The Organs of St Patrick’s Basilica Fremantle, Western Australia.

 

Bach, Toccata and Fugue in D minor,
1st movement, bar 30, before start of andante.

http://www.thepodule.com/cymatics.html
http://www.mysticalsun.com/cymatics/cymatics.html

Through the pioneering work of Ernst Chladni (1756 - 1829) and Dr. Hans Jenny, it has been shown that sound affects physical matter. Chladni drew a violin bow across the edge of metal plates which were sprinkled with fine sand. Different rates (frequencies) produced certain geometrical patterns.
With more modern technology, the Swiss Dr Hans Jenny investigated what happens when sand, fungal spores, dust, water, etc, are vibrated by sound waves. He used crystal oscillators which can maintain an exact frequency, and invented a machine called the tonoscope, which allowed him to view the result of changing the sound in any way.
Using the tonoscope he was able to see the physical image, or "dimension" of a human vowel or tone. He called this area of research cymatics, and published his results in the bi-lingual 2 volume set Kymatik - Wellen und Schwingungen mit ihrer Struktur und Dynamik / Cymatics - The Structure and Dynamics of Waves and Vibrations. (Recently republished in one volume with many colour illustrations - see resources).
Amongst his more amazing findings was the discovery that when the ancient vowels of Hebrew and Sanskrit were pronounced, the shape produced on the tonoscope was that of the written symbols for those vowels. With modern languages there was no such effect. Also, when AUM is sounded the shape produced is that of the ancient written symbol for AUM (the Sri Yandra). This suggests that the ancients knew something! Perhaps when sounding in meditation, the vibration created the form in their minds. Hebrew, Sanskrit, Egyptian and Tibetan are generally considered to be "sacred" languages.

http://www.soundintentions.com/details/cymatics.htm

 

In the beginning was the Word

The suggestion from these findings is that merely by sounding sacred texts, by singing sacred vowels, we can resonate our cells back into tune - back into shape, restoring our cells and energies to a state of coherence, in which our energies are synchronised with those of God / Universe / Source.
He noted that many structures (such as cell shapes) found in nature under the microscope, were very similar in shape to structures produced in the sand or dust whilst under the influence of a vibration. Perhaps there is an "underlying vibration" in nature, which vibrates atoms into forming a visible shape - but the vibration is the reality, not the shape procuced. This finding is very much in tune with the ideas expressed centuries ago in the Bhagavad Gita - that all we see is illusion.
Jenny also found that water could be shaped and even exhibited an antigravity effect when vibrated by sound. Considering that our bodies are mostly water, through sound we are able to restructure the cells of our bodies.

http://www.soundintentions.com/details/cymatics.htm

Interesting web sites about Cymatics:

http://www.scand-yoga.org/english/bindu/26e_om_lyd_og_form.html
http://www.mysticalsun.com/cymatics/cymatics.html
http://www.microweb.com/ronpell/Cymatics.html
http://www.thepodule.com/cymatics.html
http://www.sound-remedies.com/cymatics.html
http://media2.cs.berkeley.edu/webvideo/people/sandy/Cymatic.html
http://www.islamonline.net/English/Science/2002/05/article12.shtml
http://www.lauralee.com/cymatics.htm
http://www.soundintentions.com/details/cymatics.htm
http://www.harmonyera.com/1.2.research.htm
http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~ray.tomes/cymatics.htm

http://www.ramshead-realty.com/1tele.htm

Vibrations exist on all levels of manifestations. All objects in the universe vibrates
Vibrations interact according to the laws of resonance Harmonious vibrations create patterns
Music is harmonious vibrations. Music therefore is a universal language, potentially surpassing all barriers. Each organ in the living body Has its own rhythm, its own vibration. A healthy person therefore can be described as a person where the different vibrations he harbour all works harmoniously together Health thus can be described as music.

 

Sound, Music and Pictures
All is a manifestation of vibration
All relates via resonance

 

Mandelbrot set

Morphic Resonance and the Collective Unconscious
[…] Each species has its own fields, and within each organism there are fields within fields. Within each of us is the field of the whole body; fields for arms and legs and fields for kidneys and livers; within are fields for the different tissues inside these organs, and then fields for the cells, and fields for the sub-cellular structures, and fields for the molecules, and so on. There is a whole series of fields within fields.

