UNCONVENTIONAL FORMS OF SPIRITUAL PRACTICE

  SOUND # 1

In the beginning was the sound?

"And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep: and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” Genesis.

"Quiet— Eternal Quiet. Not even the sound of the restless, stirring, dark waters could be heard. Then, a great spiraling strain of Melody moved across the endless waters. Subdued at first, then quickly gathering momentum until it reached a great crescendo. And, then, there was Life! But the Melody did not stop. It continued its song, filling all of Creation with its Divine harmony. And so it continues today, for all those who listen." Frank Mills

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”John

However, some ancient wisdom schools believe that it was intention with the imagination of the Creator as well as the complexities of sound vibrations that created the multiverse rather than only the word.

  

All energy and matter are vibratory and their atomic make up helps us understand how the Creator may have sung the world into existence. Sound, music and song are a crucial part of the creative "mathematics" of the Divine.

“Pythagoras alone of mortals is said to have heard this harmony … If our hearts were as chaste and as snowy as Pythagoras, our ears would resound and be filled with that supremely lovely music of the wheeling stars.” John Milton.

  

The stars are singing to us but we cannot hear them because of a lack of receptivity and the prevalence of ambient noise.

 

“…when the stars of the morning sang together.” Job

 “There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st but in his motion like an angel sings.”Shakespeare

 

“We should thank the stars for their song. Their light emanates from their singing and when they sing they glow. That is how they reveal themselves. 
The Zohar teaches when we pray in the morning it is a continuation of the singing of the stars.”

Ever since the Greeks until fairly recently music has been considered sacred and an attempt to mimic the voice of the Divine. The ancient Greeks also believed that music could return humanity to a paradise lost and was a form of communion with Divine truth. The Greeks and others felt that sound should follow a certain "objective moral order" as did the church. The great classical composers followed this idea. Pre-modernistic music kept these principles up until the last century. Relatively recently this has changed and musical discordance has become prevalent.

Sacred Sound

 

Sacred sound from classical music, Tibetan gongs, crystal bowls, a didgeridoo or anything else (drums, strings etc.) can help induce meditative states and equanimity.

 

Special songs and chants have the power to awaken the dormant and reveal the hidden and stir the energies that heal and glorify.

 

Active Meditation: Chanting, singing, whistling and the use of wind instruments can be a part of breath meditation. Bhajans and Kirtans, devotional songs that help to connect with the Divine are also a form of an embodied "breath" practice. They help us connect with our Creator whose breath is sustaining us moment to moment.

"What is God? The breath within the breath."  Kabir

All four Beings of nature are animated by the breath of the Divine. 

Sound has spiritual power and features prominently in the Bible. 

Singing and playing musical instruments in the tabernacle and later the temple was the duty of Levite priests and priestesses. Levite harpists were routinely called upon by the prophets to enable prophecy. 

King David's psalms were in song and included instruments such as psalteries, harps, timbrels, stringed instruments, organs and cymbals. The harp was known to be an instrument of healing and was also used for cleansing spiritual afflictions. 

Music and sound are a vital part of our spirituality, balance and healing.

“God protects the Psalmist by surrounding him with "songs of deliverance."

 

“So it came about whenever the evil spirit from God came to Saul, David would take his harp and play it with his hand and Saul would be refreshed and be well and the evil spirit would depart from him.” Samuel

"Divine sound is the cause of all manifestation. The knower of the mystery of sound knows the mystery of the whole universe."  
Hazrat Inayat Khan   

 

If we perform random acts of kindness or create or listen to beautiful, concordant music we release pockets of love energy or mini-angels. Non-concordant music does the opposite.The right sound can be divinely inspired and sacred music can allow us to find equanimity and balance. Concordant music enhances our parasympathetic nervous system creating a relaxation response with positive effects on our nervous system and body. 

The wrong kind of music such as Heavy Metal - does the opposite. It has been described by many, even David Bowie, as the Devil's music. 

Military style music also advantages our sympathetic flight or fight response and helps in battle. 

Everything in the multiverse is vibration and the electromagnetic energy in sound and music is fundamental to our reality and whether we are in balance or not.

 

The Heart Math institute has done research on the coherence of heart rhythms in relationship to Heart Rate Variability (H.R.V.) Heart rate Coherence occurs when the parasympathetic nervous system is invoked with meditative techniques. Heart coherence has the potential to create emotional balance in the brain and can occur with any meditative technique and also with selected music. The right kind of music has the potential to create heart, mental and spiritual coherence. This can override stress and the negative emotions that arise from a sympathetic flight of fight response. 

Certain genres music can be healthful, enhance immune function and create positive emotional states. The wrong kind - the opposite. Music can help drive our imaginative capacities. Guided imagery with music helps us to heal.

We have to be sensitively aware of what discordant music can do to our being as well. Emoto showed that concordant music (like Mozart), when exposed to water that was frozen, produced exquisite crystals when looked at under a microscope. Discordant music (like Heavy Metal) did the opposite. He and German scientists have shown that water has memory, resonance and consciousness. Our cell are 80% water. Think of what music can do to our bodies?

“I am conscious of having removed all traces of a past aesthetic. I am cured of the delusion that the artist’s aim is to create beauty.” 

Schoenberg (and his ideas on discord and atonality in the 1920’s.)

 

 He and others were influential in changing musical concord into discord and away from the great composers and the church. This same discord creates discord in the living systems.  Boulez who preceded him and Cage agreed and also drifted away from the concept of the sacredness of music.

“Once the past has been got out of the way, one need think only of oneself.” Boulez

(Musical narcissism?)

“Purposeful purposelessness,” to have absolutely no organization. Cage

 

 John Adams was greatly influenced by New England's musical culture. He, and others came up against those in favor of dissonance and atonality. He said; 

“At the same time God disappears, so does the intelligible order in creation. If there is no God, Nature no longer serves as a reflection of its Creator. If you lose the Logos you also lose the ratio (logos) of Pythagoras. Nature is stripped of its normative power.”

The Church has tried to counter discordance with Christian rock as have other artists such as Matisyahu with his combination of reggae, hip hop and rock beats. Words are key to the vibration. Cursing and four letter words add to the power of the negative effects even if the sound is relatively concordant, as has now happened in Rap.

Click on the link and play

Matisyahu - One Day (YouTube Version)