific proof, but can also innately trust his inner voice when it says, "There is some truth to that," or that something occurs for a reason, and is not a simple coincidence. In reality, each one of us knows far, far more than we would believe.

A fitting example was, coincidentally, the fact that long after I had begun my research, Joseph Marx also turned out to be one of the Truth-Seekers, a mystic and a philosopher. On a quest for perfect harmony, he found himself examining art and aesthetics in music, and found a universal connection between the sound and its perceptions through the human spirit. He came to the conclusion, that Harmony and Unity are universal principles, while discord is a product of the intellect and not the heart; rather, it can only be experienced and grasped through cognitive analysis.

Joseph Marx was a pantheist and - as I like to call him - a "Mystic of Happiness", whose musical creations have unexpectedly fulfilled my highest expectations. I am thrilled that I stumbled across him, and that I have been allowed to establish this website about him.

In closing, I am reminded of the popular proverb, "The way is the goal." Not only meditation teachers and oriental gurus, but also every good psychologist or personal counselor should take this to heart. One cannot expect to experience the end of the journey unless one actually steps onto the path, and accepts and learns from all of his experiences, whether they are good or bad. Elegance lies not in the immediate classification of an experience as "good" or "bad," but to take it, and to wait and see what develops ("Who knows what may come of it?"). Even the worst experiences can bear with them a gift, a blessing that one recognizes only later (and it is NEVER too late to find the good in something). This, for me, represents the truest sense of life: to experience all of the eternal variation of possibilities and different realities that life has to offer, to live in the "here and now," and to live every eye blink to its fullest, to grow from both beautiful and the awful experiences, and to meet every difficulty with good spirits and a sense of humor ("The Fool is the twin brother of the Wise Man"). From this is eventually born an unusual condition, sort of a new level of consciousness and discernment, that works constantly, and we will never again be without its essence. That is true LIFE, the basis of all things. Whoever has discovered Eternity and continues to carry this elixir of life within, can fulfill his duty to leave the world a better place by telling others about it.

1. "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" by Richard Bach
   
2. "Siddhartha" by Hermann Hesse
   
3. "One" by Richard Bach
   
4. "The Awakening Earth - Global Brain" by Peter Russell
   
5. "Illusions" by Richard Bach
   
6. "Way of the peaceful warrior" by Dan Millman
   
7. "Tao te King" by Lao-Tse
   
8. "The Sufis - The Message of the Dervishs and the Wisdom of the Magicians" by Idries Shah
   
9. "The LOLA Principle or Why the World is perfect" by René Egli
   
10. "Handbook of Morality" by Epictetus (Greek philosopher, 50-138 AD)
    
11. "Autobiography of a Yogi" by Paramahansa Yogananda
    
12. "The Best Stories of Wisdom" by Anthony de Mello
    
13. "The Notebook" by Jiddu Krishnamurti
    
14. "The Starmaker" by Olaf W. Stapledon (influential British philosopher and futurologist of the early 20th century)
    
15. "Conversations with God - An Uncommon Dialogue" by Neale Donald Walsch
    
16. "The Papalagi - The Speeches of Chief Tuiavii from the South Pacific island Tiavea" by Erich Scheurmann
    
17. "How to communicate with animals" by Penelope Smith
    
18. "The Gods of Eden" by William Bramley
    
19. "Courage: The Joy of Living Dangerously" by Osho
    
20. "Holographic Universe" by Michael Talbot
    
21. "The Journey Home" by Lee Carroll (Kryon)