RockOm

By Tom Crenshaw, Tom@RockOm.net

Carly Simon needs no introduction. Since 1971 her music and hits such as "That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be", “Anticipation”, “You’re So Vain” and many others have been part of the soundtrack of millions of lives around the world. Her 1973 album No Secrets rocketed to #1 on the US album charts and held firm for six consecutive weeks, eventually going Platinum and receiving a Grammy Award nomination. One song from that album, "You're So Vain", was also nominated for Song Of The Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance and as of 2008 was listed at #72 on the Billboard definitive list of the Top 100 songs from the chart's first 50 years.

In 1988 Carly won an Academy Award, Grammy and a Golden Globe for her song “Let the River Run” from the Working Girl motion picture soundtrack. Only one of two artists to ever accomplish such a feat (the other being Bruce Springsteen for "Streets of Philadelphia"), Carly hasn’t rested on her laurels, instead she has continued to write not only more great songs, but film scores and children’s books as well.

Now Carly has a new album out entitled Never Been Gone which was produced by her son Ben Taylor on his Iris Records label. Never Been Gone is a collection of Carly’s hits, re-recorded this year with minimal backing instrumentation, allowing a refined, sultry, autumn sound to emerge. This fresh take on classic favorites also includes two news songs where we hear Carly continuing to evolve and grow as an artist. RockOm recently had the extraordinary opportunity to sit at length with Carly to discuss her new album and also explore music and healing, chant, meditation, the beauty of the human voice, prayer in its various forms and much more.

Tom: Your new album is entitled Never Been Gone and is out now on Iris Records. I think I speak for millions saying through your music I never felt you had been gone. The great songs on this album are timeless, yet simplistically and beautifully refined. Which songs surprised you the most in how they spoke to you after you re-recorded them?

Carly: I’m glad that you said that because I don’t want anybody to think this is a compilation. There have been quite a few compilations of my albums but this is really a reinterpretation as if I were singing in a foreign language. I limited myself to certain instruments such as not allowing myself to use drums except for on one song. My hits were always marked by my love of the huge tom-tom fill [laughs] and since we didn’t have any of those fills I feel much more exposed on this album. On songs like “Loving You is the Right Thing to Do”, I’m not awash in production. I also feel very exposed in “Coming Around Again". Certainly in the original the emotion came across but not in the way it does on Never Been Gone. When I listen to this album it affects me more, hurts me more, elates me more; it gets back to the core of what the emotion is of the song. When I was listening and mixing "Coming Around Again" it seemed very much like a chant in a way. It sort of moves you vibrationally sometimes like when you sit and chant. I’m not sure which organ it affects - whether it the spleen, the heart, or the liver - but there’s something about it that puts you in a “hum” mood.

Tom: I agree. It’s a liberating listening experience. I imagine it must have been the same for you doing these songs in an entirely different way.

Carly: Well, yes it was and certainly my son Ben [Taylor] had a huge hand in that. He wanted to know how I originally wrote them and then he wanted me to move from there, to take my toys and do them bare and stark. You know, it’s not that I’m not very much helped by Ben and David Saw and [other musicians on the album] but there’s something so different about this album. We’re all older; we’re all approaching it in a different way. There are some new musicians who were never in on the songs before. David Foster certainly put a very new spin on “Let The River Run.” I find that song can be sung in any way. It’s a hymn, so it cannot be sung as a sultry love song, but in terms of whether it’s chorally done or [performed] by one voice or by a duo or trio; it’s very versatile. We sang this in a beautiful and simple choral way, although there are aspects of my solo voice that come through. But it’s largely a guitar-based song; it doesn’t have the thrust of the original version that I did for Working Girl.

Tom: Since we’re talking about “Let The River Run”, your Academy Award-winning song from Working Girl which became somewhat of an anthem after 9-11, what do you think it’s going to take for us to find the “New Jerusalem” and create more harmony between each other on this planet?