Edited from Rupert Sheldrake article on the internet:
http://www.sheldrake.org/

 

Sufi Master Hazrat Inayat Khan:
(Sufi is a sect of Islam)

Man is not only formed of vibrations, but he lives and moves in them; they surround him as the fish is surrounded by water, and he contains them within him as the tank contains the water. His different moods, inclinations, affairs, successes and failures, and all conditions of life depend upon a certain activity of vibration, whether these be thoughts, emotions, or feelings?

Sufi Master Hazrat Inayat Khan 1983 p. 5, here from Carlisle Bergquist:
Doorways in Consciousness?
From http://www.vantagequest.org/trees/door1.htm

 

Different types of music was played in the vicinity of some plants, the results was as follows: (Here from J. Godwin: Harmonies of Heaven and Earth)

Plants incline towards sound source:
Indian Citar music
Western classical music, 18th and 19th centuries
La Paloma played on strings
Jazz: Armstrong, Ellington

Plants indifferent to sound source:
Silence
Country and Western music
String quartets by Schoenberg, Berg Webern

Plants incline away from music:
La Paloma played on steel drums
Percussive and hard rock? pop music

Cows and rats

Other studies has shown that cows give more milk if they listen to Mozart;
Rats kill each other if they are continually exposed to heavy rock.

 

Music has a message

• Music operates within a certain range of frequencies a certain level of consciousness; it has a message.

• A piece of music will, by the law of resonance, bring us to its level of consciousness.

• If the level the music operates on is above where we are, the music will tend to lift us.

• If the music is on the same level as where we are, it will tend to lock us there.

• If the music is below where we are, it will tend to drag us down

Is the purpose of your work meditative or
Is the purpose to evoke experiences?

When you choose particular tools
When you choose particular pieces of music
Always have the general goal of your work in mind:

What is it you are trying to achieve?
In general and specifically ˜now

If the purpose is to evoke experiences,
The music must be of a nature that supports
An identification with the experience

If the purpose is meditative,
The choice of music must enable
A witnessing connection
To whatever happens

 

Wrong use of music Right use of music

Music is often a good support so that it can prevent the mind from wandering too much away from a task, but music is external, so readiness to go deep within, beyond the mind, is strongly impaired by most music, ultimately by all music.
Wrong use of music - or use of the wrong music can be compared to a power game - the energy in the music creates a conflicting, motive to what apparently is going on.

Right use of music can have many different purposes

In personal development:

• To stir

• Soothe

• Stabilize

• Transform

• As an expression and celebration of the Divine

• As a preparation for true silence

You have a number of tools to help you being aware of what goes on in people that are listening to music:

• Your own reaction to the music

• Face value feed back from members of the audience

• The body language of the participant

• Your gut feeling, intuition, clairvoyance (etc.)

• Make it a habit that a part of you is observing yourself while you are receiving feed back

 

Remember when you listen to people’s experiences:

It is relatively easy to get a high experience;
The important thing is if this experience helps you to grow!

 

The use of music in the working phase?

Stages in Group work:

Start: Getting used to and in harmony with each others
The place

The way of working
Work: Trust
Expansion
Exploration
Conclusion

Closure: Summarise experiences
Check if anything is left unfinished
Help to translate experiences into every day life

Give experience to the Divine and/or or to someone that needs it

Listen to feedback from the group members
Use your sensitivity

While you work, constantly ask yourself:

What is going on here? - What is trying to happen here:

Open receptivity - Power games?

Hidden agendas?
Compassion - Projections upon each other?
Thinking - feeling?
Emotions that are in the open “ hidden?
Presence “ absent-mindedness?
Confusion?
Etc.

 

Ways of practice listening

Be aware of your basic mood, body comfort, body posture etc before the music

Then

• Listen to the music

• Be aware of your physical reactions, when and how they change:

Breathing

Body posture
Tension - relaxedness
Pain
Aliveness - numbness

 

• Be aware of your psychological reactions when and how they change:

Shifting moods during the music
Memories
Images
Thoughts
Level of creativity and inspiration
Sleepiness

 

Music as a tool in the opening phase
Typical instructions:

 

Be present, feel the group, yourself, the room, everything. -make yourself at home?.
Be present, what is your driving force, is there a theme for this weekend??
Be present, and then contemplate "trust" in the group, in your self, in whatever comes up?.

