“Everyone deserves music, sweet music. Even our worst enemies, Lord, they deserve music. Even the quiet ones in our family, they deserve music!” ~Michael Franti
People begin a yoga practice for many reasons, often times to achieve things like a healthier body, or more relaxation. Rarely do people begin the practice to change the world, but, in fact, this can happen. We need only realize that, as Willie Wonka said, “We are the music makers, we are the dreamers of the dream”. It is our dream and our music that create our reality.
Modern scientific thought tells us that we are the creators of our own reality and that we are most fundamentally comprised of vibration. Understanding that vibration is simply music, and knowing that our reality comes from the way we choose to perceive things, we can undertake a yoga practice to create harmony in the music that emanates from us. We can use this to shift our perception to truly change the world!
Imagine seeing the participants of a yoga class as different musical instruments in an orchestra; each one playing a unique, yet integral, part of the overall piece. As you move through sun salutations, you create a harmony comprised of each person’s individual “sound”. As you breathe, you create a melody, and as your hearts begin to beat in sync (which happens anytime the hearts of multiple living beings are in close proximity), you create a bass line. If we, as yogis, rally around uplifting the lives of others through our yoga practice, that is the song that we send out into the world.
Our individual vibrations emanate from us just as ripples in a pond expand when a stone breaks its surface. What we think, say and do creates the circumstances around us. If we choose to think, speak, and act peacefully and compassionately, those are the vibrations we create, and our reality will be based on those very real thought forms.
Yoga gives us practices, like chanting, pranayama, and asana, that will not only help to “re-tune” our instrument – the body/mind – but also cultivate the strength to be powerful voices for change in this fast-paced, out-of-sync world. We don’t have to be platinum recording artists to have our voices heard. We just have to do these practices that will tune our instruments so that our music sounds clearly when we sing our vibrational “songs”.
Imagine your body, your mind and your speech as a song. What kind of song do you want it to be? Music has the power to change lives. You’ve experienced this when you connect a song to a powerful moment in your history, or if you consider John Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance” as the anthem to the anti-war movement of the ’70’s. But it’s not just the music that plays on the radio that can influence others. The most powerful music of influence is the rhythm that comes from your heart.
As you do your practice, consider the choices you’ve made throughout the day that have been factors in the reality you are creating. Realize that you always have the choice to be more compassionate, more kind, and more in-sync with a peaceful, non-violent reality. Know that everyone deserves music. Not just any music, but music that will inspire, uplift and work its way into our hearts so we may also have the compassion to inspire others.
– Alanna Kaivalya
