- My work
with sound started in the late '60's when I saw
the still photographs of a film of the work of a
man called Hans Jenny, a Swiss engineer and
doctor who was influenced by the work of Rudolph
Steiner. He was trying to show the effect of
sound in matter. He had made it his life work to
try and demonstrate what happens in matter when
you vibrate it with sound in a variety of ways,
and he used all kinds of different substances. He
used liquids and pastes and fine powders and
affected them with different sounds. I saw the
images that came about as he did these
experiments. I saw that heaps of a matter which
had no form, as soon as sound was introduced,
took on the precise and exquisite patterns that
you find in nature and that the more the sound
was maintained the more differentiated these
patterns became. If the materials or sound
changed, so did the patterns. This was extremely
significant. If sound can introduce form and
pattern into matter then there is something very
important about sound. I realised that this theme
is common to many traditions, and they consider
sound a great force in the universe.
-
- Creation
Through Sound
- When I
began looking into these traditions I found that
even amongst quite widely distant peoples you
have the idea that the world itself came into
being and continues to come into being through
sound, in other words that the coming into being
is a sonorous event. You find this in the East
and West and can understand this as a
metaphorical description of a vibratory universe.
Which means that human beings have always known
that everything in the world has its identity
because of the periodicity and the regularity of
its movement and that this is what makes one
thing separate from another, and gives it form.
-
- In St
John's Gospel it says "In the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was
with God". You find almost identical words
in the Hindu tradition and so you have the
beginning as sound, and also as language. In
these traditions you find that the beginning
comes about not only through sound and the word,
but through the allocation of names - as in the
Bible, when Adam names everything. When you give
a name to a thing it has a separate identity
because it has one name and not another name,
which means that it is something 'recognisable'.
In this way you have the beginning of language
and thought. If you want to technologise the
world you need language and differentiation, but
if you want to be in the present, if you want to
experience 'treeness' for example you need to be
able to suspend naming and language. Normally
when we look at a tree, we say 'tree' to
ourselves. Immediately we say 'tree' we remember
that yesterday we forgot to do something which
means that we have to do it tomorrow and so on -
and our mind starts off on its trajectory of
inner chatter, of tree associations related to
the past and the future. The moment you name
something you are thrust into time - you cannot
name anything without being in the past or the
future. If you want not to be in time, in the
sense of past and future, but want to remain in
peceptual contact with 'treeness' then you can
only do that if you don't name it as tree, which
separates it from you as an object. People have
devised different ways of tricking the mind so
that they can be in a state of perceiving
'treeness' or can be 'tree-ing'.
-
- You have
to undo that skill which we have been taught
since birth and which we get good examination
marks for. You have to be able to use it when you
want to and not use it when you don't. Sonorous
yogas are devised for just this purpose. They
either 'splinter' the attention, giving it so
much to do that you forget to think or create a
closed circuit of attention. Using the voice and
listening to the sound you are making at the same
time, enables you to go beyond the dualism of
language and separation from the world. We see
that something is different from us and that
which is different from us is also different from
something else, this differentiation arises with
language. The separation of us and not us is the
separation which all traditions try to overcome
so that we can be in a state of unity. Sound is
one of the most effective ways of going beyond
separation.
-
- Finding a
Living Tradition
- The
magical and healing qualities of sound were taken
for granted by most peoples of antiquity, and
particularly by the Egyptians, Greeks and
Indians. What I wanted to do was to find to where
this had survived. And so I found myself studying
within various traditions. The place where a more
precise understanding of the use of sound and of
voice has survived is the Tibetan tradition. This
happened because of the peculiar situation in
Tibet where a mediaeval spiritual culture had
survived. We in Europe had certain similarities
in our own spiritual culture, in earlier times,
when in caves there lived hermits who performed
extraordinary miracles. This, of course, has been
entirely lost through the age of so-called
enlightenment. But this tradition survived in
Tibet, perhaps for geographical reasons, maybe
something to do with the rare atmosphere of the
high Himalayas. In Tibet for many hundreds of
years, there has been a highly sophisticated
science of mind. There are large numbers of words
in the Tibetan language which are in some way a
qualification of mind. For generations and
generations Tibetans have studied the mind.