Good music for these instructions

• Johan Sebastian Bach organ works

• Beethoven: Symphonies

• David Hykes, for example Hearing Solar Winds?

• Didgeridoo, preferably by indigenous player

 

After the music, have a sharing, for example: "How was that?"

The theme of the workshop will often be visible already now. (Even though you may only realize that afterwards).
Don’t lock yourself too hard into a goal for the group, take one step at a time, and let the next step evolve from the present. Allow the unexpected to come in!

Music in the working phase:

Music as a stirrer?

• Jørgen Mortensen: Spiro; Cyklus

• Per Nørgård: Iris Libra

• Heart-sounds from the womb

• Ocean-waves

• Sounds of the Humpback whales

Music as a soother
In a normal life our moods are up and down; in groups these feelings are often amplified.
After powerful work, with a lot of feelings on the boil, it can be a very good idea to put on a peace of music that is soothing while having a break.
Often just doing that, can mean that the atmosphere is much better for further work on the issue after the break.

Examples:

• Beethoven Eroica

• Zamphir

Music as a stabilizer
The difference between soothing and stabilizing could be described this way: Soothing brings you away from the hot issue Stabilizing makes you better capable to face the hot issue

Examples:

• The Ocean

• Tambura

• Bells

Higher music reflects aspects of the Divine.
Many people hear inner music when they are in higher states of consciousness. This is because music, or more precise, harmonious vibration, is at the core of Divine manifestation

In the beginning was the word

Music and Silence
Higher music is often building in silence in the music. The music brings the listener to stillness door; stillness occurs, bringing about a vacuum,
A powerful invitation to go beyond the mind.

Examples:

• Zygar: Gongs

• Haendel: Hallelujah (from Messiah)

• Arvo Paart: Te Deum

The challenge is the timing.

Music of this quality can be used in approaches to development that goes beyond therapy, for example

Working with higher symbols
Examples: Look at the zodiac and at the same time imagine the whole zodiac inside your heart
Music: for example Johannes Ockeghem Deo Gratias

Working with keywords of Dharma

Examples:
Truthfulness: (Take care, this is a powerful exercise!) Centre yourself, feel your heart. Every time you hear the gongs “ imagine the sound says “truthfulness” - listen to the answer!
Music: for example Jens Zygar Klangraume


Music used to aid summarising the group process:

Instruction: Go through the weekend and feel if you have left anything behind that needs to be looked at, shared or integrated?.

Good music for this type of work:

• Jørgen Mortensen: Grounding; Spiro

• Beethoven: 3. or 6 Symphonies

• Alistair Black: Earth tones (didgeridoo)

Music used to close a group
Instruction:
Try to feel the essence of the weekend?. Give this essence to the Divine and/or to someone presenting themselves to you that need it?.

Link in to the most powerful experience you have had, and give that to somebody who needs it.

Good music for this type of work:

• Berlioz: Te Deum

• Gounod: Mass of St. Cecile

• Chevetogne monks: Chants de la Liturgie Slavonne

• Dawn breakers: Call of the beloved

How to choose music in experiential Group-work

Use your intuition

In order to sense energy-phenomena’s in or around an individual or a group, start creating trust and relaxation.
A stressed and fearful aura is compact, contracted and difficult to read. A relaxed aura is expanded, open, cooperative, and much easier to read.

 

An intuitive way of choosing music
Link in to points in the upper group aura
Or group chakra?
Lower points reflect common problems in the group,
Do not use these points to choose music from!

Either: Hear the music? that is in this / these point(s) with your music collection in mind; choose the music you hear or the music coming nearest to that.

Or: With your music collection in mind, go up to the point(s) in the group aura and feel? what music will best harmonise with that point
It is important that you know the music that you use.


 

A powerful way of working with music is related to the group aura.

 

• The music is chosen from or harmonious with the highest level of qualities in the group aura that you can feel.