Carly: Oh, what a good question. I think that if we all chanted at the same time, everyday, from country to country to country, without any time zones interfering that we would all be vibrating on the same plane, which has always been a great healer. Music has always been used to heal because it makes people feel a lot better. Not all music does; there are certain songs, intervals and chords which don’t make you feel very good. Pythagoras freed the minds of his disciples from the worries of the day by playing music, which would calm their minds and would also produce deep sleep and prophetic dreams. In the morning he would banish the lingering effects of sleep by playing stimulating melodies and rhythms. Major chords will do one thing to your mind and body and minor chords will do something else. Suspension chords will do something else. Then there’s the Devil’s interval which does something. So music and its properties are just fantastic the way they can alter your state of mind.

Tom: I think that’s why we come back to our favorite music over and over again when we want to recreate that original experience.

Carly: Yeah, when you think of it the ancient Hebrews or the prophets foretold the future through chanting and the sister of Moses was said to have immense visionary powers which were conveyed through chanting. Shamans cured diseases and mental anguish by coaxing the evil spirits into leaving their victims through the powers of chanting. There have been all kinds of enlightenment through music, but healing the sick is also a major [attribute]. There are so many curative powers in music. I think that music is the strongest of all the arts in terms of being able to cross all the boundaries and being able to do so many things, especially vibrationally to the body. Looking at a piece of art is very effective and impressive, but I don’t think that it does the same thing if you’re not also the participant. There’s something about the way music brings people together in a communal way; it's such a terrific thing. And it seems to me that the most powerful thing about church or temple for me was always the music.

Tom: Do you use music in meditation to relax? It’s widely known that you have some issues with stage fright and it’s ironic that you create this beautiful music and yet you have stage fright before going on. Does music help you to calm yourself?

Carly: [Laughs] I would love to be on stage and perform music - just the vocal aspect of it - with a whole lot of other people. I would love to sing in a choir or as some of the Irish folk musicians do; they’ll sing while being held from the back by another singer, and that person will be held by another person, and that person by another so that it’s like a chain of singers who are holding each other and they feel each other vibrationally. I would love that. When I’m singing by myself I feel incomplete a little bit. I wish that I could actually feel the warmth and the vibration of another human being right next to my body while I was singing.

Tom: Well you certainly have the vibration of millions of fans that you’ve performed for over the years supporting you. I hope you feel that at times.

Carly: Oh I do, I do! I love it when the audience sings with me. What I don’t like is the very stillness of a room and then just my voice. That’s what sort of scares me. I jump at the sound of it, it’s so solo. I think there are some people who really feed on that and feed on the complete solo-ness of their voice as a lone instrument in the dark. I like the togetherness of the community singing.

Tom: Let me ask you about the creative process. I know that besides being a musician you’re also a very successful film arranger and children's author. Can you explain where all the magical melodies and lyrics, the ideas and words for your books and music come from?

Carly: Oh I have a thousand stories and as I was explaining to somebody the other day, I think I was born with a faucet in my mind. It’s always dripping a melody but there are other things that will be in the way of it. For instance, I’ll be talking to you and I won't necessarily be thinking of the melody, but as soon as I’m still again the melody will come. So anytime I want to tap into it I can and then I‘ll go from there. I go from whatever melody I’m given to a lyric that will seem to go with it or to a better melody or to a chord that I play on an instrument. There's always a starting place. It happened to be with my children’s book that the starting place was in telling my own children stories that I would be making up, because it would be easier to put them to sleep when the lights were out and I was not reading a book. So I would turn off the lights and I would make up a story. Everything that I write has to be very real to me or I have to be able to identify with it.

Tom: Who do you turn to musically for inspiration?

Carly: It’s usually classical music. To be specific I would say the music of Debussy, Poulenc and Gershwin, who's obviously not just classical but he’s the modern composer who I’m most attracted to in terms of melody. There are so many people in pop music and in jazz that it would be to hard to limit myself. If I go to my CD collection it’s almost impossible to chose one myself. It’s easier to turn on the radio and see what happens by accident. There’s always something that I’m fascinated and/or moved by.

Tom: Included in the new album is your song “Coming Around Again.” You write about coming back home to Martha’s Vineyard:"I know nothing stays the same / But if you're willing / to play the game / It's coming around again / So don't mind if I fall apart / there's more room in a broken heart." The music has changed this time around but the words still hold a simple truth that is unchanging about a space - in this case your home - which holds peace and serenity. Other than your home what sustains you when all else fails?

