Life has a vital sonic dimension that colors our moods and sentiments, our joys and fears, our love and pain. Without the energy and emotion that sound and music provide, our lives would feel disembodied — even dead. As you reflect on your life, you will realize that significant events have often been preceded by a sense of music in the air, informing you that something wonderful was about to unfold. The opposite is equally true: An ominous silence or an atmosphere darkened by dissonant sound often foretells a coming disaster. For those who have developed their ears to hear more intently, a wealth of information is available to guide them through the diversity of life’s experiences. It is the power of this subtle sonic dimension that we seek to master through the Yoga of Sound.
I wrote this book to introduce an ancient yet almost unknown practice to those who want to broaden and deepen the spiritual dimension of their lives. The personal benefits I have enjoyed via the Yoga of Sound have been immense. It works. Over the past twenty years, the students with whom I’ve shared this tradition have also experienced its benefits. Yet a comprehensive, reader-friendly understanding of the role of sound in yoga practice is not presently available in the West. In this book, I want to make the depth and scope of Sound Yoga accessible to anyone who is interested in using sound and music as a spiritual practice.
You might wonder if you need to be musical to embark on this journey. You don’t need to be musical, but you will find yourself becoming more musical as your practice develops. How is sound different from music? Sound is the emanation of any tone, frequency, or vibration. Quantum physicists tell us that in order for anything to exist it has to be in motion, vibrating. Conversely, if any object is in motion, it is producing a frequency — a specific tone. Refrigerators, airplanes, automobiles, and hair dryers all produce tones. Your body, too, exists because every atom and cell in your organism is vibrating. Life is vibration, tone, and rhythm. In this sense, everything is alive. Music, on the other hand, is the organization of specific tones or frequencies, located at specific distances — or musical intervals — from each other. Sound is always implicit in music. But when we think of sound as vibration, we can understand that the scope of all the vibrating frequencies in the universe goes far beyond the range of what our human ears can hear. Music is the perception and understanding of the underlying order and relationships among all these vibrations, expressed in melody, rhythm, and harmony. Even our sense of music may be rather limited in relation to its possibilities in our mysterious universe.
In today’s world, sounds of varying quality often overwhelm us. We have become accustomed to the barrage of sound in our cars, homes, elevators, stores, and public spaces. This onslaught is corroding our emotional taste buds and destroying our capacity to sense the finer shades of existence. A CompuServe news survey in December 2002 found that roughly one-fifth of Americans felt that loud noise made their lives stressful. And unhealthy stress, we now know, is a key precipitator of disease. “So sensitive are we to sound that noise pollution has been called the most common modern health hazard,” writes alternative physician Dr. Larry Dossey. “High levels of unpleasant sounds cause blood vessels to constrict; increase the blood pressure, pulse, and respiratory rates; release extra fats into the bloodstream; and cause the blood’s magnesium level to fall.”1
These effects don’t come as a surprise to most of us; we all tolerate a lot of noise. But how effectively are we compensating for this intrusion? The answer lies in the highs and lows of our emotions and spirit. If we are swinging toward the extremes, then we are probably not coping well with the effects of this invasion of unhealthy sound.
When we look within our bodies, we discover another world of sound — one that feels the influence of our increasingly noisy exterior world. Heartbeats, nerve twitches, and the blinking of our eyes all emit vibrations, and these inner vibrations are being entrained to those generated by the outer world. Entrainment is the process by which natural motions become synchronized, such as the pendulums of clocks or the menstrual cycles of women who live in community. Even two heart-muscle cells pulsing at different rates will start to pulse together if brought into proximity of each other. In the same way, when our outer world is cacophonic, that discordant vibration will configure our inner world. Conversely, inner turmoil manifests as a manic outer world. How can we learn to shift this process? How do we create a more harmonious inner world, which then improves our outer world? This is exactly what we will explore through the Yoga of Sound.
When we fall out of harmony with ourselves or our world — when we are nervous, afraid, or unhappy — our inner sounds become discordant and we don’t feel well. In ancient Greece, medicine was used to keep the body in tune — in harmonic alignment with nature and the universe. All forms of sickness, both physical and mental, were considered musical inconsistencies. Hippocrates, the father of Western medicine, often took his patients to the healing temple of Asclepius. There, music was used to reestablish the natural harmony of the body. Compare this to our modern hospitals, where noxious, hazardous sounds are ubiquitous. Patients recovering from heart attacks in coronary care units, for instance, are particularly susceptible to unpleasant sounds, and noise pollution in these settings can affect survival and recovery.2
The Yoga of Sound counteracts noise pollution; it helps us establish and maintain the natural harmony of our bodies. It is a spiritual practice that shows us how to work with all the sound in our lives, giving us the discernment to separate the good from the bad and empowering us to weave it all into one harmonious fabric.
