Work In Progress: Meditation in Motion

The father of Modern Electricity, Nikola Tesla was not just that.  A century later the world is embracing this genius and what he understood is the very basis of the universe, “Vibration”.

Interesting to note, this unique minds relation with Vedic knowledge and his close interaction with none other than Swami Vivekananda. It is after meeting Swamiji, that Tesla began using terms like “Akasha” and the concept of luminiferous ether to describe the source, existence and construction of matter. Tesla’s use of Vedic terminology provides a key to understanding his scientific views of electromagnetism and the nature of the universe. Thanks to Tesla today scientists world over accept the universe is made up of energy. To know more about Tesla and his fantastic revelations all you have to google is this series of numbers 3,6,9.

My reason to name the said display of work this year 3,6,9 was not a random choice. I recognise that I am also responding to the vibrations in and around me. My current vibrations had me think and re think about these universal mathematical patterns. Patterns which are pr- historic and are found in all pre-historic art, and in different parts of the world, from different cultures and spaces and dating way back to any formal way of religion. Yes, I am talking of the patterns we very often find embed in nature. Be it the Fibonacci sequence of the spiral, or the formation of a Yantra.

A Yantra is the yogic machine of a visual instrument that serves in meditation. It is the microcosm of the universe and hence it is the body while Mantra in the mind. Through sound vibration experiments, scientist have seen the formation of these Yantras. Atoms and Molecules reverberate to these sounds and create certain shapes. The universe has left its blueprint through the shapes it surrounds us in nature and through the vibrations it engulfs us with. With the daily chaos of material life, we have drowned these sounds and vibrations.

Recently I found myself very intrigued to the mathematical, geometric patterns. Intrigued by the Yantra world we inhabit, I started doing my own research and I am still working on it and while I do so many other revelations keep coming my way. I have also been deeply interested in the Kali Yantra as a concept. The term Kali comes from the word Kaala. She is the female consort or the embodiment of all the Shiva stands for, the universal model of change. Humans by nature are averse to change and hence fear it. It’s this concept of fear that over centuries gave her a physical fiery form and various iconography and mythological references along with it. However, Kali is first and foremost a concept. She is best visualized in the form of a Yantra, as change and the universe’s model of change should be an abstraction of sorts. Its nature should be defined and hence should have the clear angles and edges of a geometric pattern. As religions took shape and form so did the concept and hence she became a female with dark powers of Tantra and all kind of symbolism attached to her physical embodiment as Kali. While I do not negate the cultural belief of this form and the gathering of communities to celebrate the female prowess, I find myself inclining more to a shape I find easy to meditate with. Hence it has been very satisfying to find her in various geometric patterns, through various tools and techniques. Through my limited sensibilities, I have tried to meditate upon the formless one through, the formations my mind creates. It’s a journey I began and it shall continue for I remain a work in progress. Meditation in Motion continues….3, 6, 9……

Work in Progress : Sing me a Song

Are you one of those Bathroom singers as well? I think most of us are, No? There is a certain pleasure in singing in the shower. Maybe it’s that complete feeling of freedom, privacy and uninhibited sense of cleansing that makes you feel connected to your most natural state of being one with the universe.

Once done and we wear those societal layers after drying ourselves, we then stop the singing and we start feeling the shrinking. Yes, if you notice the reason most of us do sing is because it creates an expansion within our hearts. You feel open, free, happy and liberated. Then why don’t we continue to do it the rest of the day. Why do inhibitions creep in. Why the fear of judgement on being bad or tone deaf singers, make us completely put breaks on what we love doing? I have often wondered.

Masaru Emoto in his book the The Hidden Messages of Water, describes how water reflects sound vibration that it is exposed to. The universe is vibration. It came into existence through vibration and hence we continue to vibrate on frequencies. Some frequencies heal us more than others. In depth documentation reveals through photographs how the molecular structure of water changes after being exposed to different sounds. Positive messages produce beautiful pleasing structures and negative stimuli creates less coherent forms. Our body is made up of 60% water and hence we are very reactive to the sound stimuli as well in the universe. It is difficult to conduct such experiments on our own body fluids and hence what we can do is conduct the experiment of feeling and observation of our own breath patterns.

The act of just closing the eyes and singing the praise of the divine has a very healing and magical feeling of comfort and expansion in the heart region. Notice in a group when singing for the divine, you close your eyes, and block all connection to your physical awareness of your existence and you start connecting with your inner being. Hence you drop the consciousness of “Am I sounding too high pitched, am I in Sync” and other such thoughts just drop. You sway with happy rhythm of a sun flower swaying in the breeze totally feeling the inner fields of gold blossom within you. The warmth of that gold glistens every pour in your body and you come away from such a gathering feeling rejuvenated and glowing. (The best facial if you ask me: P; try it before your next party ;)

The contrary observation will be the feeling and contraction of the heart region when damaging words are heard or exchanged. That sound vibration would create a reaction of shrinking and feeling small. This creates a chain reaction in vibrations and sensations in the body. I will not go into the reactive nature of such vibration. Let me stay focussed on discussing the beauty of singing and singing with sheer joy. (I have a tendency to digress…. So, help me stay on track).

I grew up amongst a family who prides itself on being very rhythmic and artistically evolved. My grand father, a doctor by profession was also a singer who used to be on the road for months for his singing expeditions. My father an artist, my uncle a writer, my eldest sister vocally trained by some great masters and although she doesn’t sing regularly she still can put every one into a stunned silence when she does. What I am trying to say, is that, there is that since childhood there is that under current pressure to be good in whatever you do. And I grew up thinking singing is not what I do. Trust me I had my reasons for believing so. I had sisters who sounded like cuckoo birds who sang so beautifully and I just lost my confidence to even do bathroom singing.

It was much later on, during road trips and with huge expansive beautiful landscapes I found myself breaking into tunes and everyone in my company enjoying it. One such instance was my 6 month daughter who was not taking very well to a sudden rule of a car seat, when we changed continents. Bring a born fighter she was putting up a tough resistance and she used to scream through the entire long 2 hour drives that we used to undertake. It was one such a lovely start to a weekend morning and we set out on a road trip and while she started her riyaaj I started mine. She tried to keep up and soon her wailing became rhythmic and after a while she started humming along with me. After 15 minutes of me singing away she was in stunned silence with a huge smile on her face. Funny to note it was after this that she stopped her car seat resistance and even started enjoying these drives.

Sixteen years on, and she now is quite melodious herself and is a bathroom singer but prides herself as more of a dancer and a writer. My son is like my father. He relaxes himself through humming. He hums whenever he is happy and whenever his fingers can’t reach a gadget. He is the most zen person around me. He also lives a very uninhibited life, and does whatever he is asked to with great ease, even if it is dancing in a crowd.

So, coming back to singing and feel good factor it brings in you; what I am trying to say is we should sing, sing in praise, sing in happiness, sing for when we want to feel happiness even if the day is making us feel otherwise. Singing is food for the soul, like breath is to your body. Who knows regular singing may even bring in some great tunes. I am off to sing my Sunday tunes, you do so too.