-
- The
Tibetans talk about the human being in three
ways. They talk of body, of voice and of mind.
These have three locations. The position for
'body' is in the head. The 'voice' is in the
throat and the position of 'mind' is in the
heart. For Tibetans there is no identity between
mind and brain, as in the West. So the voice acts
as an intermediary between the subtle realm of
mind and the more physical realm of body. So it
is seen as a bridge between the material and the
immaterial.
- Speech,
voice, sound, and subtle breath or prana are all
connected. It is not only Tibetans who consider
sound as a bridge, the idea is very widespread.
For example, sound is often considered as an
intermediary for the translation of spirit into
matter and then for matter into spirit through
the agency of human beings. If spirit can become
matter through sound, then matter can become
spirit, again through sound. Sound is used in
almost all places and times for travelling the
path of transcendence - for transforming matter
back again into spirit. You can see this somewhat
literally in that you can use the sound of an
object to break it apart. For examply, if you
listen to the sound of a wine glass and direct it
back to the glass you can smash it with your
voice. So you can decompose form with sound. You
can do it physically, but also you can bring
about transformation through sound, spiritually.
-
- Within the
Tibetan tradition of Dzogchen the aim is to relax
into a state of contemplation and to live our
lives with integrity so that the implications of
our actions are apparent in the clarity of every
moment. So that we live, like a fish in water.
Like riding the waves of the Tao, we leave no
traces, and lead impeccable existences causing no
disturbances. If you cannot do it for whatever
reason perhaps you have some blockage or
disturbance in your energy or problem of some
kind in your mind which prevents you from doing
this. In this case there are certain things you
can do which can make it easier.
-
- There are
many kinds of practices and sound is often used
to bring about a state of clarity and
contemplation.
-
- Mantra
- In India
too the voice is very important for
transformation. Perhaps the most common form in
India - and it is also of course common in Tibet
- is its use of Mantra. Mantras are sacred sounds
conserved in the ancient languages, even in
languages which are no longer understood. There
are certain sounds for specific illnesses or
problems caused by particular beings, or mantras
to bring you into a state of clarity or
emptiness. Other mantras tune you into the
lineage of teachers in which you are
participating and if you use these particular
sounds which have been used by masters of the
lineage then you tune into and share their
attainment. You are tuning into all the other
people who have ever used this mantra.
-
- Mantra is
used throughout the world, for example, amongst
the Sufis, the mystics of Islam, forms of mantric
chanting are combined with rhythmic movements of
the body, and with rhythmic breathing to bring
you into a state of transcendental ecstacy or
spiritual bliss. Most liturgies are chanted or
sung and this also applies to the liturgy of the
Christian church. The Sunday services of matins,
communion and evensong are a form of spiritual
entrainment when we chant psalms together, sing
hymns and intone prayers. So you have everyone
tuning together. When you change from speaking to
singing something very interesting happens.
Through singing you can unite with everybody.
That is why all countries have a national anthem.
-
- Shamanic
Ground
- The great
world religions have super-imposed themselves
over the indigenous shamanistic traditions
which existed for hundreds of thousands of years
beforehand. Many of the sonic yogas of Tibet and
India already existed long before Buddhism. They
were very ancient. These exercises of chanting,
rhythmical bodily movement, rhythmical breathing
and so on are very ancient practices which were
incorporated into the great religions. You find
practices like the Whirling of the Dervishes.
They spiral and rotate while breathing and
praying in combination with the voice of the
flute which is very similar to the voice of a
human being. They say that the body of the
dervish is like the body of the flute through
whom God is blowing.