In today’s environments, managing stress has become the primary factor in maintaining our health and well-being. Yet stress is a necessary component of our productive lives; few of us want to return to living in the woods or sitting in a cave just to escape stress. We want to fully engage with the world, and at the same time we want a spiritual life that will help us cope with stress.
No matter how exciting our lives may be, we feel that something is missing if we don’t touch the deeper parts of ourselves. We thus feel compelled to move inward, into the core of our being, to discover the true nature of our soul in the rapidly changing landscape of our thoughts and emotions. Balancing these inward and outward impulses seems to call for a sort of guerrilla spirituality — something we can practice without giving up the world. The Yoga of Sound, an ancient and well-tested discipline, can be that practice.
I FIRST DISCOVERED the Yoga of Sound when I officially renounced the world at the age of nineteen. The process of renunciation took about a year to unfold; when I was sure, I called my family together in our home in South India and declared that I was going to join an ashram. I had grown up in a Christian family, and my mother was appalled; she imagined that I was going to team up for group sex at the local Rajneesh center, the only kind of “ashram” she knew about. But I had my heart set on Shantivanam, a peaceful oasis on the banks of the holy river Cauvery. There, in the shade of the eucalyptus and mango trees, I discovered an amazing way of life based on chanting, meditation, and yoga.
The monastery I joined was a Benedictine ashram, a Hindu-Christian hybrid directed by Bede Griffiths, an English Benedictine monk who had moved to India to explore Eastern spirituality. Under his direction, a whole world of interior sound opened for me. Ever since I’d been a young boy, I had aspired to be a professional musician. I had trained myself in rock, jazz, and pop, hoping to perform with the world’s great artists (Carlos Santana was one of my favorites). But in the ashram, my awareness of sound was expanded. Through many wonderful teachers around the great temples of South India, I learned about the sacredness of music in the Indian Carnatic tradition. I also studied ancient Sanskrit chanting and began to read sacred Hindu texts about exploring consciousness through sound and music. I was thrilled to discover a practice that combined my love of music with my spiritual search.
Five years after joining the ashram, I married Asha, who had also lived at Shantivanam. Together we came to the West, intending to explore sound and music within the context of healing and spirituality. We chose North America because of the rapidly growing interest in yoga here, as well as the developing acceptance of therapeutic music.
Life in the West taught me about the true value of the Yoga of Sound, which can effectively bring much-needed balance to the lifestyle here. I found myself rediscovering the sacred in a culture that was the exact opposite of what I’d experienced in India. Modern America is radically different from modern India, which retains a strong sense of the sacred in public places and professional environments. Waving incense in front of a sacred image before a studio recording, or breaking coconuts ceremoniously at the start of a movie, are just two of countless reminders of the sacred in the daily life of present-day Indians.
Yet America is not without its own spiritual power, so I want to be respectful of this culture as I introduce my knowledge of Eastern spirituality here. The first wave of Indian teachers sought to transplant Hindu spirituality, unchanged, into Western soil. I believe that a new attitude is necessary today. The insights I will share with you through the Yoga of Sound are offered in a spirit of dialogue and sensitive cross-cultural fertilization. I hope that this effort will, in some fashion, enrich the global spiritual renaissance that is taking root here in the West.
The practice of Hatha Yoga has recently exploded in the West, as people enjoy the flexibility, health, and stress reduction it offers the body. With this book, I hope to educate and motivate Western yoga practitioners (yogis) to also incorporate sacred sound into their practice. A better education about this sonic science will allow American yogis to expand the scope of yogic states available to them.
At present, the practice of Sound Yoga in America is almost entirely limited to devotional chanting, or kirtan — a call-and-response chant sung in praise of the Divine. Although devotional chanting is accessible and touches the heart quickly — two qualities that strongly attract the average practitioner — it is only one of four streams of sacred sound in yoga and Hinduism. If the world were all heart, devotional chanting would suffice for our sonic spirituality. But this is not the case, so limiting our sonic practice to kirtan leaves us poorly equipped to face our turbulent times. Through a varied, integrated sonic mysticism, we can discover strength, sensuality, and attunement, as well as devotion.
AFTER ALMOST twenty years of teaching Westerners, I have found that an integrated practice that includes all four sonic streams appeals to many people. While the most obvious candidates for this path may appear to be yoga practitioners, the word “yogi” actually embraces any serious spiritual seeker who consciously and methodically aspires to achieve harmony, balance, and refined consciousness.
Mantras are the sounds that should accompany our yoga postures. Like strands of DNA, these sounds offer yoga practitioners a direct link to the source and substance of the yoga tradition. Just as you cannot truly grasp science without knowing its language — mathematics — it is impossible to touch upon the depth of yoga without a knowledge of mantras. Ranging from single, resonating syllables to long, recited sentences, mantras are the soul of the yoga tradition. Yoga practice fueled by an extensive vocabulary of mantras can effect profound spiritual awakenings. The time has arrived for yoga practitioners in the West to take this element seriously, and through it to discover their spiritual roots.
