| Hite, Richard. What is the Sound of Healing? Holistic: Harmonizing Pathways to Wholeness (Fall 2006):39-45. Available at URL: www.holisticjournal.org. |
| What is the Sound of Healing? by Richard Hite, MA |
“What is the sound of healing?” the young man asked the old priest who rang the temple
bells.
“It is the wind blowing through the trees, the singing of the birds for the morning sun and the
crashing of waves on the shore. It is in the sound of children and the young at heart
laughing. As gentle words of forgiveness this voice is given a language. God’s many
voices are everywhere,” the ancient one answered. “The earth, the stars and the planets
sing this voice for all who can hear. The healing voice of God waits within you. It finds it’s
resonance in all those moments that you listen deeply.”
The young man listened attentively, a bit stymied at the answer and asked, “How do you
know God’s voice is in all that?”
The old man, smiled slightly as he took the boy by the hand and led him to sit on a cushion
in front of the window. “Sit quietly and listen,” was all he said as the boy sat on the cushion.
The ancient one’s hands emerged from within his robes and struck together two little gongs
of different frequencies. It was as if all the angels had begun to sing.
The boy did not move except for the tears that flowed down his face. All the questions and
doubts that had cluttered his mind were gone. Samadhi was all he had left.
Gongs have long been a big part of my yoga practice. Their sounds, layered with dense
overtones, and the sub-audible vibrations they produce, have a long tradition in spiritual
practices and the healing arts. I was hooked the first time I heard one. It was in a yoga
ashram, we were on the tail end of two hours of Kundalini yoga practice, all laid out on the
floor on our backs, relaxing our bodies, when, using fairly hard mallets, one of the teachers
began to play a large gong positioned at one end of the room. He started gently enough,
but within a few minutes the gong’s large surface was vibrating every air molecule in the
room.
I could feel the sound waves as much as I could hear them. Dense vibrations, rolling in
waves, obliterated all my senses. I lost the sense of having a physical body. The vibrations
overwhelmed my ability to separate my self from the surrounding environment. It seemed as
if my skin was painlessly dissolving. At one point I wanted to get up and scream,” Stop!” I
felt totally out of control, but, I was held immobile. My inability to sense any part of my body,
made it impossible to physically move. The continuing, crescendoing waves of energy
picked me up in a vortex, taking me on a magic ride that wound through the universe. I
passed galaxies and nebulae traveling faster than light itself until a black hole sucked me
into a blissed out state of unconsciousness. My very being had dissolved, the atoms of my
body became like the grains of sand distributed across a virgin beach.
As he wound down his intense playing I experienced a profound sense of emptiness. This
was soon filled with a blissful feeling that was even more profound. What had been fatigue
earlier, transformed into a lightness throughout my body. Energized and relaxed as I felt
however, I still couldn’t move much more than my fingers and toes for a bit more. There
were no words to describe the experience. I mean that there were no words in my mind, no
thoughts until I remembered hearing the voices of angels singing. Somewhere, in the middle
of the intense, dense sounds and vibrations, I had heard voices blending together and
calling to me to join in. Instead of my voice joining with theirs, however, my whole body had
seemed to become a vibration that their voices carried, smoothed, and made more
harmonious in the experience. Answers to questions that had haunted me since childhood
suddenly seemed to flow into my awareness. I could feel the deep questioning emotions that
had been looking for those answers for so many years. I did not wish to have an emotional
meltdown right then and with my breath was able to smooth things out until later. I also
knew that I wanted a gong. The experience was a powerful turning point, but I was not able
to fulfill my goal of obtaining a gong for a few more years.
Soundwaves are capable of melting hardened steel, but I find the gongs more
useful in how they can induce a deep sense of relaxation while stimulating energy
flow. The deep bass tones of a large gong penetrate the dense bones, relaxing
tense muscles from the inside out and interfering with the energy patterns that
maintained the tension. The result is that the muscle returns to a relaxed state.