• The instruction is (often) taken from a problem or challenge area within the conscious processes and verbal feed back in the group

In this way, the music creates a platform, stability, lifting the vibrations and thereby the clarity in the area the instruction operates in, enabling clarity and transformation to penetrate to the conscious level.

 

A group chakra exercise

To enhance balance in the group, not in order for the group participants to gather information about each other, nor for you to gather information about your group.

 

1. With open eyes, look at a group member.

2. Imagine a diamond in the centre of the group

3. Look at another group member

4. Imagine a diamond in the centre of the group

Go on like this until you have looked at everybody in the group

The more you do not just look, but in fact see,
The more powerful is the exercise

This exercise can be done with or without music.
Music suggestions:

• J. S. Bach: Dorische Toccata and Fugue,

• Trio sonata

• Gurumayi: Tambura.

• Claus Wiese: Uranus.

• Rudra Veena.

• Om

Appendix

Keywords for the group facilitator:

Are you ready, how do you feel?

What is the purpose of what you do?
Trust. Balancing Opening.
Confronting. Transforming. Closing

What is happening in the group?
On a conscious level
Hidden agendas
Body language
Can you pick up something in the aura?

You can work with Music

• As a stirrer

• That is confronting

• That is soothing

• That is balancing

• As a meditative aid

• In itself

• As a polarity to an instruction

 

Example: A one-day seminar
Hykes track 2 Harmonic meeting (Brotherhood)
Welcome, familiarise yourself with group, are there a theme for your work
Ebb and flow track 2
Link in to the point between the eyebrows take a step forwards. Ask -?what next?-, or the question residing in your heart.
Reich drumming I track 1
What do you feel about the other sex?
Same music, later
What do you feel about your own sex?
Wind in the trees
Link into the throat, with the concept freedom?
Bach D-minor Fugue.
Link into a quality that you seldom or never acknowledge
Electrifying thunderstorm
What is your attitude to life?
Babbling brook
Who are you - ask?
Spem in Allium
Love
Ravi Shankar Citar music
Differentiate between activity and business
Tamboura
Establish a centre in the now, draw energy from as far back you can come towards the now. Draw energy from your future projections back to now. Sit with it, release upwards.
Bach Doric Toccata and Fugue
Alternate between seeing you as you see you, and as you believe others see you
Hykes, Harmonic meeting Track 6 Hallelujah
How does God see you?
Sande Hersman, Sacred ground
Go through your day; see if you have acknowledged what you have experienced.
Beethoven, 6th Symphony, Pastorale
Allow yourself to be you
Gyotto monks
Ponder your reasons to slow your development
Liturgie Slavonne
Go through the events and experiences you have had, look at them, and appreciate!



 

Good music sources:
Thomas Music
31 Bourke Street Melbourne 3000
Phone (03) 9650 9111

Theosophical Bookshop
126 - 128 Russel Street Melb.
Phone 9650 3955

New Age Media
P.O.Box 789 Fremantle 6160 W. Australia
Phone (09) 430 4305
Fax (09) 336 2711

Heartbeats/ Backroads
418 Tamal Plaza
Corte Madera
California
Ca 94925
Phone: (415) 924 4848
Fax (415) 924 0648

Brain/Mind Research
204 El Camino Real
Suite E116
Encinitas
California 92024

Phone 619 944 0741

New World Productions
PO Box 244 Red Hill
Brisbane Queensland 4059

Phone (07) 300 4353

Fønix Music
Sønder Alle 12
DK 8000 Århus C
Denmark
Phone 001145 86 19 58 11
Fax (001145 86 19 51 01

Numen Musikcenter
Marstalsgade 2 kld
2100 Kbh Ø

Phone 001145 31 42 43 31

Sidda Yoga Foundation
Phone 9419 4074

 

Ammachi Melbourne Ashram

A842 Dandenong-Frankston Road,
Carrum Downs, Vic 3201.
Residence Phone: (03) 9782 9927
Email:  ashram@ammaaustralia.org.au

Melbourne Office for all non Ashram enquiries:
Phone: (03) 9782 9398
Fax: (03) 9782 9032
Email: melbourne@ammaaustralia.org.au

 

Jes Bertelsen about Johan Sebastian Bach

(Edited and translated from Jes Bertelsen: Energi og Bevidsthed)

Although J. S. Bach was not enlightened, he was often in states of illumination.
Thus his music is often composed from states of higher consciousness,
and his music contains structures of impulse-field - or love - light.

