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Mind Is Like An Empty Soap Dispenser (brief talk + music meditation)

In this brief talk, the mind is likened to reaching for a soap dispenser that is empty. When we go to our mind to find what we want, we turn up empty handed. Instead, we can recognize that whatever we want, including peace and happiness, actually has its source in what we are, our very nature. Then we find that we can continue our daily life and activities in a fullness where nothing is fundamentally needed, added or taken away in any experience. The result is the Peace we have always had. At 13:28 Music raga meditation and brief Silence

Prasant Radhakrishnan shares natural peace and freedom through the sound of the saxophone leading to our own innate Silence that we have never lost. To attend Music Satsang, held regularly, please visit the Satsang page. For more videos like this, as well as other content, subscribe to Prasant’s Youtube channel.

A Simple Way: Easily Liberate Difficult Experiences While Active

During our busy day to day lives, there may be some times when we cannot sit and meditate, or do any special practice for our inner freedom. It is not uncommon that unavoidable difficult experiences can arise during these times. Even during these challenges, there is a simple and easy way to continuously become more free. This can be used at any time or all the time while active.

This is, of course, not meant to replace whatever you are practicing, but very easily supplement it and make your practice easier.

First, always remember that you are just Being, right now and always. It takes no effort to be since we already are always Being. Check now to see: are you not Being? Return to this simple feeling of just Being anytime anything arises. No matter what arises, we can see that it doesn’t affect the fact that you are still Being. This is our natural state and natural meditation 24 hours a day. 

Sometimes we find that something difficult arises, but it feels like it isn’t going away and we feel that we can’t return to Being easily. This particular trouble seems to fill up the full frame of our experience. When this happens, simply notice any other aspect of experience while remaining aware. For example, notice your shirt color, or the floor or the sky if you are outside. Look at the dish in your hand if you are washing dishes. Hear a car passing or bird chirping. Feel your feet on the floor or your fingers holding your phone. Feel the breath moving in your nostrils and belly. You can choose anything you like. Put your full awareness and attention on it.

From this noticing, simply notice you are still here, aware, open and still Being. The difficult experience was only one facet or layer of a much wider symphony of experience taking place all the time. This openness of Being has allowed for this movement of attention. Once attention has shifted to your new focal point, relax attention again away from it and allow both attention and focus to open, rest and dissolve. 

Automatically, your open awareness will rest in Itself and the experience passes of its own accord, unhindered by mental clinging. Even if it may linger, it is no longer the star of the show. It has returned to being a smaller, passing part. We are back to just Being. This Awareness or Being is completely accepting of all experience arising from it so there is no danger of avoidance or suppression. It is natural liberation and allows for freedom in and from any experience. 

Having returned home to Being, if the difficult feeling still lingers or returns, we now have the space to be able to fully feel and see it without being consumed by it. This leads to valuable insights and realizations.

Simply repeat whenever natural and necessary.

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Each passing experience is like a little leaf, while our Being is like the sky, trees and leaves included. Seeing this, even the little leaf becomes Being too.

Inquiry to Destroy Boredom, Frustration and Irritation

There is a common issue that many face on an almost daily basis today: boredom. I see this with people going to school and college, but it remains with adults as well. Let’s not forget boredom’s good buddies: frustration and irritation, among others.

All three of these are basically an expression of resistance to our arising experience. The arising experience is perfect in nature, however the mind content consisting of various thoughts that is overlaid upon it suggests otherwise. It could be sitting through a long class, holding a crying child on a flight or perhaps waiting in a long line at the post office or sitting in traffic. First we need to notice that the boredom, frustration or irritation etc. is in most cases coming from our thought content, or at least our concept of what should be happening right now.

In some cases, it could be a useful call to action. Maybe you need to do something different than what you are doing at the moment. But in most cases, you are probably doing something that you either can’t get out of or maybe have even signed up for yourself in some way. Take a moment to contemplate and remember some situations that have been like this in your own life.