Carly: I think it’s prayer, in its various forms. It’s prayer, where I stay quiet and see whether I can hear the voice of God and how the voice of God comes to me. If it’s in the form of music, then there’s some kind of spiritual prayer which is more sacred than it is secular and that can be any number of things. There’s a requiem by Fauré I happen to love. My thing is I have to remember to [pray]. When I’m not being sustained or when I lose myself or when I’m angry or when I’m in the wrong space I have to remember I can click it off. I have to remember that I can pray if I choose to do so.

There are many things that are meditative for me. Painting is meditative; I love to paint. I love to garden and to look at my beautiful trees that I’m so lucky to have. My son’s music is just exquisite. I listen to that; I listen to the beauty of his voice. Just the beauty of the human voice is really something; it’s a meditation all of its own. The voice of my daughter… there are so many beautiful voices that I just love. My favorite tenor is Yussi Beurling and some of the beautiful music that he sang, just that voice in itself can pull me in a whole different direction, as can various pop songs. I listen to a lot of Motown, especially to Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye and Sam Cooke. And dancing... I would be a whirling dervish if I lived in that time. In fact, I might start a little group of my own right here in my apartment. [Laughs] That would be fun!

www.carlysimon.com

Photos by Amanda Borland

An interview with Himalayan/Tibetan Bowl Sound Healer Diáne Mandle

What are your observations with people experiencing change and self-discovery through sound?

Diáne: Healing through sound is a movement from disharmony to harmony, a spiritual awakening with a profound impact on the physical body. As we awaken and our perspective shifts, a domino effect ensues that also shifts our vibration and our cellular make up. The shifts cannot occur as separate entities - they affect the whole of who we are and extend infinitely. This transformation of consciousness is the foundational principle of the Himalayan Singing Bowls. Tuned to the vibrational frequency of AUM, the sound of universal perfection, their sound reawakens in us our connection to the universe. Their frequencies gently penetrate and calm the body/mind, balance the hemispheres of the brain, initiate the relaxation response and decrease, fatigue, pain, stiffness, and emotional tension. My clients often report that during sessions they feel completely transported to another dimension while being aware of that which surrounds them, and return feeling revitalized, deeply relaxed and filled with joy (a sense of wholeness). I work with many cancer patients and they report that pain and the effects of chemotherapy is greatly diminished, enhanced sleep patterns, more clarity, energy and a shift in attitude that contributes to their quality of life. Other reports from patients include lowering of blood pressure, positive changes in relationships and the ability to act on issues which they could not act on in the past.

The Tibetan Buddhist philosophy that the singing bowls are rooted in teaches us that embedded in the energy and frequency of the singing bowls is the idea that nothing exists independently of anything else. Healing is a process where we are released from an ego centered finite perspective of ourselves in the world and move into our essence where our vibratory energy is connected with the universe and where, even at a cellular level, we can experience the interrelationship of all things. Without healing, the core issue that caused a physical condition in the first place is likely to manifest again. Sound is the train that helps us get to healing.

What is energy healing & healing energy emission?

Diáne: The sound of Tibetan bowls entrain our energetic system to resonate with them in their perfection. In the universe every dissonant chord tends toward becoming a harmony and that’s what they help our bodies to do. The harmonic resonance of the bowls literally pulls us back into a more universal energetic flow. They effectively transmit their soothing and peaceful vibrations through our body in a way that affects our entire nervous and immune system and initiates the relaxation response bringing us into a Alpha/Theta brainwave state (waking dream state that is home to creativity, inspiration, intuition and where we can let go of our ego boundaries, of our consciousness of our physical state and connect with the non-physical, non dualistic.)

Who and how can people benefit from energy healing?

Diáne: Healing with sound is about getting back into alignment with the benefic energy of the universe. It is experiencing a vibration that connects us all to everything. Anyone can benefit who is willing to open to this energy.

What is the role of the patient and client in the process?

Diáne: We are equal partners in the process. The ultimate role of the practitioner is to empower the client to remember and strengthen his/her inner wisdom and healer. Ultimately the client is the healer, the practitioner is the guide back to that rediscovery.

