Inhabiting the Notes

My flute practice, ever since I began taking lessons from Raanan Eylon, has been akin to wrestling with a Zen koan: How does a musician get inside the notes he plays?
What does it mean to get inside the notes?
How can you tell whether someone else, who is playing, is inside the notes?
Can you feel as if you're inside the notes and not be there?
There is something deeply frustrating about this pursuit, because "being in the notes" is a metaphor for something that's undefinable.
Maybe "notes" is entirely the wrong term.
It's the sound, not the notes. My musical guru, the late Arnie Lawrence, said that you have to find a sound that you love, that getting a sound that you love is the beginning and the end of music-making.
Raanan talks about seeking the center of the sound. That's a metaphor, too, but it's easier for me to grasp. I think about focusing the sound, another metaphor, but more accessible to me.
What will happen once I manage to get into the notes?
The truth is: what's the point of playing at all, if you're not trying to get into the notes?
Raanan contends that most musicians do not get into the notes they play.
Recently I read that some musicians enter a kind of hypnotic state when they perform solos. That would be getting so far into the notes, that you aren't anywhere else. I think that would also apply to playing in an ensemble, when you're involved, when you're listening to what everyone else is playing and the way what you play fits into it.

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