Holding a deep stretch such as a full spinal twist while listening to gongs and breathing
deeply and slowly can increase awareness in areas that may have been held tight in a
sensory/motor amnestic loop for a long time. This is especially true in the lower back and
pelvis connection. Getting some of the many small muscle groups in the area of the sacrum
to relax is often very difficult. Many people have developed habits that hold these muscles
tight while sitting in a chair all day. This eventually blocks their ability to communicate
relaxing suggestions to these muscles. After awhile, it also blocks the ability to feel the
muscles so they don’t feel the hurt or tension anymore. This starts the sensory/motor
amnestic loop that leads to exhaustion and collapse. Muscles remain tense without an
intervention to stop the continuous tension = pain = tension looping and recycling. The
gongs interrupt this cycle. The vibrations stimulate and overwhelm the pain related
communications between muscles and the brain allowing the muscles to relax.
The gong I had heard was a 32” Symphonic gong. I was told that these gongs were based
on designs that originated in the Wushan Province of China before they were perfected in
the region of Tibet. This technology was brought to the west by Tibetan monks escaping
Chinese rule.
Made from alloys and processes often steeped in mystical legends and shrouded with an
obscurity, these large plates command visual attention wherever they are displayed.
Intensely sensitive, a sharp yell causes the gongs to resonate and sing responsively. The
slightest brush of a hand or a mallet elicits an exotic changing range of clear bright bell
tones intertwined with a deep, droning bass that you feel throughout your body. The range
of tones exceeds the normal human’s range of hearing. Subsonic vibrations and layers of
overtones increase the density of the vibrations without drastically affecting volume. The
effect is like having a vibrating massage sending pleasant messages through every nerve
connected to your skin while you are listening to hypnotic music.
After I obtained my first gong I began to play it at the end of my yoga classes on a regular
basis. Most everyone really liked the effect, claiming they felt very relaxed and energized.
Without making a big deal out of it, the gong meditations provided opportunities for magical
experiences to happen. Integrating the gongs with various forms of intense breathing
exercises facilitated spiritual visions for seekers during some of the retreats I facilitated over
weekends. Their hypnotic and transforming effect set the stage for healing and spiritual
growth. It was just a natural outcome for me to bring the gongs with me when I began
providing therapeutic yoga to hospitalized patients in Texas in 1987. The first time I played
a gong in the hospital as a part of a yoga therapy group, the response was immediate, but I
didn’t know what it meant until I returned in two days for the next class. Mrs. G did not want
to initially join the group that Monday night. Morbidly obese, severely depressed, suffering
from advanced arthritis and on crutches, she had every reason to believe that she would not
enjoy yoga therapy! Only after I promised to drag her recliner chair into the activities room
did she agree to come. We did some chair yoga exercises to loosen everyone up a little and
increase self awareness.
I played the gongs for a few minutes and then checked in with everybody. I encouraged
them to share any anxieties they might have with listening to the gongs while relaxing on the
floor or in the recliner. I asked them all to lie on their backs and take a deep breath as I
began with gently stroking the edge of the gong. I began describing the most beautiful
crystal sand beach and asked each of them to imagine their own private beach at sunrise. I
asked them to imagine laying on their beaches so that they could feel the warmth of the sun
as it rises. The gong sounds seemed to sizzle in the air as they were asked to feel the heat
of the sun melting all the tension in their bodies and as the sizzling became even more
intense, to feel their bodies melt into the warm sands until they become one with the beach.
bells.
“It is the wind blowing through the trees, the singing of the birds for the morning sun and the
crashing of waves on the shore. It is in the sound of children and the young at heart
laughing. As gentle words of forgiveness this voice is given a language. God’s many
voices are everywhere,” the ancient one answered. “The earth, the stars and the planets
sing this voice for all who can hear. The healing voice of God waits within you. It finds it’s
resonance in all those moments that you listen deeply.”
The young man listened attentively, a bit stymied at the answer and asked, “How do you
know God’s voice is in all that?”
The old man, smiled slightly as he took the boy by the hand and led him to sit on a cushion
in front of the window. “Sit quietly and listen,” was all he said as the boy sat on the cushion.
The ancient one’s hands emerged from within his robes and struck together two little gongs
of different frequencies. It was as if all the angels had begun to sing.
The boy did not move except for the tears that flowed down his face. All the questions and
doubts that had cluttered his mind were gone. Samadhi was all he had left.