About Diáne: Diáne Mandle has been practicing Himalayan/Tibetan Bowl Sound Healing since 2000 when she was already working as a Polarity practitioner and a Life Coach. Wanting to expand her knowledge of energy work she began a two year course of study of Tibetan bowls on the east coast with Sacred Sound Workshops and became their first certified practitioner. After relocating to California Diáne established a private practice integrating Polarity, Sound Healing and Coaching and in 2004 became California’s first State Certified Tibetan Bowl Practitioner/Instructor. Her work includes educational workshops, trainings and concerts nationally. Presently associated with the San Diego Cancer Center as one of its Complementary Therapy Team members she offer regular sessions to their patients. To date she has produced three acclaimed CDs, Return to Om and Sarasvati’s Dream and Being Well: The Journey, as well as two books Ancient Sounds for a New Age: Introduction to Himalayan Sacred Sound Instruments and How to Clear Space with Sound Using Tibetan Bowls & Tingshas. Diáne has appeared on numerous radio and television programs, been published in a multitude of journals, magazines and blogs and has traveled to Nepal and India to select high quality instruments and expand her understanding of the originating culture and healing modality. In June of 2008 in answer to an increasing demand for skilled sound healing practitioners she, in association with Sacred Sound Workshops opened the Tibetan Bowl Sound Healing School. The schools mission is to help create and maintain a high standard of practice with the Sacred Sound Instruments.

Find out more about Diáne, her books, music and healing work at SoundEnergyHealing.com.

By Howard Cohen, RightSide Solutions

RockOm alum Mickey Hart discusses sounds from space with “The Universe: Pulsars & Quasars” scheduled to air on The History Channel, Tuesday, October 27th at 9:00 PM. Please check your local listings for details and set your TiVo/DVR now!

During The Dead’s Spring Tour, Mickey Hart debuted the "Universe Of Sound". Each night of the tour Hart connected audiences with the universe's most celestial vibrations from the Big Bang to the rings of Saturn to the black hole. Hart said, “The idea was to take our audience on a nightly tour of some part of our universe during our 'space concerto' section. The next day we put it up on our website so the kids could follow it.” This got the interest of the folks at the History Channel who produce the acclaimed “The Universe” series. They came out to Hart’s studio and spent an afternoon doing interviews for the segment being produced on pulsars and quasars.

Hart is known for his high quality recordings of music from around the globe and his collaborations with the world’s great percussionists. His Grammy Award winning Planet Drum (1991 Best World Music) and Global Drum Project (2008 Best Contemporary World Music) featured the finest acoustic percussion, enhanced with the latest audio processing and editing technologies. As he begins to record his next project, the frontier of space inspires Mickey's compositions and he is thrilled to be collaborating with a number of the world's leading astronomers and astrophysicists along with his Global Drum Project band mates, Zakir Hussain, Giovanni Hidalgo and Sikiru Adepoju in creating other worldly music emanating from a universe of sound.

Connecting the arts and sciences is another piece of Hart’s latest works. Mickey hopes to inspire the next generations and feels it is essential that young people understand the science of their times. He strongly supports the Obama administration’s STEM initiatives to prepare the next generation in science, technology, engineering, and math. Mickey has been a pioneer in supporting engineering for the arts including the development of field recording systems, loudspeaker arrays, and has made various appearances at AES (Audio Engineering Society) conventions.

Please find a brief of the show on The History Channel Website

www.mickeyhart.net

SEE ALSO: RockOm's interview with Mickey - "If There's a Creator, It's a Rhythm"

Photo: Jay Blakesberg ©2009

By Tom Crenshaw, Tom@RockOm.net

Albert Einstein once said, "If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music." I think it’s fairly safe to say that Einstein understood music about as much as music can be understood.  Just as difficult as it seems to grasp Einstein's theories of quantum mechanics, energy transfer and special relativity so it can seem equally implausible to fully understand the mysteries, dynamics and connection that exists between us and the forces of vibration which we call music.

