”NADA YOGA" the science and art of Music-evolution
Introduction
I feel very fortunate to came in contact in my life, in fortuitous circumstances, with Nada Yoga.
In the early '90s I was selected among fifty aspiring actors and admitted to the prestigious "Teatro Tascabile di Bergamo".
At that time I was 19, the theater was my main interest and I followed a very strict training for eight hours or even more every day to learn “acting” according to the method of Grotoski and Eugenio Barba.
Among the disciplines that I had to follow, there were included acrobatics, to which I harbored a particular passion, Indian dancing, walking and dancing on stilts, juggling the different technics of acting, the use of musical instruments and singing, alas , my sore point.
I was in fact particularly sound death, something that gave me a great frustration. Being very shy since childhood, and finding myself with a teacher of very impatient hand, I was also blocked. Especially her angry reaction to my difficulties in finding the notes, had totally inhibited me.
I began Nada Yoga for this very reason. I was told that if I passed by listening to the sound through the auditory system to its perception through the body (ie through sensory door of touch), I would become intoned in a matter of hours. I had already tried unsuccessfully with various private singing lessons and teachers who were using different methodologies. So I decided to change sensory door and approach singing in a tactile manner.
I contacted a dear friend, who introduced me to the method that the renowned Vemu Mukunda had reformulated deepening attentively his knowledge , at the suggestion of Bhagawan Sri Satya Sai Baba, in various sacred and ancient texts of Indian music manuals. My friend used the Indian singing for the preparation for childbirth with the famous Fredric Leboyer, and at that time held an introductory course to the science of Nada Yoga. So I enrolled in the course for women in labor, and I immediately had good results. I began the course on Saturday and Sunday afternoon I came out intoned.
I was very impressed by the method and it began to make into me a new and wider perception of life. Right from an early age, since I was 13/14 years old, I had my first spiritual experiences and now I began to feel a strong appeal to Divinity. However, I was still stuck in what we might call worldly desires including that of becoming a professional actor.
The Nada Yoga had deeply impressed me, not only because it helped me to come back in tune, but mainly because it introduced in a practical way to the perception of vibration in the etheric body and states of real inner life . Since these were among the major topics discussed Douce Mère, the Mother of Pondicherry, founder of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, whose writings every night with great voracity I was reading, I was always more attracted by Nada Yoga. The technique was such as to sing the notes on specific points in the body, feelling vibrations and moods to them associated. In this way I was making direct experience of what She spoke in her writings. If I was not out of tune, I probably would have not studied this technique that allowed me change my life radically.
This technique introduced me to the perception of vibration, and to the understanding that each vibrational level corresponds in our internal operation at some level of the mind. For example, when the vibrations are intense in the heart area, we usually feel a lot of joy and a lot of love; or if negativity are there, a strong displeasure at the level of feelings. Precisely for this reason we can not tell looking into the eyes of the person we love: "I love you with all my nose" as that would not make any sense. Instead we say "I love you with all my heart," because love is indeed felt in the heart.
To whose who happened to risk an accident here in Italy easily say: "I had so much fear that I was going to make it in my pants" because fear is localized in the stomach area. I realized then, that every vibration level has its own mind, and thanks to Nada Yoga I could get in touch with the fundamental vibrational levels in an experiential manner; distress and fear have theirs residence in the solar plexus and then accumulate in the umbilical region; the feeling of peace is instead "localized" in the center of the head, at the pineal gland (called the seat of peace).
All this introduced me to a second concept. Not only vibrators are related to specific points in the body and with specific emotional states, with which the practitioner through precise notes comes in contact, once identified their root note in the navel, but also that an octave (raga, sequence notes) combines various vibrators points able to create a specific set of emotional states (rasa).
There are octaves that can create deeper emotional and psychic states such as what is called the serene and auspicious Peace, a set of feelings that in turn are part of a specific category (Thaat), that of "Peace" where are the deep Peace, that cheerful Peace, or the melancholic Peace or of other types...
I could notice it, as combining the various vibrators points would create within the energy system of a kind of circuit which was used to create a set of well defined states of mind.
As when we make a soup by combining various types of plant and thus achieving a rich and varied flavor, in the same manner I could create in me a vibratory circuit rising and descending through various points in the body resulting in a set of states of precise mood. And it was possible to repeat this operation and find a certain affective state whenever I felt the need.
For example, singing, starting from my foundamental note, the raga No. 15 called Mayamaulavagowla or Bhairav, I could get into a state of profound peace, mental silence and mystical melancholy towards the Divinity.
These states were induced in me in a way almost impossible to control, happening through the vibrations circulating within well-defined circuits. Including this, I realized, amazed, how I had a huge chance to change and evolve in my life.