Music
Dear friends,
Music is a special thing. It has a way of going right to the heart in a way that bypasses the conscious mind. This is a good thing as our minds can thwart our best intentions at times. Vibration is often more important than content.
When I was a child I had a small dog. Just to see if she ever actually understood what I was saying, I conducted an experiment. I leaned over and in a somewhat stern and with a serious voice and face, said, "Good dog, Peeko. You good dog!" She looked at me with big eyes and withdrew a bit, lowering her head. Then I leaned over and with as much cheer and love as I could muster said, "Bad dog! You bad dog you!" And she perked right up, wagging her tail with great joy. Interesting, no? We are quite a bit more like that than we may imagine.
Given how important vibration, tone, and energy is, I am quite careful about the music I listen to. I wanted to share a few lines from a song I was just involved with. I both sang it in performance and then, coincidentally, it came up as the topic of my book-study group the next evening. It's called "Come Gather 'Round.” The lines follow:
Some people think to harvest happiness
By weeding troubles; easing every stress.
The trouble is that troubles never end:
Get rid of one, and you face its friend!
How profound! An uplifted attitude towards life is far better than solving every problem one at a time. Once our attitude is right we actually have more energy, intuition, and courage to then tackle whatever we may face, but attitude comes first. It is so simply put, here and when set to music, and that thought is with me often. Better than having a chewing gum commercial stuck in your head, eh? :-)
Another few lines from the same song follows:
It’s in your heart the songs of joy resound:
You’ll hear but echoes in the world around.
Wind on a hill sounds lonely if you’re sad,
Free if you’re free, cheerful if you’re glad.
The world is filled with both uplifting and downward-pulling things. Where is your radio tuned? Wind is wind. Does it sound sad to you? Cheerful to you?
As a singer myself, I find when I have a song to perform and I am rehearsing it before the event, it is going through my head all day for weeks ahead of time. How lovely! It has been said, “You are what you eat.” I think “You are what you listen to” is more accurate. And perhaps more accurate still, “You will become what you listen to.”
May we each consciously tune ourselves to as uplifting a vibration as possible as often as possible. Yogananda said, "Environment is stronger than will power.” Let us do what we can to honor this idea.
Blessings,
David G., manager
For the staff at East West