Published on December 29, 2008
in General.
I’ve been working on musical projects lately and it has made me think of sound and its place in our tradition and in Eastern spirituality in general.
Sound obviously has a huge transformative potential. I think that secular music’s power is based on its close connection with emotions. In the west artists like Elvis, The Beatles, Nirvana or Rage Against the Machine, to name a few, have had a massive influence on the youth. The potency of music to convey emotions is totally mystical in my opinion. Just the fact that by combining certain concepts and ideas in the form of lyrics with certain kinds of tones and rhythms can create such profound and deep experiences, is fascinating for me.
The Eastern mystics have been convinced for thousands of years that sound changes us. I don’t find it hard to believe at all. I remember when my old friend used to work in a plywood factory that was extremely noisy, and he said that after a while it really started making you crazy. He also mentioned that practically all the long-time employees had mental problems, alcoholism and such. Certain types of sounds increase negative and destructive emotions, other kinds of sounds increase constructive and peaceful emotions. And the kind of emotions we harbor mostly determines how our lives will shape up.
Apart from the material effects, I strongly believe that sound has the power to transform us in an eternal sense as well. That’s why the Eastern traditions (and many Western monastic traditions) have such a strong emphasis on mantras. It’s a request and an attempt to try to tune oneself to the frequency of a reality that goes beyond material sounds and the emotions they give rise to. A real suicide soundtrack for the material ego.
If you’re interested to find out more about the subject of the transformative power of sound and how it ties into spiritual practice, there’s a book called Music as Yoga by Patrick Bernard that I found very interesting.
Published on December 22, 2008
in General.
“Everybody’s got a hungry heart”
but we settle for junk food
Published on December 15, 2008
in General.
I happened to see an interview of the leading “life coach” guy in a magazine. Despite the white-smile-suit-and-tie look I decided to see what he had to say, because being impractical causes me a fair amount of anxiety. Most of it was the typical North American “inner giant” type of self-help that I can’t say I exactly relish but one thing he said really struck me both as a human being and a spiritual practitioner: The most important thing is that you keep your promises to yourself. Sounds very simplistic, but after I started paying attention to that principle in my everyday life, I realized how much we cheat ourselves. “I’ll do it tomorrow”, sounds familiar? So many of the modern lifestyle problems come from not being able to keep promises.
Starting projects, keeping a good schedule, updating your blog, and above all, flossing daily (!) can deteriorate surprisingly fast into a random mass of anxiety-driven last minute frenzy.
Postponing duties and other boring obligations is just another symptom of the 21st century mindset: a search for a quick fix. But I’ve come to realize from erring time after time that a more sustainable comfort and satisfaction comes from self-discipline. This really holds true with spiritual practice as well. It so easy to slap your practice always into the following day, or do a little less every day, or even multitask while “meditating”. But if I don’t keep my promises to myself, I can’t expect too much from anything I do.
It just really seems like our times are plagued with a kind of an instant satisfaction- thinking. Paradoxically it has lead to a massive amount of dissatisfaction and a loss of focus. Especially within serious spiritual practice the effects of the times show, because there are no instant fixes to the problems of material ignorance. I did see an add once that said, “learn to meditate like a guru in 45 minutes!” but that’s just a sad example of how out of touch we are.
To balance this all out, it’s not so hard to go to the other extreme either by making too demanding promises. And in no time the constructive self-discipline turns into destructive self-loathing. I guess my next promise to myself could be that I will be reasonable with myself regarding my spiritual practice. Now that’s a tough one.
Published on December 8, 2008
in General.
I was thinking of you today
How I can’t catch you
and how that’s too much for me sometimes
Like today
And how is it possible that I feel lonely
when there’s nothing (not even loneliness) outside of you?
You are closer to me than I am to myself
but still my thoughts echo
like gunshots in a ghost town
Published on December 1, 2008
in General.
“Ascetics are both the children and elders of society at the same time, childlike in maintaining their idealism and wise as a result.”
-Swami B.V. Tripurari
Idealism is considered to be something belonging to youth, after which we grow over it and get on with the “real world”. I’ve seen so many leave their idealism behind along with their thinning hair, and I’ve left a bundle of it behind myself (both of them, actually). The reality of survival becomes apparent when your parents stop paying your bills. It’s hard to be a dumpster diving squatter if you have three kids to take care of and a mortgage and a student loan. Unfortunately idealism is often no more than a utopia that’s not really grounded in how the world works and that’s one reason why people comply in their adult lives.
There’s something very attractive about the youthful idealism, as much as it can be silly and juvenile as well. Despite being often misdirected and not too well-informed, the feeling of it, the urge to fight and stand for something, is very attractive. Faith in itself is beautiful. To be ready to lay down your life for something, give your all-in-all, is to really be alive. But how fulfilling is it really to reach the goal of idealism that concerns only the material existence? If we’d save all the oceans, turn over all the evil governments, burn down every slaughter house and feed every hungry person in the world, what to fight for then? Would the peaceful dayt-to-day life in the perfect world satisfy us? I know it wouldn’t satisfy me.
The root of exploitation is much closer to us than we dare to think, and social activism doesn’t really have the weeding tools to pull it out. According to eastern philosophy our materially tinged view of reality is the cause of injustice. It’s not a circumstantial problem. We are the problem. So it’s not very surprising that most idealists get totally frustrated and bury their weapons under their couches and home theaters . We’re chaining ourselves to a wrong tree, so to speak.
I’ve always thought that spiritual life is the essence and the source of idealism. It’s revolutionary in a sustainable way. Since morality is at its basis, it doesn’t abandon responsibility in the name of a higher ideal (when in a lot of the cases the real motivation may be laziness or selfishness). But when the time is right, all duties in relation to the world will be left behind, and one is free to live exclusively to one’s ideal. The cool thing about Gaudiya Vaishnavism is that it doesn’t suffocate the soul in the name of ending exploitation or suffering. It talks about refocusing our view of what reality is and how we fit in. It’s not as much preoccupied with changing or doing away with the externals rather than expanding our understanding of what we are. Real idealism is actually just about seeing the full picture of reality.
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