Now, when you are in this situation or bring up a situation like this in your memory and experience that feeling, inquire: Is the part of me that enjoys experiences here with me now? Is the aspect of my awareness, a beautiful core attribute of my own awareness that is enjoyment itself…is that still here with me or has it gone? When I am enjoying anything at all, whether it is my favorite music, a delicious meal, shopping, maybe playing a favorite video game etc., that enjoyment is happening within me. I alone am enjoying it. The essence of that happiness and enjoyment is fundamentally in me alone. That is joy. Now that I am in a boring or irritating situation, has that awareness that was joyful and happy and the awareness that is experiencing boredom different or the same?

Simply by inquiring into this, something will happen. Something will shift. We know this because the feeling of boredom, frustation, etc. is only coming and going within our awareness and is mostly due to thoughts we are clinging to of either not wanting to experience something or wishing we were doing something else. When that compulsion is challenged via this specific inquiry, immediately the Source Awareness that is consisting of simple Presence, Peace, Joy and Freedom is available and is glad to reveal itself.

Wide open sky - ocean of Awareness
Wide open sky – ocean of Awareness

Try it and let me know how it goes. 🙂

P.S. If you haven’t caught up on my Youtube videos in a while, which have a several on Music and Realization, check them out here.

True Independence

Here in the U.S., on July 4th, we celebrate Independence Day. We are lucky in many ways.

What is real independence, though? Is independence from another nation’s imperial rule enough? Do all people in this country feel free?

What is real, true freedom? “Financial freedom” is not it, though it is helpful to live. “Success” is not it. Many have achieved success but are not happy or free.

True freedom only comes when you are free from your own mind. It’s really that simple.

When you are free from obsessiveness about anything, be it politics, religion, technology, health, the stock market, or perhaps just “making it,” you are free. When you are free from dissociating, resisting or ignoring those same things, you are free.

When good and bad dissolve into only That which arises always, eternally, you are free.

When it is seen that there is no evil and there never was, you are free.

When all the confusion about different people, cultures, customs, backgrounds, traditions, and everything disappears into a perfect unity that was right under your nose all the time, you are free.

When it is 100% clear without a shadow of a doubt that you are not doing anything, but that everything is already being done for you, as you and through you, you are free.

Rather than only “one nation under God,” when it is seen that the entire manifestation is actually only One Nation completely and fully permeated by God alone with not an atom of differentiation or separation, you are free.

When it is continuously clear that you are already free and always have been, completely independent of what things look like, you have true freedom and independence.

This is our real inheritance as children of Nature. This is your real birthright to claim. This is freedom.

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One Step to the Supreme

How many steps to the Supreme?

Actually, there are no steps. You are the Supreme, the Self, the Infinite, freedom itself.

But if you still do not feel that way, if that is not your experience yet, there is at least one step.

Take it. Resolve to take it. Resolve to be free asap. Don’t wait any longer.

Just be (“Summa Ire”). Keep quiet. That’s all.

Don’t follow around the activities of your so called mind. Don’t even try to not follow.

Just be yourself. Not becoming this or doing that. Just be exactly as you are right now. Really, that is all. It really is.

You are already doing it right now…see? 🙂 You ARE it!

Or…

When a difficult (or pleasant perhaps) situation or series of thoughts or emotions arise, immediately inquire who is experiencing it.

The experiencer is the mind. Rest in the space, awareness, presence, silence that comes forward.

Or…

See that every experience is arising in awareness. There is no experience of any kind (thoughts, emotions, perceptions etc.) or any object (person, place or thing) without your awareness being there first. 

Rest in the awareness. Just simple awareness. Nothing special or sparkly. There is no mind and there never was. Just natural experience, endlessly arising by itself from itself. It simply is.

Or…

If you want to know God, experience God, you see that if it is really God, than nothing can be apart from God, even slightly. 

