All songs are a part of Him, who wears a form of sound.
—VISHNU PURANA
The dancing foot, the sound of the tinkling bells,
The songs that are sung and the varying steps,
The form assumed by our Dancing Gurupara —
Find out these within yourself;
Then shall your fetters fall away.
—TIRUMULAR, TIRUKUTTU DARSHANA (VISION OF THE SACRED DANCE)
O ne summer vacation in the early 1940s, while I was still a medical student, I went with three friends to Pahalgam, a beautiful health resort in the hills in Kashmir. We had a modest tented accommodation (there were not many hotels then) on the hill right next to the river.
Lying on the green grass, we felt as if we were in the lap of nature, gazing at the blue sky and watching white clouds float by. We watched the sun rise and set every day. It was exhilarating and refreshing to hear the murmuring of the river by day and night, as the crystal clear waters rolled downstream over the rocks, stones, and pebbles in its bed. The sound produced a wonderful, soothing effect.
In the mornings the songs of the chirping birds and the wind
rust ing through the leaves added to the musical murmuring
of the river. It was nature at its best. The whole universe seemed
to be full of music, which induced a feeling of tremendous well-being.
The Rhythms of Life
The effect of music on all living organisms—plants, animals, and humans—has been mentioned in many ancient texts, including the Vedas, the Bible, and the writings of Confucius, Plato, and Aristotle. It is said that at a time of drought, music played by great legendary musicians such as Tansen could bring rain to the withered and thirsty land. And when Lord Krishna played his flute, not only were the gopis (the cowherd girls) affected, but the
cows were also moved by the sound of the music and yielded more milk!
Music influences all of life. That is because, as modern physics has shown, all life, all of nature including man, is composed of waves of energy. We are composed of energy vibrations or frequencies, and we live and move in a world of frequencies that constantly interact with one another. These frequencies and rhythms, whether the sounds of nature, musical instruments, or language, directly affect the waves and frequencies of other beings.
Numerous experiments have been performed in which music has been played to plants. Scientists working at an agricultural research institution in northern India demonstrated that when stalks of wheat were played classical sitar music, they grew bigger and stronger. In another study, Mozart's "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik," played to nocturnal plants, produced healthier specimens.
Scientists in Singapore randomly divided chickens into two groupings over half a mile apart. Music was played to one group most of the time, while the other group heard none. The hens in the “music" group seemed to dance to the rhythm of the music,
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wagging their tails. They became healthier as compared with the control group, and yielded more eggs.
Music and Medicine
The response of human beings to music is complex and fascinating. Not just feelings and emotions are influenced, but the very cells of our bodies. When we hear martial music, for example, catecholamines flood the body. Pulse rate goes up and muscle strength increases. The system goes into "alert," ready for battle.
On the other hand, soothing melodies release endorphins and induce a feeling of well-being. Blood pressure normalizes and the pulse rate slows as the person relaxes. The heart's functioning improves as irregularities and missing beats self-correct.
This has practical applications, not just for our own personal well-being. A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in 1994 states that neurosurgeons are likely to do a better job at the operating table with a little background music playing. The surgeons had lower blood pressure and pulse rates, and performed better with less stress. When the surgeon chose the music himself, it had an even more positive effect.
This study adds to the growing body of scientific evidence that music allays stress and can heal. As the American composer Stephen Halpern writes, "Properly chosen sounds can help bring you into a greater degree of physical and psychological harmony and balance."
The philosopher Nietzsche wrote, "without music, life would be a mistake." Over a century later, researcher Karen Allen of the State University of New York at Buffalo commented, "Our data prompts us to wonder if without music, surgery would be a mistake."
At the Yale University Medical School, Kay Gardner composes music that can avert pain and reduce the need for anesthesia during surgery. Various hospitals in the United States
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now regu l arly use music to help in the cure of various diseases e progress of certam chronic illnesses, for example, seems to slow down with music therapy.
Mr Faraggi, Professor of Music at the prestigious Ecole ormale de Musique in Paris, composes special music for babies. It comes as no surprise that music calms babies; mothers throughout the world sing lullabies to soothe their children to sleep. But Professor Faraggi says it can do much more. He has invented special “instruments" that babies can play by striking. They enjoy the experience so much that they cry when their mothers come to take them home," he says. The music-making babies are healthier and grow faster as compared with other babies their age, the professor states.
Although all good music can be healing, it is said that the ancient classical music of India, known as Gandharva Veda, has exceptional power to heal and restore balance. According to the theory behind it, specific Gandharva ragas are appropriate for certain times of the day. They correspond directly with the rhythms of nature and embody the most fundamental vibrations that pulsate through the universe at every moment. By reconnecting us to nature, of which we are an integral part, this music can quickly create balance in our mind and body.