But one doesn't need to be an Einstein to enjoy or use music as a source of pleasure or for healing and connecting with one another and to a larger source. "We're all wired for music", according to Oliver Sacks author of Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain. Countless others have pointed to our inherent ability to connect with the mysteries and forces of music without being able to fully understand the connection.

Often we take our relationship with sound and music for granted without fully considering how vital they are to our well being - how magical a form of communicating music is. The simple fact that music expresses the full range of emotions humans are capable of expressing or understanding is profound. Unlike words, which need to be translated from one language to another, music need only be performed or heard for us to understand what is being expressed.

To me and many, many others music holds the answers to the questions which words cannot answer. Music is a holy force, a prayer set to melody and an expression of the Divinity in all beings and in all forms. But don't take my word for it. Read what has been expressed more eloquently than I could possibly ever communicate:

"Do you know what the music is saying?
'Come follow me and you will find the way.'" Rumi

"Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life." Ludwig van Beethoven

“Music is the art of the prophets and the gift of God.” Martin Luther

"We have fallen into the place where everything is music." Rumi

"Music is the language of the spirit. It opens the secret of life bringing peace, abolishing strife." Kibran

What do you say music is and how do you use the mystery of sound and vibration in your life? What are your favorite quotes on music? We would love to see your thoughts here and invite you to interact with the RockOm community on this Friday. Let's not be a mystery to each other. Let's reveal ourselves and sing to one another our sacred songs.

By Diáne Mandle

Music has always been recognized as having a powerful effect on human consciousness. But in the past few years, there has been more research into the science of sound, and how it can be used to improve our lives. We are learning why different kinds of music and sounds have the effects that they do on the body, emotions, mind, and spirit.

Science tells us that all life is energy in one form or another. Further, this energy is eternal, changing and morphing from one shape or form to another. Each ‘energy shape’ has its own particular pattern of frequencies, or vibrations. When one form experiences a matching frequency in the form of a musical note, the form will begin to vibrate in sympathy with the note in sympathetic resonance. A strong enough vibration can even cause a form to restructure itself, as has been noted with cancer cells, crystal glasses, water crystals, etc. With the Himalayan bowls (also known as Tibetan Singing Bowls) every note creates sympathetic resonance with every other note producing harmonic overtones that commence the healing process.

Let us, for a moment, look at the difference between healing and curing: Curing is an end product or finite result. Dictionary definitions define it as “the complete biological resolution of a diseased state” or “the elimination of disease, distress, evil”.

Healing is a process and infinite in nature. Some definitions include: “the making or becoming whole, the mending of a breach”, “to free from grief, troubles, evil”, “restoring to health or soundness”; and my personal favorite by Jeanne Acheerberg, “an intuitive perception of the universe and all its inhabitants as being of one fabric.”

Healing is a movement from disharmony to harmony, from duality to non-duality or Divine Awareness. The journey of healing then is a spiritual awakening with consequences on our physical well being. As we awaken, our perspective shifts. As our perspective shifts, our vibration shifts. As our vibration shifts, our cellular make up shifts. The shifts can not occur as separate entities- they affect the whole of who we are and extend infinitely. This link between body and spirit has been much ignored by the medical profession but the link is quite clear.

Healing is a process where we are released from an ego centered finite perspective of ourselves in the world and move into our essence where our vibratory energy is connected with the universe. Healing can lead to being cured. But if one is simply cured on a physical level, without sufficient healing, the core issue that caused the condition in the first place is likely to manifest again. A vital step in the healing process is that of establishing resonance with the condition in question. Most people resist their condition. You cannot release that which you do not own. Sound is the train that helps us get to healing.

How? We now know that different pulses stimulate different brainwave centers. We also know that we can create brainwave entrainment through a process of sympathetic resonance and that we normally entrain or fall into vibrational step to the strongest vibrations in our immediate environment. Our body is a perfect transmitter of vibration, being 80% water Further, nerve bundles in our spine transmit vibrational sensory data to brain stem and limbic system (our emotional processing center). Placing Himalayan (Tibetan) bowls directly on the body significantly increases their effectiveness. The bowls vibrate at the frequency of perfection, otherwise known as the Sanskrit mantra ‘AUM’. They create harmonic overtones in which each note contains all other notes and none is a separate entity on its own. These bowls are made of seven metals which were collected, smelted and pounded into shape and sound in a ceremonial manner, with monks imbibing them with prayers and mantras. The intention of healing and consciousness transformation still resides in the sacred instruments and is transferred to the listener.

