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THE PATH OF THE YOGA OF SOUND By Frank Perry

This is the most recent version of an article first written in 1975 designed to tell the stories behind how some of my sacred instruments have come to me.

I should like to begin this short article by answering an oft-asked question: How did I get started?

Well, the truth is that it all began in 1965 when I discovered that I was a ‘light trance' medium (channeller). It transpired that my father was already a medium and that my mother was very psychic and also that psychic gifts can be traced back over several generations on both sides of the family. I was then invited to return home on Sundays to sit in the ‘family circle.' I was then called ‘Searcher Brave – Seeker of Truth' by my spirit guides and teachers of the Great White Brotherhood. Up until then they'd referred to me as ‘Fleet of Foot,' I am now called ‘Golden Dawn.' Subsequently, in 1970 I joined The White Eagle Lodge training in meditation, spiritual healing, and the Brotherhood work, and, being as trance-work was discouraged there, I've done very little of it since. In 1966 I began studying Swami Vivekananda's books covering various yogas plus exploring other books on Zen Buddhism and Far Eastern wisdom whilst I deeply enjoyed listening to recordings of the spiritual music of India, Japan, China and Tibet.

My musical career began in 1964. In 1968 I realised, upon first hearing a gong, that its unique sound answered my need to realise my desire to create something of a reflection of the spiritual dimensions of expanded reality that I had experienced since 1965. Later in 1968 I found my first antique gong, so beginning my large collection.

There are some interesting stories concerning how some of these rare instruments came to me and it has been decided that I should write about some of these.

In 1970 I did a three-month summer season playing in a jazz trio in Penzance, Cornwall including fundraising concerts for the local Arts Centre, a director of which owned an antique shop. Towards the season's end he phoned to say he'd just purchased a very rare antique Chinese Horizontal Gong that took two people to lift. I was down there later that day!

In 1971 I received a set of 3 Burmese Resting Bells and two Kyeezees, Burmese meditation gongs. These are on permanent loan to me coming via a photographer friend called Jack Kilby. He explained to his guitarist friend how I was moving more towards resonant metal instruments. The guitarist, as a child, had played with these instruments at his grandmothers' who had received them from a foreign guest at the turn of the century.

In 1972 the voice of one of my spirit teachers spoke saying, “Go to Portobello Road. There are some bells for you there.” So I found out where it was, went there, and in the very first shop found a Ming Dynasty Chinese temple bell. Continuing to walk along the market I saw, off to the side of my right eye, a couple of shops with a large forecourt which had a stall covered with china plates but with three dark brown objects at the far back left-hand corner. I went closer only to discover that they were 400 year-old Japanese Densho-Zen Buddhist temple bells. This ‘inner guidance' stops short at telling me where the money is coming from!

With instruments related to several of my past lives and recollecting a number of previous incarnations in Tibet, I telepathically asked Whitefeather, the Leading spirit guide, for something to represent these. Around two years later and two days before my 25 th birthday a yogi from Tibet ‘phoned asking if I'd be interested to receive a Tibetan Meditation Cymbal. When he first struck it I simply saw a blinding flash of silver/white/blue light. He gave it to me explaining that money shouldn't change hands in this sacred spiritual tradition (Nyingmapa). This remarkable cymbal, which is around 800-900 years old, completely changed both my music and my life.

Shortly after this, a ‘spirit helper' was drawn to work with me because of the colours, which I generated on the inner planes during my solo playing. He was a Shamanistic Tibetan named LLom Phuk Tranglam . His clothing, appearance, and degree of consciousness - attunement revealed him to have been upon earth many thousands of years ago, long before Buddhism came to Tibet. We had been together in that life. He assisted me greatly in the development of a deeper understanding of my instruments, alongside their potential to draw the power of inspirational energies closer to the Earth. We didn't converse through words, necessarily, but rather he would assist me to clairvoyantly / clairaudiently observe what the effects of each individual instrument were on the several levels, i.e. the etheric, astral, mental, and spiritual planes. This imparted wisdom was mostly concerned with unveiling the ‘inner,' spiritual significance of the individual vibrations and frequencies of my sacred instruments and their relationship, via sympathetic resonance, to certain altered states of consciousness. Around the same time I had been studying various books about music therapy and in one of these was mentioned Rudolph Steiner's idea of studying what lives in each individual sound. One style of free-form group improvisation (atomistic) that I'd been unfolding since 1968, concerned itself with very close, detailed attention to the qualities of each individual sound.

