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Copyright 2001
Jenny Brown
SAHAJA YOGA MEDITATION AS TAUGHT BY SHRI MATAJI NIRMALA DEVI
Debbie Eckman, London, UK
The Founder of Sahaja Yoga
Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi
The Founder of Sahaja Yoga
MUSIC ENLIGHTENED
Down the ages, music has always been food for the soul. The Australian aborigines say that Music is your soul speaking .. it is the voice of our planet communicating to the universe.

In India, it is valued above all things - a way of connecting the individual spirit with the Divine. Ancient sages discovered the 7 basic notes of the musical scale by listening to the sounds of nature or songs of individual animals.

In meditation, we can feel that each of these 7 notes corresponds to the 7 chakras -or wheels of energy - within us. When the frequency of the note matches the frequency of the chakra, that chakra becomes activated and thereby strengthened. By singing or even just listening to the different notes, we can help to balance and ultimately heal our chakras. (please go to www.mp3.com/sahaja for practical demonstration and more information)

My musical awareness was very typical for a western family - jazz and musical theatre, with a smattering of classical, courtesy of my parents' taste, as well as a healthy dose of pop from my two older sisters. Apparently, I was dancing in my crib before I could walk, so it was obvious that music would play an important part in my life.

I grew up taking an interest in ballet and tap dancing, as well as learning the basics of piano and drums, but the voice was my main instrument, graduating form choirs to solo performances. But it wasn't until I became aware of Indian music that I realized the full potential of the voice.

I found Sahaja Yoga ten years ago, desperate to fill an emptiness that even music couldn't heal. At that time, Indian music was quite alien to me - a weird tinny sound that I heard from Bollywood films. But gradually, through listening to more Classical Indian, my ear became accustomed - first favoring the rhythms of the tabla (reflecting the heart chakra), then the flute (the Vishuddhi in the throat), finally allowing the range of instruments to educate me in its complexities. At the end of '94, I went on my 1st trip to India and met briefly one of the most important musical influences in my life - H P Salve, affectionately known as Babamama - Shri Mataji's younger brother. He had started a Music and fine Arts Academy in Nagpur, India in memory of his father P K Salve, in order to enrich and enlighten Westerners awareness of Indian culture. At that stage, it was just a few pupils housed in various apartments around town, attending classes with teachers at their houses or with the teacher coming to them.

The seed of desire was planted then in me, but it wasn't until later that I knew I had to attend the school. Ironically, it was through seeing a rock concert at Wembley Arena in London (where I was working) that the desire became truly manifest. Robert Plant and Jimmy Page were combining their talents with Egyptian and other Arab musicians in a tapestry of fused styles. I knew that it was something that I wanted to try - mixing my own style (jazz/pop) with Indian Classical.

I went to Nagpur for 3 months at the beginning of '96 but it was only a glimpse of what was involved. I had the basics but not the confidence to use what I had learnt in a practical way. I continued to write my own songs but they were not fusing the styles as much as I wanted, so the seed of desire grew again - I knew I had to go back to the Academy! At the end of '98, Babamama invited me back. By now, the Academy had its own land amidst a peaceful orange grove. I spent 5 and a half months learning about the link between the notes and the chakras, as well as forming a more thorough knowledge of different raags and how to adapt the voice to suit them.

Sadly, the Academy has now closed due to the death last year of Babamama, but his legacy lives on through all the people he touched with his talent as a musician and poet, as well as his humour and constant encouragement to keep trying. He would always invite his pupils on stage at public performances, even when we protested that we didn't even know the songs! It was his way of showing us that we belonged there - that the music was inside us anyway.

Since then, I practice most days and my voice has become more flexible and more resonant and inside, through using these techniques, I feel more in tune with myself. My music too has changed and reflects more accurately all influences in my background.

Sahaja Yoga not only opened my eyes to a truth that was within me from before birth, but opened my senses to a profound way of connecting myself to the Divine. We are all capable of being musicians, poets, artists - it is just a question of tapping in to that unlimited potential within us. The Kundalini, the Ruh, the Tao, the Rainbow Serpent, the Paramchaitanya, the Chi - it is all One and the same.

Personal testimony by Debbie Eckman, London, UK