{"id":1404,"date":"2024-02-24T19:05:17","date_gmt":"2024-02-24T19:05:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yoganandafortheworld.com\/story\/?p=1404"},"modified":"2024-02-24T19:05:17","modified_gmt":"2024-02-24T19:05:17","slug":"conversations-with-ananda-ch-60-nayaswami-asha-music-has-power-to-change-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yoganandafortheworld.com\/story\/conversations-with-ananda-ch-60-nayaswami-asha-music-has-power-to-change-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Conversations With Ananda &mdash; Ch. 60, Nayaswami Asha: Music Has Power to Change the World"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_1407\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1407\" style=\"width: 1190px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.yoganandafortheworld.com\/story\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/1976-Singers-in-sfo-dinanath-copy.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1407\" src=\"http:\/\/www.yoganandafortheworld.com\/story\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/1976-Singers-in-sfo-dinanath-copy.jpg\" alt=\"Ananda Singers perform in San Francisco, 1976.\" width=\"1200\" height=\"721\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.yoganandafortheworld.com\/story\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/1976-Singers-in-sfo-dinanath-copy.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.yoganandafortheworld.com\/story\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/1976-Singers-in-sfo-dinanath-copy-300x180.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.yoganandafortheworld.com\/story\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/1976-Singers-in-sfo-dinanath-copy-1024x615.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.yoganandafortheworld.com\/story\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/1976-Singers-in-sfo-dinanath-copy-768x461.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1407\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Ananda&#8217;s singers &#8211; The Gandharvas (Celestial Singers) perform in San Francisco before a talk by Swami Kriyananda, Fort Mason Center for Arts &amp; Culture, 1976. L-R: Arati, Vasudeva, Parvati, Lakshman Simpson, Nalini, Agni, Shivani, Maitri, Dinanath.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Q:<\/strong> You talk with many people who come fresh to Ananda. What\u2019s your impression of how the music affects them?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Asha:<\/strong> To answer your question I\u2019ll go back a bit in time. In the late 1970s Swami Kriyananda asked me to go on the road and give talks about our teachings. So I began driving primarily to the Northwest to give talks at our centers in Portland and Seattle, and I would never go without at least one of our singers, because I knew that it would be impossible for people to grasp Ananda without listening to our music.<\/p>\n<p>I traveled with one or the other of two very experienced singers who sang and played the music beautifully. I would joke with them, \u201cI\u2019ll talk for ninety minutes and I\u2019ll be lucky if I can bring people to the same point you can bring them with a three-minute song.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Words need to be interpreted by the mind, but music reaches us directly. When people hear the music, they can quickly sort out for themselves whether this path is for them. When I gave talks, I knew that if they could <em>feel<\/em> what Ananda is, they would be able to hear what I had to say, because they would have had a very direct experience of Ananda.<\/p>\n<p>The music expresses our vibration very precisely \u2013 it\u2019s very specific to our path. People occasionally have issues with this path when they first hear about it \u2013 either the ideas are unfamiliar, or they resist religious organizations, or they question Swamiji\u2019s authority, and so on. But they nearly always love the music. And that\u2019s why Swami said, \u201cIf you want to know me, listen to my music.\u201d The music is his way of helping people cut through their mental doubts \u2013 \u201cWho is Swami?\u201d \u201cWho is Master?\u201d \u201cWho\u2019s really in charge here?\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t like authority.\u201d And so on.<\/p>\n<p>If you like the music, you\u2019ve met the man. And if you like the music, you\u2019ve met the ray of God\u2019s light that he represents.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q:<\/strong> Swamiji has said that consciousness is feeling \u2013 it is not the intellect. Do you believe the music may be more central to his expression of Master\u2019s ray than his books?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Asha:<\/strong> It is. We are made of Aum, and music is a direct expression of Aum. The ideas are the wisdom aspect of God, and heaven knows, we do need to open ourselves to God through all dimensions of our being, including the mind. Here in America at this time when there are so many crazy ideas floating around, finding true ideas is a tremendous blessing. Nevertheless, he doesn\u2019t say \u201cIf you want to know me, read my books.\u201d And again, it\u2019s because the music gives us a direct transfer of consciousness. Even if you only spoke German, I could sing these songs in English and you\u2019d have a good chance of knowing what I was singing about.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q:<\/strong> Swamiji has remarked that the melodies of certain popular songs have a lovely feeling \u2013 he\u2019s mentioned \u201cMoon River,\u201d for example. But much modern music seems cold-hearted, whereas there\u2019s a quality in Ananda\u2019s music that feels deeply true and of the heart and soul.