The Yoga of Sound has much to offer others as well. If you are not a yoga practitioner, but are inclined toward practices such as Tai Chi, Chi Gong, or forms of dance rather than yoga postures, you will find that the practice of mantra can increase your concentration, enhance your creativity, and enable you to maintain a healthy body and mind.
Health-care workers and people who seek healing for themselves will discover that the Yoga of Sound provides tools that connect them with the spiritual dimension of the healing process. Furthermore, research shows that chanting produces natural painkillers, lowers the heart rate, and reduces blood pressure — a few of many positive effects of sound on the body. The Yoga of Sound cannot replace medicine, but it certainly can augment it. Mantra has always been central to healing in India, where sonic formulas have been used to promote well-being for thousands of years. When used in combination with ritual, meditation, and Hatha Yoga practice, mantras become vessels of healing energy that we can direct within ourselves or into others.
For those interested in spiritual experience, the Yoga of Sound presents a tremendous range of practices that directly embody spiritual growth. You do not need to give up an existing practice or tradition to explore this path.
For artists, the Yoga of Sound offers a spiritual discipline that instills self-confidence, reconnects one with one’s body, and helps clear creative blocks. Singers can add power to their art by widening the scope of their vocal and chanting abilities; through proper application of the Yoga of Sound, they can enjoy improved vocal texture, control, depth, and resonance. Indeed, any musician who discovers the language, cosmology, and spiritual technology behind the Yoga of Sound tradition will channel greater transformational energy into the world through their art and person.
And, of course, any busy person caught up in the frantic pace of the modern world can use the Yoga of Sound to relax, reduce stress, and awaken creative potential in new ways. Sound Yoga is an easy, effective way to still the chatter of the mind. The Yoga of Sound can also help people overcome addiction, a common result of excessive stress. Exploring the Yoga of Sound is about taking charge of our lives and our environments, and transforming them through spiritual practice.
Many of us are emotionally fragile and spiritually vulnerable. Energy constantly drains from numerous ruptures in our energy systems. As we develop our capabilities with the Yoga of Sound, we can gather both the pleasant and unpleasant energies we encounter and use them to our advantage, rather than being victimized by them. Imagine what a blessing it would be — and what a storehouse of power we would build — if we could convert the energy that flows through the many facets of our being into a positive force. The Yoga of Sound helps us harness the energy around and within us so that we can use it to transform our lives.
We have within us the power, the resources, and the skills to draw into our consciousness the experiences we value, moving us naturally toward a harmonious future. In this book, I will share with you the techniques I have used to make my own life increasingly harmonious. Grounded in traditions thousands of years old, the Yoga of Sound can be a powerful tool to transform your life and your world.
PART ONE, “Yoga,” deals with understanding both sound and yoga in a broad, deep sense. I will also discuss how the Yoga of Sound relates to, differs from, and complements Hatha Yoga. In part two, “Mantra,” I will extensively address the subject of mantra, which is the language of yogic experience. In part three, “Tradition,” I look at the four streams of sonic mysticism: Shabda Yoga, Shakti Yoga, Bhava Yoga, and Nada Yoga. I will further discuss the function and significance of various kinds of mantras within the context of these four streams and styles of Sound Yoga. The Yoga of Sound, as I am offering it you, is an integration of these four streams. In part four, I have broken down the practice of the Yoga of Sound into five elements: posture, the breath, sound, movement, and consciousness. Finally, in part five I will show you how to implement the knowledge you’ve gained through this work into a daily practice and continue your exploration of this amazing path.
Since the pronunciation of mantras is important, I have devised a simple method to train you in this aspect of chanting. Your experience of pronunciation will gradually unfold through the four appendixes included at the end of this book. These appendixes pertain to the four distinct streams of sonic mysticism mentioned earlier. However, I have not utilized this pronunciation system in regard to the Hindu terms I use throughout the book, choosing instead the common spellings that most readers are familiar with.
The accompanying audio tracks can help you experience and practice the four streams of Sound Yoga. To further expand your understanding, I have also included a section on programs and resources after the appendixes.
My vision of this work is to help you, first and foremost, grasp the depth and scope of this sonic mysticism. Next, I will reveal how useful this tradition is to our present-day lifestyles and challenges. Finally, I want to introduce you to the practical methods and techniques of this tradition. To that end, I provide you with exercises throughout the book, carefully described so that you can understand and practice them easily. You can also cross-reference specific practices by making use of the index; page numbers listed in boldface will help you locate where you can learn a given practice or mantra.
I hope you will enjoy the ride.
Namaste,
Russill Paul