Gongs have long been a big part of my yoga practice. Their sounds, layered with dense
overtones, and the sub-audible vibrations they produce, have a long tradition in spiritual
practices and the healing arts. I was hooked the first time I heard one. It was in a yoga
ashram, we were on the tail end of two hours of Kundalini yoga practice, all laid out on the
floor on our backs, relaxing our bodies, when, using fairly hard mallets, one of the teachers
began to play a large gong positioned at one end of the room. He started gently enough,
but within a few minutes the gong’s large surface was vibrating every air molecule in the
room.
I could feel the sound waves as much as I could hear them. Dense vibrations, rolling in
waves, obliterated all my senses. I lost the sense of having a physical body. The vibrations
overwhelmed my ability to separate my self from the surrounding environment. It seemed as
if my skin was painlessly dissolving. At one point I wanted to get up and scream,” Stop!” I
felt totally out of control, but, I was held immobile. My inability to sense any part of my body,
made it impossible to physically move. The continuing, crescendoing waves of energy
picked me up in a vortex, taking me on a magic ride that wound through the universe. I
passed galaxies and nebulae traveling faster than light itself until a black hole sucked me
into a blissed out state of unconsciousness. My very being had dissolved, the atoms of my
body became like the grains of sand distributed across a virgin beach.
As he wound down his intense playing I experienced a profound sense of emptiness. This
was soon filled with a blissful feeling that was even more profound. What had been fatigue
earlier, transformed into a lightness throughout my body. Energized and relaxed as I felt
however, I still couldn’t move much more than my fingers and toes for a bit more. There
were no words to describe the experience. I mean that there were no words in my mind, no
thoughts until I remembered hearing the voices of angels singing. Somewhere, in the middle
of the intense, dense sounds and vibrations, I had heard voices blending together and
calling to me to join in. Instead of my voice joining with theirs, however, my whole body had
seemed to become a vibration that their voices carried, smoothed, and made more
harmonious in the experience. Answers to questions that had haunted me since childhood
suddenly seemed to flow into my awareness. I could feel the deep questioning emotions that
had been looking for those answers for so many years. I did not wish to have an emotional
meltdown right then and with my breath was able to smooth things out until later. I also
knew that I wanted a gong. The experience was a powerful turning point, but I was not able
to fulfill my goal of obtaining a gong for a few more years.
Soundwaves are capable of melting hardened steel, but I find the gongs more
useful in how they can induce a deep sense of relaxation while stimulating energy
flow. The deep bass tones of a large gong penetrate the dense bones, relaxing
tense muscles from the inside out and interfering with the energy patterns that
maintained the tension. The result is that the muscle returns to a relaxed state.
Holding a deep stretch such as a full spinal twist while listening to gongs and breathing
deeply and slowly can increase awareness in areas that may have been held tight in a
sensory/motor amnestic loop for a long time. This is especially true in the lower back and
pelvis connection. Getting some of the many small muscle groups in the area of the sacrum
to relax is often very difficult. Many people have developed habits that hold these muscles
tight while sitting in a chair all day. This eventually blocks their ability to communicate
relaxing suggestions to these muscles. After awhile, it also blocks the ability to feel the
muscles so they don’t feel the hurt or tension anymore. This starts the sensory/motor
amnestic loop that leads to exhaustion and collapse. Muscles remain tense without an
intervention to stop the continuous tension = pain = tension looping and recycling. The
gongs interrupt this cycle. The vibrations stimulate and overwhelm the pain related
communications between muscles and the brain allowing the muscles to relax.
The gong I had heard was a 32” Symphonic gong. I was told that these gongs were based
on designs that originated in the Wushan Province of China before they were perfected in
the region of Tibet. This technology was brought to the west by Tibetan monks escaping
Chinese rule.
Made from alloys and processes often steeped in mystical legends and shrouded with an
obscurity, these large plates command visual attention wherever they are displayed.