Their sound entrains our energetic system to resonate with them in their perfection. In the universe dissonant chords tend toward becoming harmonic. It is the nature of energy to harmonize. The harmonic resonance of the bowls literally pulls us back into a more universal energetic flow. They effectively transmit their soothing and peaceful vibrations through our water body in a way that affects our entire nervous and immune system. The sound waves initiate the relaxation response bringing us into a Theta brainwave state (waking dream state that is home to creativity, inspiration, intuition and where we can let go of our ego boundaries, of our consciousness of our physical state and connect with the non-physical, non dualistic). The sound vibrations of the sacred bowls balance our right and left brain and with repetition in conjunction with visualization can hold us in the Theta state for longer and longer periods of time. The vibrational sound from the Himalayan bowls initializes our parasympathetic nervous system and helps to raise the disease fighting immune cells while also reducing our stress response and creating cardio-respiratory synchrony (the synchronized flow of our brain, respiratory and heart rate waves). Our capacity to heal from any illness is predicated on our body’s ability to achieve cardio-respiratory synchrony and this is exactly what is achieved by listening to the bowls. When they are placed directly on your body, as in a private session, then the healing potential is greatly increased because you are receiving the vibrations in your muscles and organs in addition to hearing them. In other words Vibrational Sound creates the optimum physical/spiritual container needed for healing.

Dr. Mitch Gaynor, Director of Oncology at the Cornel Cancer Prevention Center states: “‘Sound can redress imbalances on every level of physiologic functioning and can play a positive role in the treatment of virtually any medical disorder.

Himalayan Bowls are teachers: Let’s not reduce the healing that takes place only to science. We have already seen that healing is predicated on spiritual awakening. The bowls can be seen as great teachers. They carry the Buddhist Voidness teachings which purport that nothing exists independently of anything else. Each note from these sacred instruments contains all other notes and herein lies their magic. Although possessing a variety of harmonics, the fundamental vibration of each bowl is rooted in the Sanskrit mantra OM. This is the vibration that our brains entrained with. This primordial sound is the perfection of the universe. The ensuing sympathetic resonance between brain and bowls reawakens the intrinsic blissful self in us.

Our attitudes, beliefs and behaviors will either engage with or sabotage the healing potential as well. Positive thinking can strengthen your immune system and change your life. The combination of the sound vibration of the bowls with positive visualization and affirmations will greatly enhance the healing experience. Thus, sound is a type of energy medicine that creates the sacred space in which people can heal from stress disorders, pain, depression, the emotional roller coaster and more. It also creates the perfect state for deep meditation, creative thinking and intuitive messages. The healing process is initiated by entraining our brainwaves and creating sympathetic resonance with the perfect vibrations of the Himalayan singing bowls.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Diáne Mandle is an author, teacher, healer and recording artist based in Southern California. She is Certified in Tibetan Bowl Sound Healing and Polarity therapy. Diáne maintains a private practice offering an integrated system for healing which includes Sound and Polarity Therapy, Toning and Visualization. She conducts educational programs, keynotes and Harmonic Sound Healing concerts nationally and presents frequently at the Deepak Chopra Center and the Golden Door. She has produced two acclaimed CD’s and the first comprehensive multimedia home study course in Sound Healing using Himalayan instruments (Tibetan, Nepalese and Bhutanese bowls, tingshas, gantas and dorjes) ‘Ancient Sounds for a New Age’, an E-Book/DVD/ CD set available on her website http://www.soundenergyhealing.com

By Tom Crenshaw, tom@RockOm.net

Who are the The Mayapuris? They are an eclectic group of talented musicians who share their love of the sacred culture of kirtan through their music.