Everything is God. This is the truth. Everything is God. That means every object prior deemed pure or impure, auspicious or not, intelligent or foolish, the worst offender you can imagine in your view, is quite literally God. 

Finally, it is seen you are God and “Wait, that means I am God?! Oh no, that can’t be” says the mind. Oh yes. So it is. Even that thought just now, was God. So is the screen you are reading. The field is completely leveled. 

Since everything is God, there is no need to refer to it in any way, name or form. That is why it is often referred to as simply That…or maybe This. Or anything you like. This is how an atheist and an ardent devotee of God in any form can realize the same Truth. It is the only Reality. Silence and Peace remain, simply and easily as it always was. All dreamed up divisions dissolve once and for all.

Or…

Seeing that all activities in the universe are done by a power that we could never figure out with the mind (did a human mind design the big bang? No.), surrender completely, let go into, dissolve in that power that does everything anyways, whether we think we are doing something or not.

Right now, not later. Remember…one step.

Digestion happens by itself, breathing and just about everything else. If you think it otherwise, you are in the mind! Just see.

If you trying to figure how to do all the things you want (or dont want) to do, don’t! Like Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi says, it would be like carrying all your luggage on your head while on a train. Put everything down and relax. Total surrender means the mind is out of a job. The mind might say no, but pay him/her no heed. You are not the mind. The mind is not your boss. It was just pretending to be. It was a poor mid level manager anyways. You know, the kind that pretends to do all the work but doesn’t really do anything. It just wants to keep showing up and making your head hurt.

He might still get coffee at the office but he won’t be causing any havoc anymore. All his noisy ramblings have no bearing on what actually ends up happening. All the work still gets done, even better. Seeing and feeling this, there is finally peace.

There are as many ways and nuances to return to freedom as there are people. These examples are direct. It can feel like jumping off a cliff for the mind. But you are definitely safe.

When you realize you have ended up far away from home and you can get back home in one step, wouldn’t you want to?

When you come back Home you realize you have always been here. You have always been free. You already had everything you ever wanted and everything you need to do has been done for you.

Now, simply enjoy the view.


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The Discovery Approach to Music Practice (part 3): Simple meditations

Part 1 of this series is available here and part 2 is available here. Please make sure to read those first if you haven’t yet. To recap, this approach is essentially a “hidden in plain sight” simple way of practicing music slowly, that allows for both enjoyment and results in music practice. In part 1 and 2, we covered what the Discovery Approach is, why we might want to use it and how it might be effective and helpful.

This approach assumes you have something somewhat specific that you want to practice, like a line or piece of music, raga, chord progression etc. as a music student or practitioner. If you want to utilize music to realize your real nature itself (Enlightenment, Self Realization etc), please see Naada Yoga for Total Liberation (multi-post series in progress.) It’s all the same in the end, but the focus is a bit different.

Now let’s dive into some simple meditations or visualizations to help enter or access this natural approach for practicing music.

1. Turn off the lights, turn off the mind, awaken natural attention

Relax. Breathe. Visualize sitting in a classroom or lecture hall or perhaps a large sports stadium at your favorite match. Or maybe a concert with your favorite artist. Choose whatever appeals to you. You are engaged in whatever is taking place and there appears to be quite a bit of activity.

Now, suddenly, all the lights are switched off at once. Notice and watch carefully what happens. Immediately, pure wakeful attention comes forward and distractedness and thoughts fade into the background. If fear arises, simply notice it and allow it to subside as it is not necessary right now.

Rest in silence briefly or as long as you like. Begin to feel the sensations of holding your instrument again or, if you are a vocalist, just notice the body itself and its sensations. Slowly begin your warmup for your practice session. You will notice the intensity of your awareness and attention will be many times more than what it was before this. With practice, dropping into this space will be quicker, easier and deeper.