Intensely sensitive, a sharp yell causes the gongs to resonate and sing responsively. The
slightest brush of a hand or a mallet elicits an exotic changing range of clear bright bell
tones intertwined with a deep, droning bass that you feel throughout your body. The range
of tones exceeds the normal human’s range of hearing. Subsonic vibrations and layers of
overtones increase the density of the vibrations without drastically affecting volume. The
effect is like having a vibrating massage sending pleasant messages through every nerve
connected to your skin while you are listening to hypnotic music.
After I obtained my first gong I began to play it at the end of my yoga classes on a regular
basis. Most everyone really liked the effect, claiming they felt very relaxed and energized.
Without making a big deal out of it, the gong meditations provided opportunities for magical
experiences to happen. Integrating the gongs with various forms of intense breathing
exercises facilitated spiritual visions for seekers during some of the retreats I facilitated over
weekends. Their hypnotic and transforming effect set the stage for healing and spiritual
growth. It was just a natural outcome for me to bring the gongs with me when I began
providing therapeutic yoga to hospitalized patients in Texas in 1987. The first time I played
a gong in the hospital as a part of a yoga therapy group, the response was immediate, but I
didn’t know what it meant until I returned in two days for the next class. Mrs. G did not want
to initially join the group that Monday night. Morbidly obese, severely depressed, suffering
from advanced arthritis and on crutches, she had every reason to believe that she would not
enjoy yoga therapy! Only after I promised to drag her recliner chair into the activities room
did she agree to come. We did some chair yoga exercises to loosen everyone up a little and
increase self awareness.
I played the gongs for a few minutes and then checked in with everybody. I encouraged
them to share any anxieties they might have with listening to the gongs while relaxing on the
floor or in the recliner. I asked them all to lie on their backs and take a deep breath as I
began with gently stroking the edge of the gong. I began describing the most beautiful
crystal sand beach and asked each of them to imagine their own private beach at sunrise. I
asked them to imagine laying on their beaches so that they could feel the warmth of the sun
as it rises. The gong sounds seemed to sizzle in the air as they were asked to feel the heat
of the sun melting all the tension in their bodies and as the sizzling became even more
intense, to feel their bodies melt into the warm sands until they become one with the beach.
“Each day at your beach,” I went on, “the tides come in and the waves build as the ocean
bathes and cleanses your beach of all the debris and trash from the wrecks that have
occurred during your lifetime. The playing began to build into waves of crescendoing,
crashing sound that seemed to descend onto their bodies like cleansing waters. My voice
was instructing the class to be sure they walked on their beach and looked for the treasures
their oceans might have left them before trailing off into the sounds. This continued for
about fifteen minutes before I gradually brought the intensity back down to just a gentle
blend of harmonious tones and overtones before allowing the gong to just come to rest
naturally, quietly into a deep stillness. No one but Mrs. G moved for a few minutes. She
suddenly raised her recliner into a sitting position and without saying a word, jumped up
and left the room, taking her crutches with her. The rest of the patients sat up one by one
and quietly left the room and went to bed. Most made some comment about the experience
being pleasant. One piped up that she hoped I would bring the gong again, to which all
agreed. I did not see Mrs. G again that night, but when I returned two days later to teach
the group again, she met me at the door.
Mrs. G looked like a different woman. She wore a dress for the first time since coming into
the unit and had put her make up on as well. No longer unkempt, she beamed radiantly
when she saw me coming. We had a few minutes before class so we sat as she told me
what had happened. Living with both an alcoholic husband and drug addicted son had
taken a deadly toll on her, plunging her into a depression so deep that her urinary
functioning had ceased. She had not been able to go to the bathroom for more than three
days. This was the precipitating event that brought her to the hospital. She had been
scheduled for catheterization the morning after that first class. She had a clear image of
her beach and felt her body relax with the suggestions. “But nothing really happened,” she
said, “the wind began to blow and the waves just seemed to wash over me, but I wasn’t
scared. The clouds just seemed to swirl and swirl around the whole sky!” With this she was
moving her hands around in big circles to show the movement of the clouds when she
stopped, put both hands on my forearm, looked me in the eyes and said, “I suddenly had
the biggest urge to pee you could imagine, but I couldn’t move. It was as if my body really
was the beach until you stopped playing that gong. Thank goodness you did, too. The
reason I did not return to class after I ran out, was that it took me more than an hour to
empty my bladder. I wanted to talk with you then but you had left already. Do you have a
tape of the gongs?” I did not have a tape at the time. I noticed that Mrs. G did not have her
crutches either and asked her about this. She told me she walked out of the class without
them to hurry to the bathroom and, “I haven’t had to use them since!”