Where do they come from? The question is better answered in their own words:

"Where do we come from? Is it an esoteric question? Externally we as the Mayapuris are the product of our upbringing. Vish has an Indian father and an Italian-American mother, Kishor and Bali are brothers, one year apart, born from Colombian parents and Jagi is Venezuelan with Israeli descent. We grew up in temples, on farms, in villages, in cities surrounded by Krishna culture, playing mrdanga, singing, dancing, reveling in the joy of kirtan from birth until now. This is where we come from."

The Mayapuris are Vishvambhar Das (Vish), Balarama Tirtha Das (Bali), Krsna Kishore Das (Kish), and Jagannath Kirtan Das (Jagi). The group has been touring around the world performing with RockOm alum Gaura Vani & As Kindred Spirits on the Mantralogy Tour 09 and recently performed at the Bhakti Fest in Joshua Tree, California.

RockOm recently sat down with Kish and Vish of the Mayapuris to learn more about the group, the history of kirtan and to discuss why kirtan is so popular around the world. We also spoke about their upcoming time in the studio where they will begin recording their first CD on Mantralogy Records. Mayapuris dancer Vrinda Devi Doherty also joined us in this interview.

Tom: Tell us about your name, Mayapuris.

Vish: Mayapur is a place in west Bengal, on the banks of the Ganga where the sankirtan movement as we know it originated some 500 years ago. Mayapur is where Caitanya Mahaprabhu utilized kirtan as a non-violent response to the oppressive cultures in place as well as a protest to the caste social system. The people would take to the streets, sing and dance with the mrdunga drum. It was spiritual; anyone could join in and did. The Muslims, Hindus and all levels of social caste joined in. We took our name in honor of Mayapur. Most of the members have spent some time in Mayapur studying and going to school learning more of our instruments, visiting holy places and bathing in the Ganga.

Tom: You say on your website: “Finding our way home, to our true selves is a process.” How can music help us in that process?

Vish: Sound vibration is one of the most subtle elements in this world. Who we are as spiritual entities is beyond these material bodies made of the five gross elements. The strongest way to connect with that spiritual entity that we are is through the subtle vibration of sound. The mantras cut through the material elements and connects us with the spiritual elements. That connection is what is called yoga, that linking. So we are actually practicing a type of yoga, but it is kirtan - the yoga of sound, of becoming so close to that spiritual sound vibration that it removes those coverings, those layers and one realizes oneself in that process.

Kish: There are so many modern day distractions as the age we are in now progresses - the Kali Yuga age. It is very difficult sometimes to sit down, connect with yourself and get strength for meditation. The prescribed duty for this age is Yuga dharma sankirtan.  Kirtan and sankirtan means “in union with people”. It’s the easiest and most fun way to surpass all material nature.

Vish: It’s joyfully performed. It’s really a blissful process. It’s a great way for everyone to come together and even though it’s such a serious thing - connecting with the Divine - it’s a fun process. Those who participate in kirtan automatically feel their soul stirred. Not only is the voice calling out but the soul is calling out as well in that love.

Tom: Vrinda, tell me what you feel when you are dancing.

Vrinda: It’s a progression. When I first start out dancing I’m dealing with how I feel while everyone is watching me. I’m suddenly vulnerable performing this spiritual dance. But as the music takes over I go beyond the vulnerability. I lose myself and it becomes a spiritual journey. Those who are in tune with their energy who have watched me say I am channeling diverse energies. I do that unconsciously because I am embodying the music and the energies come through me and are allowed to shine out.

Tom: Why is kirtan so popular? It’s resonating around the world. Why is that?

Kish: One of the main reasons is that kirtan is different. 40 years ago reggae wasn’t popular but through food, philosophy, music and lifestyle it clicked into society. I feel like with kirtan it is something that is naturally happening.

Vish: 500 years ago Caitanya predicted that this chanting would spread and be accepted in every town and village around the world. It’s happening. Caitanya also said that the sound of the mrdunga drum would resonate everywhere as well. We’re just part of that flow. We’re in the kirtan river wherever we go.

Vrinda: Also, Kirtan is based on audience participation and is not really a performance as much as trying to create the sacred space all together. The audience is such a crucial part of what we do. There is this call and response, so we all create the sacred space with everyone’s sound vibration and people love to be involved.