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Asha:<\/strong> It\u2019s very sincere. Swami made the statement that he\u2019s never written a note that wasn\u2019t utterly sincere. He\u2019s never written for effect, and he\u2019s never written from a purely mental concept. Every note is a sincere expression of his consciousness, of his feeling.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q:<\/strong> If the music is an expression of Paramhansa Yogananda\u2019s ray, does that mean it would be helpful for people who want to get in tune with that ray to become involved with the music by singing it?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Asha:<\/strong> There is no substitute! Swamiji has commented a number of times that he wants everyone who has dedicated his or her life to finding God through the ray of Ananda to sing the music. There\u2019s no \u201cmust,\u201d and no requirement, much less coercion, but it\u2019s a very strong invitation to do something that will powerfully help them attune their consciousness to a divinely given ray.<\/p>\n<p>You can listen to it, but it\u2019s a very different experience when you\u2019re singing it, because then you\u2019re using your voice and the tones are running through your body. Really, it\u2019s a form of \u201csound healing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At one point Ananda got involved with a woman who was an innovative sound healer. She would read \u201csound auras\u201d the way other healers read auras of light, and then she would add the \u201cmissing\u201d tones by using her voice. She discovered her talent when her daughter was severely injured. They were a long way from the nearest hospital, and she realized that if she toned in a certain way, her daughter stopped bleeding. And so she was able to \u201ctone her\u201d all the way to the hospital and keep her from bleeding to death.<\/p>\n<p>Quite a few people at Ananda became interested in her work, and it was lots of fun, but in the end it went nowhere, because it was a difficult skill to transfer to others. Also, after we\u2019d been involved with this system for some months, she casually remarked, \u201cOh, you don\u2019t need this because you have your music.\u201d She said, \u201cYour music does the same thing I\u2019m trying to do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When we sing the music, it heals us. It fixes our sound aura, and when your sound aura is fixed, it helps heal you from within, physically and emotionally and spiritually.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q:<\/strong> Not long after I joined the choir, I asked Chaitanya, \u201cHow are you able to sing the high notes so purely?\u201d He said, \u201cSinging this music changes your voice.\u201d When I work through a song, it seems to etch new grooves in my brain, so that the song becomes easier to sing. I\u2019m sure it \u201cetches grooves\u201d in my consciousness as well, so I\u2019m vibrating with the blessing of that particular song. Dambara told me that whenever he\u2019s facing some difficult issue in his life, or if he needs the answer to some tough question, a phrase from one of the songs will often come to mind and help him know what to do.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Asha:<\/strong> In the 1970s, Swami was the only one performing the music, but then he stopped singing so that others could step up and develop a performing group.<\/p>\n<p>He more or less had to insist that we sing his music. At the time, people were interested in lots of other kinds of music, and his insistence was controversial in the community. People were saying \u201cWhy do we have to sing only <em>his<\/em> music? There\u2019s lots of other good music.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I remember him delicately saying, \u201cLots of people sing that music, and no one else sings this music, so this is something we can specialize in.\u201d He had to try hard to get people to accept that the music was a central focus of our spiritual lives and our service to the world.<\/p>\n<p>I remember how he would interrupt the singers during Sunday service. If they were singing badly, he would stop them and correct them. I watched this happening, and I realized that he was telling the singers that it isn\u2019t enough to sing halfheartedly, because you need to concentrate and do it right. He felt obligated to help them perform the music right because he had <em>heard<\/em> it that way. He hadn\u2019t created it; he had heard it, and there was a specific way it needed to be sung.<\/p>\n<p>Mukti Deranja is a talented pianist who lives at Ananda Village. When she was learning Swami\u2019s sonata, he sat down with her at the piano while she played it. He went over it phrase by phrase with her, telling her, \u201cNo, it needs to be a little bit more like this\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He told her, \u201cForgive me, I don\u2019t mean to be so picky, but I <em>heard<\/em> this, and this is what it sounds like.\u201d He said, \u201cIt wasn\u2019t possible to include these nuances in the score.\u201d But he had a crystal-clear memory, note by note, of what it was meant to sound like, and he felt a sense of divine obligation to play it that way, because it isn\u2019t his music, and any slight change will alter the vibration.<\/p>\n<p>Lakshman told me recently that someone had asked Swamiji what his greatest accomplishment was, and he said, \u201cLove is a Magician.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q:<\/strong> \u201cLove is all I know, sun rays on the snow\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Asha: Yes. After he wrote \u201cI Live Without Fear,\u201d he called me and sang it over the phone, and he said, \u201cIf I had never done anything, or never do anything else in my life, this song will be enough.