In 1981, being resident at the Mind, Body & Spirit Festival, Olympia, I'd noticed a stall selling Tibetan Singing bowls. On the day of my 33 rd birthday I went around intending to buy one only to discover that they'd sold out. However, the owner said that I was the only person in the world to whom he would impart his own personal, wonderful bowl. This outstanding bowl is over 800 years old, contains a lot of gold, is attuned to the Heart chakra, and also to the Master Jesus (various accounts show that records of Jesus were found at Hemis Monastery ) – said to be considered a very great Bodhisattva in Tibet.

In early 1982 Alain Presencer, a friend of mine, had asked to swap some of my Tibetan instruments for a special Tibetan ‘ Panic Bowl .' Some six months later, just after my 34 th birthday, I received an exceptionally old (most probably between 1,000 - 1,500 years) and extremely rare Tibetan ‘ Talking Bowl .' This was brought over by a living Tibetan Master, Dilgo Kyentse Rinpoche (who has since reincarnated) . Later on in the evening of that same day my friend rang to say that the person who'd initially failed to bring over the Panic Bowl was now ‘quivering like jelly' upon his doorstep begging him to take back the bowl and ask him nothing of what had happened! So the very next morning came this very rare, magical - exorcism bowl, possessing the potential of allowing people the experience of hearing the ‘inner' Nada sound. Both of these bowls have to be played in a vertical position being held by their ‘bases.' These are relatively small bowls yet both are extremely powerful and transmit deeply potent spiritual energies.

In 1983, soon after my birthday, I received a rare old bowl of unusual design and containing a lot of gold, again around 800-900 years old. It had been part of a ‘lot' (at Christies or Sotheby's), which had failed to reach the reserve price, and bought by an American lady who didn't desire the bowl. I instinctively felt that this bowl hadn't sold because it was somehow holy and, therefore, that the energies of capitalist ambitions were incompatible with its own. Around this time I also received a vision of two large Tibetan Singing bowls that would come to me. Again it took between two to three years before they both materialised but interestingly enough, these two proved to be very sacred bowls being ‘tuned-in' to specific meditations/visualisations, which I frequently encountered at The White Eagle Lodge. Both bowls contain a predominance of gold, being many hundreds of years old and of very rare design. They are also specifically attuned to certain Planetary Rays, Colours and also Chakras (Throat & Brow) and so are especially helpful in my sound-healing sessions.

Among the many different types of meditation, we often encounter the techniques of both concentration and contemplation. The actual act of playing a bowl is a form of meditation in itself, requiring considerable powers of concentration. Whilst playing those rarer bowls, which have been psychically potentised-attuned, there is added the effect upon our consciousness-being, through contemplation, which the actual sound is designed to have. Therefore, with such sacred bowls, whilst practising both concentration and contemplation, we are also assisted, through the vibrational resonance of the Being of Sound, in entering into other dimensions of reality. It comes as no surprise to discover that the unique sounds of the Tibetan singing bowls have also been shown to induce a connection with Alpha brain waves around 8-12hz, which are associated with deep states of meditation and contemplation – samadhi. Therefore, the practise of playing a bowl can require quite a ‘stretch' of consciousness – ultimately transcending duality through entering the tantric oneness of this unique sound-vibrational-realm of Resonance. Through using such beautifully powerful sounds it is possible to engage the heart and to immerse the whole of our spiritual being during meditation and so transcend it being merely a mental exercise. It's easier to submerge one's mind in a sound than in a thought – concentration.

 

 
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