The paradox of our age

We have bigger houses and smaller families;

More conveniences but less time;

We have more degrees, but less sense;

More knowledge, but less judgement;

More experts, but more problems;

More medicines, but less healthiness;

We’ve been all the way to the moon and back

but have trouble crossing the street

to meet the new neighbour.

We built more computers to hold more

Iformation to produce more copies than ever,

but have less communication;

We have become long on quantity,

But short on quality;

These are times of fast food but slow digestion;

Tall man but short character;

Steep profits but shallow relationships;

It’s time when there is much in the window,

but nothing in the room.

His Holiness the 14^th Dalai Lama:

Chanting as a Spiritual Practice, by Robert Gass as reported in Earth Star Magazine, April/May 1999

Each of us comes fully equipped with the most magnificent vehicle for opening the heart and sending our prayers soaring to the heavens – our own voice. Chanting as a spiritual practice is free, safe, and easy, and can be done anywhere, anytime. We can chant in the car while commuting to work, chant in the shower, chant while preparing food or cleaning the house, even while opening junk mail (the average American spends two months of his/her waking life engaged in this last activity).

Chant helps quiet the mind. The intellect is a great tool, the product of tens of thousands of years of evolution. It has only one major design flaw – the lack of an “off” switch. The reality of Spirit transcends words and concepts. As author and teacher Ram Dass likes to say, “The best the mind can do is say, ‘It went thatta way!’” Chanting bypasses the intellect, short-circuiting our concepts, our questions and doubts about Spirit. Sufi Murshid Elias Amidon once said to me, “What’s great about chanting is that it cuts free from the volumes and libraries full of mysticism and words trying to say the ineffable. It’s the real thing.”

Why chant? From a musicological standpoint, let’s face it – chanting can be kind of monotonous. My father’s first reaction to our recording of Om Nama Shivaya was, “Hey, you should market it as an aid for insomniacs. It puts me to sleep right away – it’s the most boring music I ever heard!” While chant may or may not be appreciated by those listening for musical sophistication or high performance quality, countless people are today chanting and listening to chant for its profound effect on our consciousness.

The repetitive sounds of chant vibrate in our brain, again and again, washing our minds, our own inner wavelengths gradually coming into resonance with the tone and feeling of the musical prayer. Our bodies and energy become entrained to the rhythm of the chant, the repeating pulses shifting our state of being into greater alignment and harmony. As we continue, we move in and out of immersion in the chant. Sometimes it’s clearly “me” sitting here, chanting “Om Namaha Shivaya” or “Alleluia.” Other times, we touch moments where the separation between chanter and the chant, the sense of “me” doing something fades away. There is only “chanting.”

Not only is chanting a form of meditation in itself, but chant is also an extremely useful adjunct to other spiritual practices. Because of its powerful ability to calm the mind, chanting can serve as a helpful bridge between our busy lives of work, kids, errands, telephones, etc. and deeper states of meditation.

The concept of “practice” is helpful in our spiritual work, for it reminds us that we are all learners. When I first set forth on the spiritual path, I read many books that talked about enlightenment. Unfortunately, my only models of learning came from years of competitive, achievement-oriented academic training. I imagined enlightenment to be like a super Ph.D. I figured it would take me about five years, as I had always been a precocious student. That was 30 years ago. I guess I must be a slow learner. My days still fluctuate between moments of remembering, then forgetting and once again remembering who I am. Sometimes I’m awake; other times I’m just going through the motions.

It turns out the spiritual path isn’t about attaining something or getting somewhere. Our preoccupation with “How am I doing?” or “Am I there yet?” is just more stuff, more background noise that drowns out the music of soul. A spiritual practice is a life-long commitment to a journey of becoming – a journey with no end.

In practicing a musical instrument, we play our scales, stumble over the difficult passages, and go over them again and again until we have attained mastery. There are no “mistakes” in practice, because the working and reworking of the places where we stumble is precisely what helps us develop our skills. There are no short cuts, no quick fixes. We are life-long learners – even the greatest musicians practice many hours a day.

In the practice of chanting, we do not wait for inspiration to strike – we chant because it’s our practice. Reb Zalman Schachter, Chassidic Rabbi and founder of the Jewish renewal movement, told me that while some days the impulse to daven (the traditional Jewish form of chanted prayer) comes naturally, other days “I’m just doing it because it has to be done – otherwise I would get out of touch.” We commit to the forms of practice, helping sustain us through changing moods and erratic energy.

Practicing the piano, some days our fingers seem thick and clumsy as we trip over our scales; other days our fingers seem to dance sprightly on the keyboard. The practice of chant is also like this. Sometimes within moments after we begin chanting, we experience waves of energy; other days we can barely hear the voice over the relentless chattering of the mind. “Om namaha shivaya…What time is it? Om namaha shivaya. I’m not really into this today…Om namaha shivaya…I’m hungry! What’s for lunch? We learn to let go of evaluating our experience on any given day – we soar, we crash, we’re ecstatic, we’re bored, we’re focused, we’re asleep – it’s all practice.

Chant is a devotional practice, a form of heartfelt prayer. We call out to God, we honor God, we thank, we beseech, we invoke, we bow, we bless, and we celebrate. We become as intoxicated troubadours, singing our love songs to the Divine Beloved: “Listen, listen, listen to my heart’s song. I will never forget you, I will never forsake you.” Paramahansa Yogananda.

At this very moment, the deep and ancient sounds of sacred chant fill churches, temples, mosques, ashrams, and kivas, as people join their voices in communal worship. In forests and fields, by the sea and on mountain tops, as the sun rises and falls into dusk, women and men add their chanting voices to the symphony of natural sounds. In the grace before meals and the quiet moments before bed, at marriages and the great transitions of births and deaths, people join together to chant their prayers. At workshops and wellness centers, in hotel ballrooms and the privacy of living rooms, people in cultures where traditional forms of have lost meaning are rediscovering the power of chant.