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I think the music is ahead of its time. The vibration of the music is too refined for this age. It will probably be a long while before it captures the public imagination. But music is so ugly now that eventually there will be a reaction, and people will want something better. Another thing that is lovely about the music is that he wrote it so that anybody can sing it.<\/p>\n<p>Q: Almost none of his songs are hard to sing. They can be a bit tricky to learn, but after you\u2019ve practiced for a while they pose few technical difficulties. A bare handful of songs come to mind that are a bit trickier, because the parts are subtle \u2013 I\u2019m thinking of the tenor parts of \u201cMemories\u201d and \u201cWhere Has My Love Gone?\u201d But those are pieces for small ensembles, while the choir pieces are almost all easier.<\/p>\n<p>Asha: He wrote it on purpose that way, because he wanted to create music that everyone could sing. He remarked that a great deal of music is written so that people can proudly say \u201cHah! \u2013 I can sing that!\u201d But this music is the opposite; anybody can sing it if they have basic skills.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q:<\/strong> What\u2019s your advice for somebody who wants to join the choir and start singing this music fresh and new?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Asha:<\/strong> I think they should keep in mind that it isn\u2019t about performance. It\u2019s a sadhana \u2013 a spiritual practice, and the most important thing about sadhana is that we enjoy it \u2013 and to pay attention to the details, pay attention to the meaning \u2013 really hear and be conscious of what you\u2019re singing.<\/p>\n<p>As a \u201cword person\u201d I find an extraordinary thing about the music is the power of the words, and the unity of the words and sound. I would advise new people to be deeply conscious, all the time, of what you\u2019re saying.<\/p>\n<p>During an Easter retreat years ago, I gave a class on the Oratorio, and since then I\u2019ve given it every year. Somebody transcribed that first class and sent it to Swamiji. In my talk, I had said that Swami always writes the melody first, but when he read the transcript he told me that it\u2019s almost always true, with the sole exception of the recitatives for the Oratorio, where he had to write the words first, because he had a story to tell, the story of Christ\u2019s life. Otherwise, the melodies come first.<\/p>\n<p>When he was writing the Oratorio, David and I went on a lecture tour to the Northwest. We were living in what is now the guest house at Crystal Hermitage, and just before we left the builders began remodeling Swami\u2019s apartment in the hermitage. And when he came back from wherever he\u2019d been, probably Italy and the Holy Land, his house was a mess.<\/p>\n<p>We had moved into our house just a couple of weeks before, but someone said to Swamiji, \u201cOh, well, you can live at Asha and David\u2019s, and they can move over here\u201d \u2013 into this cave of a construction site, and I really didn\u2019t want to do it. It was one of those times where I just didn\u2019t want to. And he felt it. He kept saying, \u201cNo, I can\u2019t possibly do that.\u201d I was silent for a day, and when I had finally mastered myself I said, \u201c<em>Of<\/em> <em>course<\/em> he can have this house.\u201d So I went over and said, \u201cYou should move into our house.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo, no, no.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou should move into our house!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo, no.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSir \u2013 move into our house!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He knew exactly what I was doing. And then he finally said, \u201cOkay.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This is all back story. While we were away in the Northwest, not only were they doing the construction work, but a pipe burst and flooded the whole downstairs, and by the time we returned it was bare floorboards, because the rug was ruined and all the furniture was stacked in a corner. There was just a tiny livable space with a throw rug, and it was the dead of winter, and the stove didn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, we were living there, and he was staying in the guest house, working day and night on the Oratorio. And then one night at about one in the morning he called and asked me to come over. So I went over, and he was writing \u201cYou Remain Our Friend.\u201d He showed me the words, and he said, \u201cWhat do you think?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The words were okay, but I could see that he was strained, and you have to be delicate when somebody is giving their total energy to doing creative work. You have to be honest but supportive, and it\u2019s a delicate line. So I said, \u201cWell, you know, sir, it\u2019s all right. Not every song in the Oratorio will be your best song.\u201d He said, \u201cThat\u2019s what I wanted to know.\u201d And by morning he had it worked out.<\/p>\n<p>His commitment to completing the Oratorio was amazing. He never really stopped. Devi remarked that Swamiji was so immersed in the music that when he would look at people, you had the feeling that he was trying to figure out if they were a B-flat or an F-sharp. It was as if he couldn\u2019t think in words, because he could only feel the music. He nearly died \u2013 he got congestive heart failure, and his body was retaining fluids. But he said, \u201cSatan\u2019s trying to stop me.