In part 2 of this series covering how to work with the power of intent in sound therapy, I outlined some of the key concepts that Jonathan Goldman illustrates.
To remind you, in his book, “The 7 Secrets of Sound Healing” he states that: “Intent is the energy behind the sound. It’s the consciousness we have when making the sound, which is then encoded upon it, travels on it, and ultimately is received by the person listening to it”.
MESARU EMOTO – MESSAGES FROM WATER
Mesaru Emoto PhD has perhaps produced the most vivid record demonstrating the power of intent. Since the mid-1990s he has conducted over 10,000 experiments with water and produced a number of books around the theme “Messages From Water”.
Emoto’s water crystal experiments consist of exposing water in glasses to different words, pictures, or music, and then freezing and examining the aesthetics of the resulting crystals with microscopic photography. Emoto claims that human consciousness can have an effect on the molecular structure of water.
This has massive health implications as our physical human bodies are composed of 60 – 70% water, and water is needed for most body functions, including to:
- maintain the health and integrity of every cell in the body
- keep the bloodstream liquid enough to flow through blood vessels
- help eliminate the byproducts of the body’s metabolism, excess electrolytes (for example, sodium and potassium), and urea, which is a waste product formed through the processing of dietary protein
- regulate body temperature through sweating
- moisten mucous membranes such as those of the lungs and mouth
- lubricate and cushion joints
- aid digestion and prevent constipation
- moisturise the skin to maintain its texture and appearance
- carry nutrients and oxygen to cells
- serve as a shock absorber inside the eyes, spinal cord and in the amniotic sac surrounding the fetus in pregnancy.
Emoto’s experiment conducted with polluted water taken from Fujiwara Dam in Japan is an astonishing study of the effect of intent and frequency. Photographs of frozen water crystals were taken before and after a Buddhist monk chanted and prayed for 1 hour.
Mesaru Emoto talking at the the World Congress of Quantum Medicine (notice the tuning forks)
This is how Emoto described what happened in a talk he gave to the World Congress of Quantum Medicine in Spring 2013:
Referring to the slides he showed during this talk, Emoto said….“And this is experiment at the Fujiwara Dam using the Kotodama spirit of word. Buddhist Monk. So he made a prayer of Japanese Shinto to that water of Fujiwara Dam. And I would say surprised after the experiment, even the quality of the water looked improved the cleaner. It is a crystal. Before the prayer it looked awful, frightening. It was like a ghost or something. Its eye, nose, mouth, and chin, ears, and hair. Can you imagine? So after one hour of the prayer, this is it. The change. It’s so beautiful. It’s unimaginable. How is this possible?”
Water from Fijiwara Dam, before offering a prayer and chanting
Water from Fijuwara dam after offering a prayer and chanting
Emoto called this an experiment of purifying water using Kotodama, which translates as “Word Spirit”. It is a discipline that originates within the Shinto religion and involves (amongst other practices) the intoning of sacred sounds, both syllables and individual vowel-sounds. A basic tenet of Kotodama is that sounds have an intrinsic value capable of affecting physical reality.
The photos in this experiment clearly show a significant change in the structure of the water crystals. How was this possible? It seems that through prayer, a clear intent for the water to be purified was set at the outset. The Buddhist monk, who in fact was the Reverend Kato Hoki, the chief priest of Jyuhouin temple, Omiya City, then created specific frequencies, by chanting the Kotodama sounds and remained in prayer for an extended period of time (1 hour).
As Jonathan Goldman says: “If a chanting priest can change the mudlike vibrations of a polluted water into the snowflake-like vibrations of clean water, we really should begin to realize the power of sound and consciousness to heal not only our physical body, but also the planet.” The Divine Name, 2010
In order for this to be useful to us as sound therapists, we need to unpack this experiment with purifying water more fully.
It might be helpful to learn more about these Kotodama sounds, to practice intoning them and to incorporate them into our sound therapy work.
A useful source of information for this is the chapter on Kotodama in the book ‘The Tao of Sound’ by Fabien Maman.
However this series of Sound Reflections is more concerned with the intent part of the sound healing formula (Frequency + Intent = Healing), so I’d like to focus here on the prayer dimension in this experiment.
What exactly do we mean by prayer and how is this relevant to sound therapy?
GREGG BRADEN: HEART-FELT FEELINGS OF COMPASSION
In ‘The Divine Matrix’, 2010, Gregg Braden recounts a couple of trips he made to Tibet in an effort to understand the key dimensions of prayer more fully. He visited numerous Buddhist monasteries, observing and participating in some of the practices
To an Abbot of one monastery he asked the question: “When we watch you intone and chant for 14 or 16 hours a day, when we see the bells, bowls, gongs, chimes, mudras and mantras on the outside, what’s going on in the inside?”
The answer he received was: “What you’ve seen is what we do to create the feeling in our bodies. Feeling is the prayer”
In other words prayer is not necessarily a verbal or visual construction, as we tend to think of it In the West. Commonly for us, prayer involves making a request for a specific outcome (perhaps healing) to God, or Source, however we may define it.
In Tibet however, feeling is the prayer. That’s very different. Prayer is a heart-felt phenomenon. And not just any feeling will do. In another monastery, Braden was told that the feeling being activated by all that toning and chanting and other sounds and practices is the feeling of compassion.
He was told that compassion is what connects all things. Compassion is both a force in the universe as well as a human experience.
And in order to achieve compassion, we must approach a circumstance without a strong expectation of the rightness or wrongness of a situation and its outcome.
Braden says: “The great secret to bringing the focus of our imagination, beliefs, healing and peace into present reality is that we must do so without a strong attachment to the outcome of our choice”.
PARADOX
There’s a paradox here.
We know from Emoto’s work and from many other sources, that we can change things; that healing can and does happen and that our consciousness, our intent, is a powerful force for change.
Yet if we strongly desire a specific outcome of healing, and hold onto that desire, the efforts we make to create it through sound may actually reinforced the reality that the disease, illness or pain is present.
A strong attachment to making the healing happen, entails a belief that a miraculous recovery is necessary. If the healing still needs to occur, the implication is that it hasn’t taken place yet…if it had we wouldn’t be asking for it our intention and prayers
No matter how well intentioned, it doesn’t matter how much we meditate, chant mantras, OM, make other sounds and pray for the recovery if the underlying message, the intention is ‘please let this healing happen’ – it’s not likely that it will.
As Braden says: “We must first have the feeling of healing and the answers to our prayers of well-being in our hearts as if they have already happened before they become the reality of our lives.”
So now we have uncovered more clues to how to work effectively with intention in our sound therapy practice.
LYNNE MCTAGGART – THE INTENTION EXPERIMENT
In my next post I’ll refer to the findings of Lynne McTaggart in her book ‘The Intention Experiment’. This will help to clarify the key factors that we need to get in place for ourselves and in our practice.
As this series of reflections develops I’ll also be adding in my own research, experiences, thoughts and feelings, so you’ll get more of my take on all this too.
Until the next time,
Tony
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