Tag Archives: meditation

Melancholia

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Vajragoni

Writing about Colin Wilson’s, The Outsider, recently reinforced for me a main pericope within its pages—that this “Outsider” is someone who sees “too deep and too much” into the nature of reality and as a result suffers from a lingering existential crisis. Wilson’s main protagonists are prominent figures in literature like the early Romantics, Blake, Keats and Wordsworth; also with philosophers like Nietzsche, and artists like the dancer Nijinsky and Van Goth the painter and visionaries like H.G. Wells. In his subsequent publication, Religion and the Rebel, Wilson says that these “Outsiders” are like “pimples appearing on the face of civilization” and that they are never prone to resigning themselves to the “insider” malaise of conventionality, or what the Zennist recently described as “consensus reality.” As a result, many of them succumbed to the depths of despair—some falling into madness like Nietzsche and Nijinsky, and some even committing suicide like Van Goth. What is it about the essential nature of these “Outsiders”, possessing great creative talent and keen insight into what really makes things tick, while at the same time feeling the eternal pangs of seeing “too deep and too much.” There was a term very much in vogue one time in creative circles that aptly describes this “Outsider” condition, and that is Melancholia. read more

Posted in Spirituality | Tagged , , , , , , | 6 Comments

A Healing Muse

Posted on January 3, 2012 by Vajragoni

When one thinks of “Healing Music”, the one piece that immediately comes to mind is Mike Rowland’s, The Fairy Ring—composed circa 1982. The story behind Mike’s inspiration for this composition revolves around a little walk he took one day in the forest and suddenly encountered an ethereal melody that seemed to appear out of nowhere…a gentle, humble melody that permeated his being. Arriving back in his home, Mike recorded the music to the best of his recollection; he then distributed copies of the recording to his friends and later sold them in local stores. Soon afterwards, The Fairy Ring became the best-selling New Age composition of all time; I mention “New Age” because that was the category it sold under for many years, but since those early years in the 1980’s The Fairy Ring defies any one classification—indeed, it encompasses many musical genres—including meditation and classical. I believe that Mike Rowland was inspired that day in the forest by a Sacred Healing Muse, because although delightfully meditational in spirit, the music has been a source of healing for thousands of people over the years. I’ll always remember The Fairy Ring with a special fondness as I once loaned it to a married middle-aged couple I was counseling back in late 1988; they had just experienced a miscarriage and were completely devastated. Mike’s music offered them much needed solace and they were soon comforted by those magical, soothing and healing notes. The Fairy Ring is not a high-tech polished creation—in fact the strings appear at times to overwhelm Mike’s piano—I deduce that he used an early Kurzweil Synthesizer; but it doesn’t matter—the elegant simplicity of the melody seems to gently reach out and give you a loving, healing embrace. Truly this shows that the pure-stuff of Spirit doesn’t have to be a neatly packaged Madison Ave production. Personally, I never tire of The Fairy Ring—playing it over and over again induces an aura of healing, peace and wholeness. read more

Posted in Spirituality | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Healing Balm

Posted on December 19, 2011 by Vajragoni

In the spring-summer of 2010 I went through an agonizing recovery period resulting from an emergency surgery on my spine. A dermatologist had negligently prescribed a horrible drug called CycloSporine to treat my acute psoriasis-eczema; after two months of taking this medication and experiencing severe pain in my upper back and shoulder, the drug had actually eaten a hole through my C6-C7 vertebrae. Needless to say, I was immobilized for some time after the surgery and endured severe pain that could not be dissipated through the use of pain drugs; nothing helped to ease the incredible throbbing that incessantly shot through my upper torso—not medication, not prayer, not meditation. Amazingly, it was the “Dance of the Siddhars”, music and video by Turiya Nada that helped to subside the agony for substantial amounts of time. I would sway back and forth in my chair as this enticing yoga of the siddhars seemed to transport me beyond the ever-present pain into a timeless realm—indeed, into the deathless dimension of the Unborn Itself. That experience left an indelible mark that revealed the marvelous and diverse ways that the Unborn Spirit comes and reveals Itself in our times of desperate need. read more

Posted in Spirituality | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments