THE SPIRITUAL POWER OF MUSIC # 8
"Divine sound is the cause of all manifestation.
The knower of the mystery of sound
knows the mystery of the universe." Hazrat Inayat Khan
We can use music and sound to meditate and even 'beyond' meditation to achieve
advanced altered states of consciousness.
It is essential that we find the music
that speaks to each of our own individual souls.
The genres we choose will often give us a sense of
who we were in past lives. Chassidic and Celtic music, to me, feel more like the
African genre that I love and make me want to move.
Sound is profound - the more so when embodied !
When I was initiated as a sangoma (Zulu equivalent of shaman)
in Swaziland around the time of the new millennium
I was told that I would have to dance
to the sound of the drum to allow the Ancestors to come through.
I already had a fairly advanced yoga asana and pranayama practice at the time which helped
but they alone never got me as far as the dancing and drumming, done at night
and in the early hours of the morning
(when the Veil between the Worlds is the most permeable.)
"The Kundalini in the form of latency is coiled like a serpent.
One who impels this Shakti (Feminine Power)
to move will attain liberation." Hatha Yoga Pradipika
"A human's spiritual consciousness is not awakened until his/her
Kundalini is aroused." Sri Ramakrishna
Interest in Shamanism is huge at the moment but in indigenous Southern Africa, initiation
is dependent on whether the drumming and dancing allow the "Umbilini" to emerge
and take over. The yoga equivalent is the Kundalini which is the key to
Self-Realization. Sangomas on the other hand use Umbilini
so that they can channel the Ancestors in order to help others. The energy is similar.
The San Bushmen call it Num which with complex chants, harmonies,
clapping, rattles around the legs of the dancers, the fire
and the Kalahari night enables them to trance and travel out of body to the spirit world.
The Bantu and San medicine women and men of Southern Africa would replace
the yogis' 'spiritual consciousness' through the Kundalini
with all the facets that have to do with healing
viz.- diagnosis and the corrective measures required.
Their indigenous process is initiated by a Kundalini-like experience (witnessed as shaking)
which the Zulu call Umbilini. The San Bushmen call it Num
and rather than shake they fall down, paralyzed in trance.
The energy is universal -
we all have it. The yogis also describe its sophisticated anatomy
in terms of the Chakras and Unity Consciousness or the Oneness Experience.
This occurs when the Knower, the Known and the Process of Knowing
fuse and become One Thing. It's not as mysterious as it sounds.
Maslow called it a Peak Experience .... when the dancer 'becomes' the dance.
Some of you may have had it but did not recognize it or invalidated it.
For instance; when viewing a sunset; the Knower - You, the Sunset - the Known
and Process of viewing it - fuse into One thing. You become the sunset.
For most of us this occurs rarely by grace and quickly disappears.
The Bantu peoples and Kalahari San Bushmen healers can control it
using sound and dancing for its facilitation.
The differences between the Bantu and San Bushmen tribes of Southern Africa are that
the San travel out of body into the spirit world (and fall motionless on the ground)
to access non-local information from the 'Field.'
Sangomas, however, glean the information
with dancing and drumming which allows the ego to step aside so that
they becomes a channel for the spirit to transmit non-local wisdom from the
the Ancestors.
In all instances the sound that catalyzes the process is basic, repetitive and simple.
Adrian Poole (University College London)
compared the rhythms used in Pygmy and Bushmen music.
He stated that the 3:2 pattern seems to form the structural basis for many
Pygmy/Bushmen mind-altering experiences and other
sub-Saharan Africans including the Bantu.
Native American
Across many of their communities, the drum embodies the
"heartbeat of Mother Earth".
It is not merely a percussion instrument, but a sacred bridge used to
connect with the Ancestors.
The heartbeat rhythm is also simple, repetitive, of low-frequency and is believed
to facilitate transition into altered states. It is also
combined with chanting and dancing, as well as in sacred environments
such as a sweat lodge.
The force of the Primal, manifest as love is the glory of God.
We need to be humble and return to our Primal origins for the truth about
spiritual concepts now lost to us in the West.
These original truths will never change.
(For those interested - this video, shot by myself around the time of the
millennium, shows the San Bushmen out of body spirit
trance dance. It's short.)
https://www.davidcumes.com/videos_5.html
This video below demonstrates some of spects the sangoma model
especially note the shaking. (Also short.)
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