2. When this step is all there is, you go beyond time and enjoy vivid awareness

Relax. Breathe. Visualize that you are standing alone on top of a very tall tower. It is dark and you cannot see anything. However, you can sense that there are no protective rails or anything to prevent you from falling. From the tower is a walkway leading back down. You begin try to move in that direction but you have no idea which way it is. How will you walk?  First, relax again. Set aside any fear, knowing that there is no external factor that could interrupt you. You would move extremely slowly, feeling with the sensations of your feet touching the floor and perhaps reaching around you to see what is in front of you. Move too quickly and you may fall. Relax. The moment you notice your feet touching the edge, you would naturally pull back and proceed in a different direction, unhurriedly. Simply go as SLOW as needed. This recognition is liberating as you know that with this kind of undisturbed attention and plenty of time, there will be no “fatal” mistakes.

Relaxing into this state of natural focus and vivid awareness, come back to your instrument (or body itself for vocals) and begin playing. This works especially well for working on a piece or phrase line by line. You move through the line the same way you would feel with your feet and senses in this example… Unhurried, going way slower than you normally would, and thus noticing and digesting more than you ever normally would about the music and about what you are doing. Even a few minutes of practice this way is very beneficial.

Just enjoy…

Once you slide into the natural attention through either of these two techniques, simply enjoy the music here and now. Enjoy the sound, the entire experience of playing music. Your awareness is now ALIVE and simply noticing all that happens. Playing is easier and more fun this way. This is the flow and this is the natural way. Mistakes are both less in number and less frustrating. “Mistakes” become a friend that points the way. Simply keep returning to whatever you are doing again and again.

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Transcript of a brief Sangeetha Satsang talk

The following is a transcript of a brief 5 minute intro talk given during a Sangeetha Satsang (Music Satsang or music meditation). You can use this to guide you into meditating with any of Prasant’s saxophone meditation tracks on this website or youtube.

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I would like to invite you to join me in this meditation. It’s not really a separate meditation. My understanding, my feeling is that your natural state is meditation.

What we’re going to do now is not something I’m asking you to do differently than you are already doing. So just be the same way that you already are. Part of your feeling that you can explore… So now we’re sitting basically in silence. And from the feeling that you have in silence you hear the sound arising from that. So what you could try… as you hear the sound, first relax into just being how you already are. Just relax.

Then as you hear the sound, just feel the sound. Initially, when you hear the sound it sounds like a sound coming from a separate external source, from somewhere else, right? When you hear the sound you first think I’m playing the sound and sending you the sound…yes? [Audience: Yes] So that’s mostly how people feel regularly.

But in this I’d like to invite you to forget about the idea that there’s a sound coming separately from some other source. Initially, even if you feel that the sound is coming from another place, just forget about that and let the sound come into your awareness. Forget about any feeling you have in the body, just notice the sensations. The sound will start to wash over you and it will take over the awareness. So relaxing in that sound, you become comfortable feeling only the sound so there is nothing else except the sound. And alternating that with silence, you go deeper and deeper into the pure sound. Underneath that sound, as you get comfortable in that sound, you can let go more and more. Just basically relax is all. You’ll go deeper into the Silence that’s beneath the sound. So if there’s sound, there has to be Silence supporting the sound, right? So that Silence is your natural, real nature.

So whenever we wake up in the morning, as soon as you wake up before anything arises, you have this perfect Silence. There’s this perfect Being. That doesn’t have anything in it. And, it has everything in it, of course. If there’s nothing in it, there’s everything in it.

For just this moment, you can always pick it back up later, forget about any and all ideas and definitions you have…what something is, what something is not, what your name is, what your family is, what you’re doing here, what you are going to meditate on, how am I going to meditate, all of that just forget it. Completely drop it, right now, right this instant.

