Dance Meditation: Free your Ass and your Mind will Follow!
2012
Love and Thanks to Dj Fyah Luv (pictured above meditating in Bhutan), this week’s Guest Blogger and co-facilitator of the March 10 – 16, 2012, Bhakti Boogie® ~ Dance Meditation Immersion at Michael Franti’s Soulshine Retreat Center in Ubud, Bali Indonesia.
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A-U-M. In the beginning was the the word. Word. Aum is said to be the original vibration from which all of creation has reverberated. The Big Bang that set the Universe in motion.
Pythagoras described the movement of the sun and planets as the harmony of the spheres, and Kepler later described the connection between geometry (sacred), cosmology, astrology, harmonics, and music as musica universalis. At a sub atomic level particles are described as vibration not matter. In India, the Universe has long been described as Shiva’s dance of creation and destruction. In one hand he rolls the damaru drum, which set all of creation in motion, in another is the fire which destroys it again. Many of the anthropomorphic Indian gods play instruments to symbolize the cosmic music.
I love music. And music as an analogy for the rhythm and harmony of life, nature, the Universe. There obviously is a rhythm to the movement of the cosmos. Our heart beats the primordial beat of life, right there in the center of our being. The music of the heart is always there. Ba-dum-ba-dum. The beat pulsating in perfect time to the rhythm of creation. The Funk. Just listen to it. Feel it.
If you want to play music you must listen and play along to the rhythm and harmony of the piece. If you insist on playing your own time signature, in your own scale it will not sound good. You’ll be out of time and play wrong notes. But if you are tuned in to the rhythm and harmony you will be funky! The same applies to dancing… and life. If we are not tuned in to the rhythm and harmony of how things really are, we will live in an illusion of how we wish things were, and be out of tune, out of rhythm. If we are tuned in on the other hand, life will be music. Music, that reflects all our experience, from bliss to blues. Different expressions of the cosmic symphony.
To be in tune we have to tune our instrument. Through meditation we can tune the instruments of our being and tune in to the cosmic vibration simultaneously. The mystics of India call this Nada Yoga, the yoga of sound. Listening to the un-struck sound. It can be used for healing and enlightenment. The Buddha recommended keeping your attention just like the string of a veena, not too tight and not too slack. Then it would have the right vibration to make sweet music.
Bhakti means devotion. It is the most powerful catalyst for personal development and enlightenment. The Bhaktas of are full of love and devotion for God / Life / the Universe, whatever you want to call it. They express this love and devotion through song and dance. Personally I wish to infuse whatever I do with that devotion. If I am playing the flute, singing, dj’ing or whatever, I wish it all to be an offering to the divine source of creation.
So when Jocelyn came up with the concept Bhakti Boogie® I loved it instantly. It’s Bhakti in a more contemporary, “funky” form. Meditating, dancing to funky beats, moving to THE inner rhythm. As the Grand Master of the Funk, George Clinton, said: “Free you mind and your ass will follow”. The other day I accidentally rephrased it “Free you ass, and your mind will follow”. It can work both ways!
MAY THE FUNK BE WITH YOU! ☺
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Dance your Truth ~ your inner rhythm connected to the divine pulse of the Universe! Join Dj Fyah Luv, Kevin James Carroll – Bhakti Yogi & World Musician, and I in Bali, Indonesia, March 10 – 16, 2012 for the Bhakti Boogie® ~ Dance Meditation Immersion at Michael Franti’s Soulshine Retreat Center. We will call on the Universal FUNk to assist us in liberating ourselves and others from TraumaDrama (those stories we tell ourselves about why we continue to suffer). Great airfare to Bali is still available. Register now to secure your space and dance Heaven on Earth!