These principles are spoken of in ayurveda, the ancient Indian system of natural medicine, where it is said that imbalances in the body can be corrected by particular ragas of Gandharva Veda, resulting in better health and even the healing of disease.
Scientists hypothesize that the music employed in the mantras of Vedic chanting, the sustained single note drone in the calls of the muezzins, the wails of dervishes, as well as the music of other ancient cultures, has helped heal people through the ages by producing harmony in the rhythms of the heart, breath, and brainwaves. The music helps the cyclical functions of these aspects of the human physiology, all of which follow a wave pattern. When the body's rhythms become disturbed, resulting in ill health, they can become rebalanced by the harmonious rhythms and melodies of the music.
268 YOUR LIFE IS IN YOUR HANDS
The highest development of this science of sound occurs in the ancient Vedic literature of India.
The Vedas and the Science of Sound
Oftentimes Vedic texts are considered only in terms of the meanings they convey. Yet it is well known that extreme care has been taken to preserve the precise rhythms and pronunciations of the texts for literally thousands of years. Why is this so?
To understand, we have to remind ourselves that verbal language is not the only way of communicating. Preverbal "language"—in the form of sound and vibration exists through out nature. Sound patterns convey information, but without "words" as we know them. Whales, for example, can literally talk to each other through the medium of sound over hundreds of miles.
The whole universe is alive with this preverbal language. At a later stage of evolution and development of the human nervous system, verbal language appears. This is just a more sophisticated version of the information and energy waves pervading all of nature, but an extremely powerful new form: it has given rise to a whole new world, the world of civilization, culture, religion, literature, and spirituality.
Words are symbols that express emotions, intentions, and desires. Words have incalculable power, constantly creating and changing the drama of our existence. Wrong words can be the harbinger of misery, war, and death. The right words can bring peace, harmony, laughter, happiness, and health. But words, before they have meaning, are sounds, vibrations.
This science of sound was perfected in the ancient Vedic literature. The Vedic rishis were said to be able to comprehend, in their settled, meditative consciousness, what is now being discovered by modern physics: that all natural forms and phenomena have wavelike properties. What appears to be solid on the surface, on a deeper level is really energy in the form of waves
THE HEALING POWER OF MUSIC AND THE ARTS 269
and frequencies. Vedic chanting is said to consist of those basic underlying sounds which uphold all of nature.
These frequencies and vibrations can be understood as sound or music , since sound has to do with wave properties. Indeed the Vedic literature that is traditionally accorded the highest respect is known as shruti, or "that which is heard/'
The Vedic tradition, including ayurveda and Gandharva Veda, makes practical use of this science of sound to promote healing. Like all of nature, our body consists of energy fields which at the surface level appear as the solid material aspects of the physiology. These energy patterns on the deeper levels are really like sounds: they are wave patterns, vibrations, frequencies. To promote health, sounds can be used which correspond to the particular vibrational quality of a part of the physiology in need of healing.
For example, in a patient with angina, the brain, working through messenger molecules that stimulate muscle cells in the middle layers of the blood vessels, sends specific signals which constrict the arteries, resulting in the angina pain. Betablockers, a group of drugs, help to an extent by inhibiting the action of these chemical messengers. But if one goes directly to the thinking process and corrects the impulses sent out by the brain, simply through the use of specific sound patterns (such as Gandharva ragas, mantras, or primordial sounds), treatment is more effective and far gentler.
Listening to chants of Vedic mantras helps to promote both healing in specific areas and to enhance general health and immunity. These healing Vedic mantras can be found on audio tape. The most effective way to listen to them is to sit (or lie down) quietly with eyes closed and let the mind flow with the chanting.
The wise who recite the sacred primordial sound of Aum and who merge its harmony into the waking, sleeping, and dreaming states of consciousness become steady. They tremble no more. They find the peace of
the supreme spirit, where there is no dissolution nor death and where there is no fear.
—PRASANA UPANISHAD
Today musicians are composing music containing animal sounds, the songs of whales, the chirping of birds, the murmuring of rivers and streams, the ebb and flow of ocean waves, the sighing of wind in the leaves. These sounds are soothing and healing, and they remind us that we are interconnected with everything in nature through vibrations and the sounds of music.
This being true, we should all take some time every day for quiet listening to beautiful music, chanting, and the music of nature, not just for our pleasure but for health and healing.
The Spiritual Power of Indian Dance
Our grandchildren, Priya and Mallika, daughters of Sanjiv and Deepak, studied Bharat Natyam in Boston. When Priya stayed with us in the summer of 1989, spending her days volunteering at Amar Jyoti (see Chapter 16), she took intensive dance training every evening, and at the end of the summer gave a performance before a fairly large audience in Delhi. She danced continuously for two hours, and her performance was praised by art critics in the national press. I found two of the six pieces she performed particularly moving.