-
- What I
Teach
- After
studying in a number of different traditions I
eventually decided to teach. I had begun to
see that there were certain similarities in the
principles behind the way sound was used. Certain
things seemed to be held in common, and it seemed
important to try and understand the principles,
and teach them in a way which could help people
who felt alienated from their own spiritual
tradition. If we understood the way in which we
could use our voice then we would benefit from
the understanding of all those who had done it
before and rediscover this magnificient tool
which we carry around with us all the time. We
use our voice most of the time totally
unconsciously but we could use it in a way that
all traditions have understood- for our own
transformation.
-
- If you can
liberate the voice then you can liberate the
human being. It is our means of expression. It is
the way in which our breath is made conscious and
our breath is the way we have of exchanging
ourselves with the world. We breath the world in
and we breath ourselves out into the world, and
it is a constant relationship which goes on
mostly unconsciously. The use of the voice is one
way in which this becomes conscious. If you know
what you are doing then you can change this
relationship completely. I teach people certain
ways of breathing, because breathing in itself is
an art of great precision. Depending on the kind
of state that you want to have or the part of
yourself that you want to make contact with, you
use different kinds of breathing. It is very
precise. So the first thing is to teach people
how to breath. In addition you are trying to
change the breath for chanting and you are
chanting in order to change the breath and then
you are trying to do both of those in order to
change the nature of your being so you can go
beyond the chattering mind and be in the nature
of the mind itself. If you are trying to go
beyond thought , you need to lower the breathing.
Usually breathing is fast and high and tends to
emphasise the inbreath. Now a fast, high
concentrated inbreath is find for re-birthing or
work with hyperventialtion or if you want to
uncover emotional material. To go beyond
emotional material, and go beyond the activity of
the thinking mind you lower the breath and work
with the outbreath. There are many ways to
lengthen the breath to change your whole pattern
of breathing. After the breathing I get people to
listen. It is not just making sound that is
important, but it is being able to listen to it
which is essential. You are completing a circuit
of attention and it is this circuit of attention
which enables you to go beyond the thinking mind.
Secondly I teach people to listen and to make
sound at the same time. Then I teach how to use
sound to liberate oneself from the pattern of
anxieties which is stimulated and nourished by
every perceptual experience. Each perception
initiates naming (language and thought) and
therefore comparison in time with past and
future. We are immediately excluded from the
present by our regrets and dreads. The
persistence of these negative thought patterns
starts by affecting our emotions and energy and
then brings about material changes at the body's
weak points which ultimately become pathological.
-
- If you can
use sound to work on the morphogenetic field of
the person, in other words the resonant
poteniality of their own healthy state, then you
can maintain that person in a state of health. In
language to be healthy is to be sound - we talk
about being sound in body and mind, to be of
sound mind and to have ideas which ring true. I
work at this level to try and tune the instrument
which the human being is. To maintain a person in
tune is to maintain them in a state of health.
-
- It is
possible to find you own sound. Each person has
their own sound quite distinct from another
person and I demonstrate ways which develop that
and bring your whole being into resonance. In
this way your voice should get lower, fully
resonant and much richer, so the whole of you is
resonating when you use your voice. Then I teach
how to go within your sound to reveal the inside
of the sound through harmonic or overtone
chanting. This way of working with sound is of
ancient shamanistic origin. It brings out the
internal core of the sound as separate notes over
and above the note which you are singing. This is
a magical thing to do either on your own or with
a group of people. You have a sense that you are
evoking angelic beings - which of course in
antiquity and even medieval times were thought to
be sonorous. At the same time because tongue
movements are linked directly to thinking, by
using the tongue to differentiate and make
audible parts of your own voice, which before
were undifferentiated and unconscious, you are
also stimulating little used neural pathways.
-
- My Overall
Aim
- My aim in
not modest. I see that nothing short of the
transformation of humanity is what is necessary
at this point in time and I will do anything I
can to change that possibility into a reality.
