No doubt about
it - the sound of the Gong is addictive.
There used to be a time many years ago when I did not play the Gong at the end of every Kundalini Yoga class I taught. I thought it might be a good idea not to get every one all strung out and dependent on a gong relaxation. So every now and then I would play some music and mantra and chill instead.
And then I noticed people were twitching, peeking at me during relaxation to see if I might pick up a mallet and then giving me a thumbs up when I turned the music off and struck the gong.
"Man, I am just so here for the tea and the gong," a rather aromatic student told me one night after what I thought was also a pretty good yoga class. But I took that pretty well, because after all sometimes I am only here for the gong too.
What is it about the gong that makes people want more and more? Well, I decided to write a book about it and right now I am deep into discovering some of the mysteries about the gong and Kundalini Yoga.
The book is titled Gong Yoga (due out next year) and I uncovered some interesting research in the use of the gong for healing and meditation. For example, the psychiatric hospital in Bali that uses the gong to treat schizophrenia and the seers in ancient courts who played the gong to open their psychic powers of prediction.
The healing power of the gong has proven itself over and over again in my Kundalini Yoga of Sound classes. The headache that disappears, even the neck injury pain that suddenly vanishes.
I think one reason the gong becomes addictive is that it produces a spontaneous state of meditation and integration that only requires you to relax, really relax, and listen.
As I am writing in my book:
The ability of the gong to quiet the mind, to halt it in its tracks, and to overcome its hold upon the consciousness was well expressed by the master Kundalini Yoga teacher Yogi Bhajan who once said, "To the mind, the sound of the gong is like a mother and father that gave it birth. The mind has no power to resist a gong that is well played."
With this surrender of the lower mind to the sound of the gong, the listener can enter into that transcendental state where inner truth can be accessed and a vision journey can begin. As the gong is played in this state of shunya or nothingness, visualizations spontaneously arise from this new emptiness that can provide the meditator with insights into their current state as well as awaken the intuitive mind to the higher truth of existence.
In this respect, the gong is the yogi's instrument for creating a spontaneous meditative state that only requires the listener to let go and let gong.
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