In the fire of our chanting, or in the sweet silence as the last tones fade into nothingness, words such as “love” and “oneness” become living reality. May your life be filled with the beauty and the joy of chant.

A wish list of a dream world we can all aspire to: (Muhammad Yunus) Nobel Peace Prize winner 06’

• There will be no poor people, no beggars, no homeless people, and no street children anywhere in the world. Every country will have its own poverty museum. The global poverty museum will be located in the country that is the last to come out of poverty.
• There will be no passports and no visas for anybody anywhere in the world. All people will be truly global citizens of equal status
• There will be no war, no war preparations, and no military establishment to fight wars. There will be no nuclear weapons or any weapons of mass destruction.
• There will be no more incurable diseases, from cancer to Aids, anywhere in the world. Disease will become a very rare phenomenon subject to immediate and effective treatment. High quality healthcare will be available to everyone. Infant mortality and maternal mortality will be things of the past.
• There will be a global education system accessible to all from anywhere in the world. All children will experience fun and excitement in learning and growing up. All children will grow up caring and sharing persons, believing their own development should be consistent with the development of others in the world.
• The global economic system will encourage individuals, businesses, and institutions to share there prosperity and participate actively in bringing prosperity to others, making income inequality an irrelevant issue. “Unemployment” and “welfare” will be unheard of.
• Social business will be a substantial part of the business world.
• There will be one global currency. Coins and paper currency will be gone.
• Technology will be available with which all secret bank accounts and transactions of politicians, government officials, business people, intelligence agencies, underworld organizations and terrorist groups can easily be detected and monitored.
• State-of –the-art financial services of every kind will be available to every person in the world.
• All people will be committed to maintaining a sustainable lifestyle based on appropriate technologies. Sun, water, and wind will be the main sources of power.
• Humans will be able to forecast earthquakes, cyclones, tsunamis, and other natural disasters precisely and in plenty of time to minimize damage and loss of life.
• There will be no discrimination of any kind, whether based on race, colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation, political belief, language, culture, or any other factor.
• There will be no need of paper and therefore no need to cut down tress. There will be biodegradable reusable synthetic papers, in cases where “paper” is absolutely needed.
• Basic connectivity will be wireless and nearly costless
• Everybody will read and hear everything in his own language. Technology will make it possible for a person to speak, read and write in his own language whilst the listener will hear and the reader will read the message in his own language. Software and gadgets will translate simultaneously as one speaks or downloads any text. One will be able to watch any TV channel from anywhere and hear the words in his own language.
• All cultures, ethnic groups, and religions will flourish to their full beauty and creativity, contributing to the magnificent unified orchestra of human society.
• All people will enjoy an environment of continuous innovation, restructuring of institutions and revisiting of concepts and ideas.
• All people will share a world of peace, harmony and friendship devoted to expanding the frontiers of human potential.

Yunus sees the emergence of his wish list of dreams realised by 2050

Buddha was a very practical teacher

He only revealed only what was really useful to gain nirvana. One day the Buddha took a few leaves into his hand and asked his disciples “What do you think. O Bhikkus? Which is more? “ These few leaves in my hand or the leaves in the forest over there?“Very few are the leaves in the hand of the Blessed One, but indeed the leaves in the forest over there are very much more abundant.

“Even so, bhikkus. Of what I have known I have told you only a little, what I have not told you is very much more. And why have I not told you, because they are not useful, not leading to nirvana. That is why I have not told you those things”.

‘The law of music that works throughout the whole Universe’

The Sufi musician Hazrat Inayat Khan said his whole aim of life was to direct the attention of those who seek the truth towards the laws of music that work throughout the Universe. He said in other words it may be called the laws of life, the sense of proportion, the law of harmony, the laws of balance, and the law which is hidden behind all aspects of life which holds the whole Universe in tact and works out its destiny, fulfilling its purpose. It was because of this knowledge that the wise of the ages have considered music to be a sacred art. For in music the seer can see the picture of the whole Universe and the wise can interpret the secret and the nature of the workings of the Universe.

Hafiz, the great Sufi poet of Persia refers to a legend which exists in the East and which tells how God made a statue of clay in His own image, and asked the soul to enter it, but the soul refused to be imprisoned, for its nature is to fly about freely and not to be limited. The soul did not wish in the least to enter this prison. Then God asked the angels to play their music and as the angels played the soul was moved to ecstasy, in order to make the music more clear to itself, it entered this body.

 It is a beautiful legend and much more so is its mystery. The interpretation of this legend explains to us two great laws. One is that freedom is the nature of the soul, and for the soul the whole tragedy of life is the absence of that freedom which belongs to its original nature; and the next mystery that this legend reveals to us is that the only reason why the soul has entered the body of clay or matter is to experience the music of life, and to make this music clear to itself. And when we sum up these two great mysteries, the third mystery, which is the mystery of all mysteries, comes to our mind. This is that the unlimited part of ourselves becomes limited and earthbound for the purpose of making this life, which is the outward life, more intelligible.

 

Therefore there is a loss and a gain. The loss is the loss of freedom, and the gain is the experience of life, which is fully gained by coming into this limited life which we call the life of the individual.

 

What makes us feel drawn to music is that our whole being is music; our mind and our body, the nature in which we live, the nature which has made us, all that is beneath and around us, it is all music: and we are close to al this music, and live and move and have our being in music.

 

Article edited from “Sufi message Vol 11, Mysticism of sound, word, cosmic language, Chapter 2 “the music of the spheres”