The gong meditations became a regular part of the therapeutic yoga groups after that first
experience. I called them low tech medical devices. They attracted attention every time I
carried them down hospital corridors. The patients liked them. Staff and doctors would
come in just to lie on the floor and “get gonged” at the end of the class. I developed a
playing style that uses several different mallet sizes at the same time to create extremely
dense, multilayered, hypnotic songs. After doing this for several years now, I have heard
countless stories of profound spiritual healing that participants have experienced after lying
on the floor and listening to one of these meditations.
What is the sound of healing? It is the healing voice of God that waits within you. It finds
it's resonance in all those moments that you listen deeply.
bathes and cleanses your beach of all the debris and trash from the wrecks that have
occurred during your lifetime. The playing began to build into waves of crescendoing,
crashing sound that seemed to descend onto their bodies like cleansing waters. My voice
was instructing the class to be sure they walked on their beach and looked for the treasures
their oceans might have left them before trailing off into the sounds. This continued for
about fifteen minutes before I gradually brought the intensity back down to just a gentle
blend of harmonious tones and overtones before allowing the gong to just come to rest
naturally, quietly into a deep stillness. No one but Mrs. G moved for a few minutes. She
suddenly raised her recliner into a sitting position and without saying a word, jumped up
and left the room, taking her crutches with her. The rest of the patients sat up one by one
and quietly left the room and went to bed. Most made some comment about the experience
being pleasant. One piped up that she hoped I would bring the gong again, to which all
agreed. I did not see Mrs. G again that night, but when I returned two days later to teach
the group again, she met me at the door.
Mrs. G looked like a different woman. She wore a dress for the first time since coming into
the unit and had put her make up on as well. No longer unkempt, she beamed radiantly
when she saw me coming. We had a few minutes before class so we sat as she told me
what had happened. Living with both an alcoholic husband and drug addicted son had
taken a deadly toll on her, plunging her into a depression so deep that her urinary
functioning had ceased. She had not been able to go to the bathroom for more than three
days. This was the precipitating event that brought her to the hospital. She had been
scheduled for catheterization the morning after that first class. She had a clear image of
her beach and felt her body relax with the suggestions. “But nothing really happened,” she
said, “the wind began to blow and the waves just seemed to wash over me, but I wasn’t
scared. The clouds just seemed to swirl and swirl around the whole sky!” With this she was
moving her hands around in big circles to show the movement of the clouds when she
stopped, put both hands on my forearm, looked me in the eyes and said, “I suddenly had
the biggest urge to pee you could imagine, but I couldn’t move. It was as if my body really
was the beach until you stopped playing that gong. Thank goodness you did, too. The
reason I did not return to class after I ran out, was that it took me more than an hour to
empty my bladder. I wanted to talk with you then but you had left already. Do you have a
tape of the gongs?” I did not have a tape at the time. I noticed that Mrs. G did not have her
crutches either and asked her about this. She told me she walked out of the class without
them to hurry to the bathroom and, “I haven’t had to use them since!”
The gong meditations became a regular part of the therapeutic yoga groups after that first
experience. I called them low tech medical devices. They attracted attention every time I
carried them down hospital corridors. The patients liked them. Staff and doctors would
come in just to lie on the floor and “get gonged” at the end of the class. I developed a
playing style that uses several different mallet sizes at the same time to create extremely
dense, multilayered, hypnotic songs. After doing this for several years now, I have heard
countless stories of profound spiritual healing that participants have experienced after lying
on the floor and listening to one of these meditations.
What is the sound of healing? It is the healing voice of God that waits within you. It finds
it's resonance in all those moments that you listen deeply.
| Hite, Richard. What is the Sound of Healing? Holistic: Harmonizing Pathways to Wholeness (Fall 2006):39-45. Available at URL: www.holisticjournal.org. |