Bach has composed music on three levels:

1. Music that does not contain higher consciousness

2. The openers? music that attempts to affect the aura towards receptivity to the spiritual dimension

3. The core-works, music that directly describes and conveys higher consciousness.

Examples of music that is not meditative: The 6 organ concertos.

 

Bach meditative music:
The openers:
Balancing of the chakra system:
Example: Prelude and fugue BWV 543.
Other examples is BWV 545 and 546

This music works on the physical spine, the whole structure of the spine is worked through, so that the etheric chakra system can become grounded, and relate back to the physical connection to the centre-line.
An exercise that will enhance the effect of this music is:
First contact the physical spine from medulla (the grove of the neck) to the tail bone.
Then, synchronized with a lightly forced breathing, the consciousness is moved from the tail bone to the medulla and down again, down on the in-breath and up on the out-breath. At the end a line of light is imagined in the centre along the spine.
Then the music (Prelude and fugue BWV 543.) is heard

The Crimson-purple sound-field
The Fantasy in C minor BWV 562
is one of the easiest accessible in this category.

A number of Bach™s organ works create a very characteristic colour in the aura, even at the same level in different people, namely level with the secondary chakras in the knees.
This Bach-colour is a connection between a deep, dark red, and transparent violet.

The Bach-music uses this colour tone to connect a deep heavy suffering-related energy frequency ( the deep read colour related to the knee-chakras)
with a high, fast vibration, that is directed upwards towards the spiritual aura (the transparent-violet colour). In this way a balance is made possible between suffering and grace, and this can create a connection to higher consciousness.

Once again one can prepare one™s aura in a simple way, and in this way maybe be able to feel inward into the esoteric structures and dimensions of the music.:
First, stand, and centre the awareness at the back of the knees, then slowly bend and stretch the legs, maintaining the consciousness at the back of the knees.
After a couple of minutes, try to link in to the crimson-purple colour .
Then, listen in meditative silence to the music.
Another fugue where the colour is clearly is created is BWV 564.

Opening of the Crown chakra
As an example Passacaglia and fugue BWV 582
The third category of openers work directly on the vibrations of the Crown chakra.. Here Bach clearly, tonal and vibrational connects the energy structure from the Crown chakra itself, with the root chakra
One can try to prepare for this music in this way:
First imagine a transparent red ball balancing on top of the crown, (in order to activate the Crown chakra). Then you imagine a point of golden light in the root chakra (in order to activate the root chakra in the direction of receptibility to higher energy).
At the end Listen to the music in meditative silence.
Other examples are BWV 537 and BWV 544.

The core of the Bach-field
For example Doric toccata and fugue BWV 538
In the core of the Bach-field, where expressions of clearly higher states of consciousness is evident, we find some of Bach™s greatest and most incomprehensible works, , the Tripplefuge BWV 552, and the greatest and deepest of all Bach™s compositions: The art of the Fugue?
In the Doric toccata and fugue, Bach describes two strange energy structures, both clearly belonging to higher meditation.
One is the so called universal point, the other is the illuminated root centre.
The universal point is that space in consciousness, where consciousness is
linked both to the collective unconscious and to higher consciousness. The consciousness has a source, an umbilical cord, where it springs from the cosmic eternal. This point can be localized by attempting to move the consciousness backwards continually, in the investigation of whom the I? is, or where thoughts come from.
The illuminated root centre is a vision, a vibrating structure of light, assembling a four-leafed flower in light. This vision comes when higher consciousness directly is connected with the root chakra. In this way the root chakra is cleansed and enlightened?
Bach™s Doric toccata and fugue creates these two structures in the aura, when it is allowed to work in a receptive and open, balanced personality.
When music from the core of the Bach-field is heard in a higher state of consciousness are the here described four structures manifest as autonomous fields of light and vibrating sound, it is consciousness-music? in pulsating light, vibrating in cosmos as galactic fields.

The art of the fugue deserves its own chapter, but that is not for now.

Hopefully these hints can be of inspiration for your own explorations of this beautiful tol.