\u201d And he said, \u201cIf I have to, I\u2019ll die trying to write this, but I won\u2019t stop. Whenever I try to do anything important, Satan tries to stop me.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1406\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1406\" style=\"width: 990px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.yoganandafortheworld.com\/story\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/2000ish-Swami-Rick-Bonin-Asha-David-Sabari-copy.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1406\" src=\"http:\/\/www.yoganandafortheworld.com\/story\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/2000ish-Swami-Rick-Bonin-Asha-David-Sabari-copy.jpg\" alt=\"Asha with Swami Kriyananda in Palo Alto, 2000.\" width=\"1000\" height=\"578\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.yoganandafortheworld.com\/story\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/2000ish-Swami-Rick-Bonin-Asha-David-Sabari-copy.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/www.yoganandafortheworld.com\/story\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/2000ish-Swami-Rick-Bonin-Asha-David-Sabari-copy-300x173.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.yoganandafortheworld.com\/story\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/2000ish-Swami-Rick-Bonin-Asha-David-Sabari-copy-768x444.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1406\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Asha with Swami Kriyananda in Palo Alto, 2000.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Q:<\/strong> For ten years in the 1980s and early 1990s, I did medical transcription for Dr. Peter Van Houten at Ananda Village, and I was flabbergasted by Swami\u2019s medical chart. At the time, it was thirteen pages of serious ailments, and I\u2019m sure it\u2019s much longer now.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Asha:<\/strong> Of his thousands of patients, Peter says that Swami\u2019s case is far more complicated than anyone else\u2019s. And Swamiji\u2019s responses were seldom what you would expect from most people. You can often measure the seriousness of a person\u2019s symptoms by their emotional responses, but with Swamiji, Peter couldn\u2019t tell. He gave the example of when he was examining Swamiji\u2019s heart, and Swami was saying, \u201cNo, listen carefully \u2013 oh, there it is \u2013 see how my heart speeds up to 180 and calms down again? Did you hear that, Peter?\u201d [Laughs] Nobody can just <em>say<\/em> that when their heart is in fibrillation \u2013 they react to it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q:<\/strong> They\u2019re upset.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Asha:<\/strong> Yes. Peter said that with Swamiji he had to be more like a veterinarian, because a horse can\u2019t tell you what it\u2019s feeling, and Swamiji didn\u2019t respond from personal emotion.<\/p>\n<p>Swamiji says the reason Ananda is so harmonious is because of the music, and the reason Ananda is unified around the world is because of the music. The reason the culture of Ananda is able to transplant so easily to other countries, other languages, and other cultures is because of the music.<\/p>\n<p>Because we sing the same music, we\u2019re on the same wavelength. If we didn\u2019t have the music, the culture wouldn\u2019t be as strong, and aberrations would set in. It\u2019s astonishing to see how, as Ananda has expanded from city to city and country to country, people\u2019s spirit has been the same. And Swami said that it\u2019s because of the music.<\/p>\n<p>The success of our colony in Palo Alto has been due to the music. That\u2019s always been very clear to me. I don\u2019t think we could have accomplished a fraction of what we have, without the music, especially in this area which is so mental. The music has been able to cut right through that. It has brought everybody into a sense of unity.<\/p>\n<p>I didn\u2019t give Sunday service yesterday, so I sat in the congregation. I like to sit in the back and feel what the service is like when I\u2019m not giving it. And it was very interesting to me to feel how sweet the music was, and how it was filled with the power of the inspiration that Swamiji had received. Here in the middle of Silicon Valley, you have this sweet innocence, and I know that it touches people and changes them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Q: You talk with many people who come fresh to Ananda. What\u2019s your impression of how the music affects them? Asha: To answer your question I\u2019ll go back a bit in time. In the late 1970s Swami Kriyananda asked me to go on the road and give talks about our teachings. So I began driving &#8230; <a title=\"Conversations With Ananda &mdash; Ch. 60, Nayaswami Asha: Music Has Power to Change the World\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.yoganandafortheworld.com\/story\/conversations-with-ananda-ch-60-nayaswami-asha-music-has-power-to-change-the-world\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Conversations With Ananda &mdash; Ch. 60, Nayaswami Asha: Music Has Power to Change the World\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Conversations With Ananda &mdash; Ch. 60, Nayaswami Asha: Music Has Power to Change the World - Swami Kriyananda: Lightbearer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A 55-year disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda on music&#039;s power to change us and transform the world.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.yoganandafortheworld.com\/story\/conversations-with-ananda-ch-60-nayaswami-asha-music-has-power-to-change-the-world\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Conversations With Ananda &mdash; 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