Kristen Finlayson

The word itself is difficult to define and belongs in a category with the words love, God, creativity, talent and charisma. All of which are subjective. Like the heightened emotions we might describe as loving feelings, spiritual experience can be completely different for each person, being thoroughly dependent as it is, on a person's culture, stage of life and state of mind.

This is not particularly surprising, since therapy and counseling tend to be concerned with the individual, while spiritual practices are concerned with higher matters. But it does lead the novices and beginners into a quandary where they are faced with the decision of what to do about personality. On the one hand, therapy could be an expensive, futile effort to better the personality, whereas, on the other hand, spiritual practice may offer an excuse to leave personal problems behind, with the justification that you are moving on to more lofty concerns.

"Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life. Although the spirit be not master of that which it creates through music, yet it is blessed in this creation, which, like every creation of art, is mightier than the artist."

A popular form of spiritual music is bhajans. Bhajans are simple devotional songs, which are sung many times to invoke a quality of God , The Supreme. Many spiritual teachers have noted the power of devotional music to help seekers spiritually. To sit in silent meditation may be difficult for many seekers, but to enter into the spirit of devotional music is to get the fruits of meditation in an easy and accessible way. For some aspirants devotional music alone is a way to reach the goal. The great Indian Saint Sri Chaitanya sung endlessly devotional bhajans to Sri Krishna. His infectious singing, inspired many in India to follow the path of Bhakti yoga. His bhajans to Krishna are still sung today.

In my view riding on the wheel Samsara is essential. Waking, sleeping, dreaming, doing and being all use energy and are perfect activities on which to focus the ever present primal anxiety. Relief comes by making and taking form, manifesting the material universe so that the impulse that began this particular cycle can become conscious of itself, through all of us. We have developed conscious minds so we can experience the difference between pain and pleasure, happiness and sadness, sleep and awakening. With our bodies and our minds we can experience 'being' rather than remaining anxious in an eternal state of potential, doing nothing. After all, how happy could Adam and Eve really have been in that garden? If you're that happy and have everything you want and need, you're not going to be tempted to do anything that would risk your happiness. Not unless there was always that twinge of anxiety, wondering if one bite of the forbidden fruit would lead to something better. Clearly, they were both waiting for something better.

Back to the impulse of the primal anxiety. How can we understand it? Well, in its most basic form, it is the desire to procreate. The sexual urge. In its most sublime expression, it is the desire to co-create the world. To pick up where the blind, random, groping hand of evolution and natural selection left off. Music, maths, painting, dance, scientific theories, theological propositions, poetry, sport, love, beauty, birds, bees, bubblegum trees, everything and anything is simply an expression of the primal anxiety.

Many who attended Woodstock of 1969 felt it was a unique occasion when so many people were attracted by the ideal of harmony and friendship that transcended any cultural or racial barrier. Oneness and harmony is an indispensable part of spirituality, music helps this to become a reality.