So whatever you’re trying to attain is already here. There’s nothing else to get. That’s your inherent nature. The moment you try to leave, attain something, you’ve left your real nature. This idea is just an opportunity to return back to your real nature. And it’s already here, it’s not that you have to return back to it. It’s already here, but you think it’s somewhere else. So for the time being, maybe you can adopt my idea that everything you need is already here, not anywhere else outside. And just let the music, the sound current of the music…You’ve all heard the sound “Om.” Everyone’s heard of Om. So they say that’s the sound of the entire manifestation. So feel this sound as the Om arising within you. And not only within you, everywhere. Not within, not without. Forget about within and without. Just be exactly as you are right now. Not something else…or a body or anything. Just relax into that sound and eventually relax into the Silence, that’s all. So there’s nothing really to do, just enjoy. Thank you.

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Please enter into silence for a few minutes. If you would like you can sit with one of Prasant’s tracks by utilizing the players below. For more about Satsangs, visit the Satsang page.

 

YouTube (subscribe free to Prasant’s channel)

The Discovery Approach to Music Practice (part 2): What you want is already here when you SEE.

Part 1 of this series is available here. In part 1, there is an overview of what this approach is about.

The Discovery Approach to practice essentially comes from the realization that what IS is inherently complete and perfect. That perfection can grow and change, but it is inherently full as it is. The practice is then to discover that. This can be successfully utilized in music…or anything.

Let us look into the first analogy: uncovering a fossil or perhaps a lost city. Paleontology, archaeology, etc. Remember, all analogies break down. This is just to convey a perspective-essence that you can utilize in your practice.

If you were going to uncover a large dinosaur or perhaps an ancient city, what would be your approach? Everyone has seen a clip or photo of paleontologists in action. If you come at it roughly, the precious treasure will be damaged. Notice the delicate tools being used, crouched on the earth.

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What will you find? (photo courtesy kenosha.org)

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The goal is already here, so there’s no hurry. (photo courtesy answersingenesis.org)

The approach is wide open seeing, gently pressing onward to uncover that which you want to find. There is no hurry, no clock. There is a great deal of sensitivity in the work. The team or worker will take as long as it needs to properly expose the dinosaur’s remains. Days, months or years. There is a touch of reverence for what may be discovered. The goal is available right at the fingertips to the point that it can even be touched, yet such care is taken. It is already complete and finished and does not need to be created. It simply awaits discovery. (I will go into how this relates to composing and improvising music another time…this still applies.)

Looking at a phrase, line, piece of music or even a single note in this way might change your entire relationship to it. It ceases to be an item to be completed or scale to get through. You are no longer marking off checklists of completing a number of krithis, scales or compositions. You are not buying groceries here or taking a standardized test or collecting accomplishments.

You become aware of what you are doing in a natural way. You are noticing everything about your experience. You return to just being, which is quite similar to vividly aware FEELing. You notice the entire symphony of body sensations. For example, how does the body posture feel? How do your hands feel on the instrument? Or if you are a vocalist, explore the feeling of the body itself, particularly the chest, head, belly and throat. Now when you go to play, it is not an unconscious “get this done” experience. It is very different. And this is where the analogy ends, because the line of music that initially was like a dinosaur bone, is now ALIVE. Every note comes alive, every breath comes alive. The entire experience reverberates with the sound and feeling of the music. Whatever arises is full and complete in itself. This allows you to actually PLAY music and not do music.

You do not need to wait to enjoy playing music until you have mastered it or even become reasonably good at it. You don’t need to hobble through the initial learning stage or struggle through the advanced and/or professional stages where you run on a treadmill to get infinitely “better,” more skilled and more amazing or impressive as a musician. I’m not saying not to do that. That is a real path. But look at it. The total bliss and enjoyment of music is available now for all. It is THIS note, THIS song that has it. Even a cracked note, HAS it. Most of us cannot see this. But when you approach music with this wide open seeing, the same way a child approaches a flower, you will definitely see.

What happens then, is the hidden fear aspect associated with failing or playing something wrong is either completely destroyed or significantly subdued. This frees up incredible amounts of clarity and vital energy for doing what you really need to do. There is a relaxation as well. Free of the concept of “mistakes,” you end up making less of them.