Tom: You’re about to go into the studio, so tell us about your new CD. What will you be working on?

Vish: We’re really excited to start work on our very first CD. It’s going to be a process for us.

Kish: The basic thing we want to capture is the energy that we represent. We want to put our energy of rhythm into the process because growing up playing the mrdunga is what inspired us. We want to try and adapt to the music that is popular and incorporate an “East meets West” sound, but at the same time keep the strong, traditional aspect of the mrdunga throughout the tracking.

Vish: We instill a lot of passion and energy into our live performances and want to capture that mood on our CD. We don’t hold back at all. We want it so that it makes your heart want to dance.

www.mayapuris.com

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By Tom Crenshaw, tom@RockOm.net

In Eastern spirituality it is believed that the whole universe, in its fundamental form, is made up of vibrating, pulsating energy. “Om” is considered to be the humming sound of this cosmic energy with no beginning and no ending.  In his book, The Call of the Upanishads, Rohit Mehta writes about Om and Anahata Nada, or “the sound that is unstruck.”

“This word [Om] indicates the coexistence of the articulate and the inarticulate sounds - of the heard and unheard melodies - of the sound that is struck and the sound that is unstruck, the Anahata Nada. Sound may be described by its three-fold nature - the Audible sound, the Inaudible sound, and the Imperishable sound. The audible sound is the one which the human ear can hear. The inaudible sound is one which belongs to such octaves as either too high or too low for the human ear to respond to. But there is a third category of sound which is imperishable. Sound obviously consists of vibrations, and all vibrations have a beginning and an end. But if there could be a sound which is unstruck - the Anahata Nada - then surely there could be no end to it as there is no beginning to it. To talk of a vibration-less sound is indeed to indulge in a paradox. In the sacred word Om, there is such a paradox. It is both heard and unheard, struck as well as unstruck. It is both perishable and imperishable.”

The Upanishads can hold no unique claim that sound energy is fundamentally the creative force which was never originated and is never ending.  The same can be found in the Bible, in the Book of John 1:1 - “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

Have you ever heard the saying, “We are made of the same stuff as the stars”? It’s a beautiful quote that sets my mind to dreaming. If indeed as scientists believe we are made of the dust of stars, then one could ask, what is the dust of the stars made of? We all know the human body is comprised of billions of cells, but what makes up the structure of the tiniest, unseen sub-atomic particles holding the cells together? (After all, no one has ever actually seen an atom although the concept - introduced by the Greek philosopher Democritus - has been around since 400 BC.) How can we know the parts of what we can’t even see? Could sound potentially hold a clue as to our very nature? The yogis and saints seem to intuit so.

And how did these yogis and saints come to realize vibration as the foundation for the material world? Through scientific measurements and calibrated laboratory instruments? Of course not. They came to realize primal sound energy through stillness, internal reflection, meditation, prayer and surrendering to a universal presence - a universal vibration - that only seems to make itself known when, as songwriter Trevor Hall puts it, we "turn down the volume."

I guess the thrust of what I want to communicate here, and it's a theme I come back to often, is that when we take time to be still we can come to know our "calibration" is naturally in tune with the essence of God.  When we take time to "tune in" and resonate with the Om of the universe, we come to discover the hidden aspects of our nature (like overtones we can't hear but, nonetheless, exist). And if we practice enough, we may begin to discover, much like the yogis and saints before us, that at our very core we are the essence of Anahata Nada.

Char Butler, this week's RockOm Featured Artist (see right hand column) understands the healing properties found in music. In fact Char says, "Behind the music I hope that the tones raise each individual's vibrations that are essential in healing." How often it is that we're simply "off vibration" not feeling the "vibes"? We can begin to let the music re-calibrate our being as soon as we become still and let the music flow through us.

"The older I became and went on my way
Wisdom came forth from my Father's voice
The words he spoke were heeded the most
Kindness and patience deliver you whole"
[From "My Life" by Char Butler]

It seems we're seldom patient or heeding of the vibration and inner words speaking the entire, silent truth. How fortunate we have each other here to remind us of what is real and unreal. There is no finer way of relaying this healing presence and becoming re-tuned to universal vibration, all that is real, than through music.