The first was the Rasa Leela or dance of Krishna and the Gopis (milkmaids). Leela means the Creator's play or drama of creation. Rasa means dance. As they play, blissful musical sound is produced from the tinkling of the bells and the gopis' ornaments and bangles. The dance is preceded by a "hide and seek" between Krishna and the gopis. The musician George Harrison said of the dance, "Krishna is God, the source of all that is, was, or ever will be. Everybody is looking for him. Some don't realize that they are, but they are." This search for God— and the bliss of finding Him—is the essence of the Rasa Leela.
As God is unbounded, unlimited, He has many names:
THE HEALING POWER OF MUSIC AND THE ARTS 271
Rama, Allah, Jehovah, Self, Consciousness, The Supreme. As a single drop of water has the same qualities as an ocean of water, so our consciousness has the same qualities as God's consciousness. But through our identification and attachment with the material aspect of life (the physical body, sense pleasures, material possessions, etc.) our true transcendental consciousness
has been polluted, and like a dirty mirror is unable to reflect a pure image.
Through many lives our association with the temporary has grown stronger. The impermanent body, a bag of bones and flesh, is mistaken for the true Self. And we have accepted this temporary condition as final.
But God consciousness can be revived in all living souls. For as Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita, "Steady in the Self, being freed from all material contamination, the yogi achieves the highest stage of happiness, in touch with supreme consciousness. Through meditation and devotion, you can attain perception of God. You can actually see God, hear Him, and play with Him. It might sound crazy but He is actually there with you.
The spiritual significance of the Rasa Leela, the eternal dance, is that Krishna, the Supreme Personality of the Divine, is already and always present as the "supersoul" in the bodies of the gopis, as well as their husbands and all other beings. He dwells in the heart of all beings and is the guide of all, directing individual souls to act while remaining a witness.
The drops of the ocean are the same as the ocean. The gopis represent the drops: the prakriti, the creation, and all beings; Krishna represents the ocean, the Purusha or supreme consciousness. The beautiful dance and music of Krishna's Rasa Leela depict the relationship between the ocean and its drops, the hide and seek of the Supreme and its expressions.The subtleties and nuances of this eternal dance are displayed in the dancing physique, the movements, gestures, and facial expressions of the dancer. This is what Priya did so successfully in her solo Bharat Natyam performance.
Shiva's dance, the second of Priya's dances I would like to
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talk about, depicts the experience of Self-realization, the dawn of knowledge of the Self and the end of spiritual ignorance. Shiva represents one of the three fundamental powers of nature manifest in the world. Brahma is the god of creation, Vishnu is the preserver, and Shiva the god of destruction. These three powers exist all the time in this universe.
The trident that Shiva carries (in traditional statues and paintings as well as in the dance) symbolizes the three gunas, sattva, rajas, and tamas, which underlie the material universe. When a person transcends the gunas, he attains Self-realization. The throwing away of the trident during the dance thus symbolizes victory over the three gunas and the ecstatic experience of the bliss of the Self.
The traditional dance posture (seen in so many representations of Shiva Nataraja, the dancing Shiva) with one leg lifted and the other on a dwarf, signifies that a man of perfection deals with the world below yet has attained knowledge of the higher Self as well. The dwarf demon being crushed under his feet represents man’s ego being conquered. The glory of man is in conquering his lower nature and becoming master of his desires, senses, and ego. This too is depicted in the dance.
Shiva Nataraja represents the absolute Reality. The drum in his hand indicates the phenomenon of creation, as vibrations of sound are, as we discussed earlier in this chapter, said to be responsible for the process of creation. The flame in Shiva s other hand denotes destruction. The dance then represents the continuous process of creation and destruction which maintains the universe.
Night follows day, the plant follows the seed and the seed follows the plant. Birth and death follow each other. The perpetual process of creation and destruction goes on.
Nataraja maintains a silent, blissful countenance, representing the supreme tranquility of the Self experienced within, while at the same time he is untiringly engaged with great agility in his eternal dance. This is to demonstrate how a man should be in the world: engaged all the time in worldly activities, but with
quietude and peace in his heart. This, as Swami Vivekananda remarked, is the same teaching that stands out luminously on every page of the Bhagavad Gita: intense activity, in the midst of which there should be eternal calm.
As the noted philosopher and art historian Ananda K. Coomaraswamy wrote of Shiva Nataraja in his book, The Dance of Shiva:
The Supreme Intelligence dances in the soul ... for the purpose of removing our sins. By these means our Father scatters the darkness of illusion (maya), burns the thread of causality (karma), stamps down evil, showers Grace, and lovingly plunges the soul in the ocean of Bliss (Ananda). They never see rebirths, who behold this mystic dance.
This is the profound spiritual message these beautiful traditional dances wordlessly speak to our hearts.