Since the voice is an instrument of
transformation that we carry about with us all
the time, it is one of the most powerful and also
readily available means for this. My way is to
open peoples' ears, so that they can hear their
own voice. Then their own voice can become a
means of transformation. When I say
transformation I mean that we may live our life
in a way which is harmonious with our environment
and other people, facilitating the illumination
of others, the illumination of life on earth.
-
- An
Experiment with Children
- Recently,
I was teaching in a summer school for school
teachers of the Arts. We discussed how in schools
the period of assembly has become a problem for
teachers. Schools still have an assembly and
there are quite strict instructions, even a law
in England, that there should be Christian
prayers of some kind. Most teachers, mainly
because they were educated in the humanistic
period of modernism, are embarrassed. They do not
know what to do with this period but are not
allowed to abolish it. The real aim of the
assembly is to tune the pupils and teachers of
the school into something higher than themselves
so that the activities of the school can be
harmonious, so that the development of the
children can carry on smoothly. Therefore it is a
very important period and the importance of it
has really been forgotten, partly because of the
overwhelming tide of humanism which once started
as an interesting fashion amongst a few
intellectuals and which is now ubiquitous, and
also because of the inter-denominational and
intercultural nature of schools now. Christian
prayers would not be appropriate for a Hindu, a
Jew or a Muslim. As a result of this confusion
the original intention has been lost.
-
- I had the
idea that it might be possible to encourage
schools to use the assembly once again as a
period for tuning together using sound in a way
that it has always been used, yet in a way which
was non-denominational. I mentioned it to various
people there and they thought it might be
possible with certain age groups. I put the idea
to one side. I came back to London and in my very
next workshop, there were five schoolteachers. It
was as if I had had the intention one minute and
in the next it was materialising. There were two
people who taught music in schools in North
London, there was another person who supervised
music in central London, there wa a teacher of
mentally handicapped children and a teacher of
Montessori, all in that one workshop. I was so
surprised by this that we began to talk about the
possibilities and I talked about this idea.
-
- A week
later I was invited to teach in a Primary School
in North London. The Headmistress had been told
about it and was very interested. The two
teachers of the forms I was asked to teach,
ten-year olds in the morning and seven-year olds
in the afternoon, and sombody who went around
different schools helping with music teaching and
various other interested people all came and sat
in on the experiment.
-
- As it was
the first time I had ever taught children
anything, it was quite alarming to have so many
witnesses. And I must say it was most thrilling.
The children were immediately transfixed. They
asked the most precise and brilliant questions.
They got right to the central point immediately.
They knew exactly what was going on. They were
completely spontaneous. I asked them to describe
their experiences on listening to certain kinds
of sounds, harmonic chanting and so on, and what
they told us were visions rather than
descriptions. I expected them to imitate each
other, to say, well, I had that too, and so on.
Not a bit of it. Everyone was quite different and
yet rooted ina common source of experience. They
were truly cosmic visions that the children were
having and they themselves were thrilled.
-
- In the
second half we had a period of painting in which
they painted what they had experienced. The
teachers who came were amazed by what had
happened. They said that they had never seen the
children so sponaneous. Children who rarely
spoke, spoke up about their experience. And then
when it came to painting that was incredible. My
own beginnings were through painting and to see
the paintings of these children was very moving.
Out of the darkness sprang brilliant rainbow
colours, appeared luminous waves and beams with
balls of light floating in space. Absolutely
extraordinary paintings - and even after that the
children were so excited they wouldn't stop, so
they started to write poetry about it too and
showed me the poems. There was one poem which
made me cry.
-
- The
reports, later, of the parents were surprising
too - they said that the children came home
ebullient - bursting with what had happened to
them. So if you can bring this out in children
from an early age than it really might be
possible to transform society.
-
- "If
you can liberate the voice
- you can
liberate a human being"
-
- Copyright
Jill Purce 1985
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