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Meditation with flute

Harmony Through Rāgas: A Flute Meditation

Spending ten to fifteen minutes every day just with yourself is recommended. Music creates an environment that supports this. It is easy to pay attention to sound. No real concentration is required; it is difficult not to pay attention. The sound captures attention for an extended period. Sound draws us more inward. Eyes tend to pull attention outward. In the world, many temptations come through the eyes. Objects seen generate desires. Fewer desires mean more freedom; more desires mean stronger bondage. Rāgas are based on a scale and rules to evoke a particular mood. The first rāga, Chorakeśī, uses melancholic and bright tones. This mirrors life's combination of both; accept both poles. The second rāga, Durgā, is a name of the Divine Mother, evoking the first snow on mountain peaks. The third rāga is of South Indian origin, with a Middle Eastern quality, used in Sufi spinning. The dance balances pointing to the divine and the mortal world.

"The fewer desires, the more freedom there is, and the more desires, the stronger the bondage."

"The sound draws us more inward, whereas the eyes tend to pull our attention outward."

Filming location: Strilky, Czech Republic

Hari Om. Vītam vās. Vishwagurujī had the wish that we begin with some flute meditation, and so that is why I am sitting here. I will play one, two, or perhaps three pieces, depending on how much time we have. If you remember, some of you were present when Gulābjī gave his lectures, and he suggested one technique: to spend ten to fifteen minutes every day just with yourself. To be with yourself without doing anything can be a bit of a challenge, so the music here will create an environment that supports that. That is a little theory about the purpose of listening to music. It is also very easy to pay attention to the sound. No real concentration is required; in fact, it is the opposite—it is very difficult not to pay attention to the music. We use this as an advantage for our practice. The sound captures your attention, and for an extended period of time you can simply be with that sound. The sound draws us more inward, whereas the eyes tend to pull our attention outward. You notice that as we live in the world, we are exposed to a great deal of information, and many temptations come through our eyes. The objects we see generate many desires. As Gulābjī also spoke about desires: the fewer desires, the more freedom there is, and the more desires, the stronger the bondage. So I will not talk further—just relax and enjoy. The first rāga is called Rāga Chorākeśī. Some of you know the principle: rāgas are not really composed, but what are they based on? They are based on a scale and certain rules within that scale, and a rāga is here to evoke a particular mood. The mood also changes depending on the time of day or night. You can feel it; the atmosphere in the morning is very different from that of the evening. So this music can bring our minds into harmony with nature, and we call it the peaceful mind. Chorākeśī has a quite characteristic scale, because half of the scale uses tones that evoke a slightly melancholic atmosphere—I do not want to say “sad,” because rāgas are not sad—but that kind of feeling. And then the second part of the scale has very bright tones and a brightness to it. If you look at life as we live through it, it is often a combination of those two. Even within one day, we can experience both or more. So perhaps the message of the rāga is to be able to accept both these poles of our life in the form, rather than rushing for the happy times and trying to escape from those that are a bit challenging. Well, it looks like we still have some time, so there will be another rāga. That is Rāga Durgā. Some of you know Durgā is one of the names of the Divine Mother. People have certain different imaginations or depictions associated with this rāga, and some of them describe it as having an atmosphere like when the first snow appears on the peaks of the mountains—most of you can relate to that here. So, Rāga Durgā. By the way, the rāga you just heard comes from northern India, and the next rāga is originally South Indian. But perhaps the North Indian musicians could not resist it and had to adopt it into the North Indian tradition. To me, it sounds a bit Middle Eastern, more Arabic or from somewhere in the Islamic tradition. You know, the Sufi religion has very strong devotion, and they do one special kind of dance. They are spinning, and one foot always has to be attached to the ground. They start in this kind of position, and then, as the person goes faster and faster, they slowly open up their arms this way. So one hand points up to the divine, and the other down to this mortal world—again a kind of balancing between those two. So, the rāga kīrtan.

This text is transcribed and grammar corrected by AI. If in doubt what was actually said in the recording, use the transcript to double click the desired cue. This will position the recording in most cases just before the sentence is uttered.

The text contains hyperlinks in bold to three authoritative books on yoga, written by humans, to clarify the context of the lecture:

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