In the next posts, I will introduce a few more analogy/scenarios that apply to the actual practice process itself. They can be used as brief visualizations or meditations. Feel free to contemplate these first posts, try them out and let me know if it helps.

 

 

The Discovery Approach to Music Practice (part 1)

I’m glad to share a simple approach to practicing music with you that arose while working with some of my Carnatic saxophone students. It is nothing new, but rather a subtle shift in the perspective of the approach that allows for a fresh, relaxed and clear way of practicing whatever it might be that you are working on in your  musical journey. It also may incidentally lead to spiritual insights and/or deeper peace.

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The Discovery Approach to practice essentially comes from the realization that what IS is inherently complete and perfect. That perfection can grow and change, but it is inherently full as it is. The practice is then to discover that. This can be successfully utilized in music…or anything.

The most common approach most people take is the “try, try again” approach. There is nothing wrong with it, and can be quite useful. You will basically have a line or phrase you want to play and you continuously do it over and over. Each time there are various mistakes that need to be ironed out. With a grunt or worse, you try again and again. Sometimes there will be more mistakes with each repeat. With much hard work, eventually the line is played as desired. However, there is the danger that without rigorous review and weeding out of the undesired aspects, these mistake can show up as a surprise later during another practice or a performance. Sometimes, the mistakes will go unnoticed and actually multiply, leaving you baffled.

With much practice, eventually everything is ironed out and you are happy. It is something like putting rough stones in a tumbler where they are turned around, crashing into each other until they finally come out as precious gems. Or punching repeatedly through a wall until you break through. It works eventually, but it may be frustrating and tiring.

The main missing ingredient in the previous method is usually awareness. In the Discovery method, we focus on cultivating the necessary awareness to listen and really FEEL what is happening. When awareness is turned on at full power, practice is really a completely different ball game. It feels more like you are simply discovering the fully perfect line or phrase with the practice rather then forcefully executing it.

The next ingredient, though it may seem obvious, is to go through the music very very SLOWLY. Many are familiar with the slow aspect. But usually slow playing is used on its own with the side effect that eventually the person playing becomes more aware. Here, we start with vivid awareness and attention and then begin the practice at slower tempos.

How do we get “into” this vivid awareness? Well, your natural state that you are in already  has it. It has the characteristics of both wakefulness and deep rest. But most of us are heavily distracted constantly and find it difficult to see it. What arose to assist here is a set of simple visualizations or extremely brief (just about 10 seconds to a minute or two) meditations with some simple instructions. You can walk yourself through them to awaken the clarity and set the right atmosphere for the practice.

Many of my students have found this approach illuminating and felt their practice was much easier, more relaxing. They felt more absorbed in the music and where able to taste the enjoyment of music itself. This is fundamentally important to playing or practicing music in a time when there are a million different ways to spend your time just on your phone.

In sharing this approach, I am not saying that one approach is better than another. All are useful and good. I see the Discovery Approach and the “try, try again” approach as two ends of a spectrum. But I did feel that this approach I am describing has not been explored enough and could greatly help balance things out. If awareness is cultivated enough through practicing Discovery method, then the “keep trying” method will automatically become the discovery method. They no longer will appear separate.

I will share the pointers and simple visualizations for the Discovery Approach in the coming posts in this series. Feel free to try them with your own practice or with your own students.

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For an approach to spiritual liberation (enlightenment, Self Realization etc.) through music, please see the series: Naada Yoga For Total Liberation.

 

Here You Are

Wake up in the morning, lying in bed. Here you are.

Making breakfast and enjoying some coffee. Here you are.

A quick grocery run. Here you are.

Sitting in traffic. Here you are.

Out having a picnic. Here you are.

Gazing at the sky. Here you are.

Responding to emails. Here you are.

The latest calamity in the news. Here you are.

Before anything and everything. Here you are.

Just being you. Here you are.

After everything and nothing goes. Here you are.

Just enjoy.

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