Music : Lord of the Dance

God Himself is Nataraja, " Lord of the Dance ", His spinning motions are the orbits of subatomic particles and the rotation of the galaxies.

Watching a skilled sacred dancer from India is an amazing experience. Dancers assume a variety of stylized poses suggestive of different Hindu heroes and deities. Krishna playing his flute. Radha putting on her makeup. Rama carrying his bow. Some dancers are so adept that the audience has the uncanny sensation they're actually seeing the deity itself.

Music is a sacred art in India, and the signing of bhajans or hymns is a big part of Hindu spirituality. The Hindus, like most Europeans and Americans, compose melodies using seven musical notes. Our do-re-mi-la-ti-do is their sa-re-ga-ma-pa-dha- ni sa. But while Western music has only two modes to choose from, the major and the minor scales, Hindu music uses dozens of different modes. This is why Hindu music often sounds so exotic and complex to the Western ear.

Hindus use different ragas or musical styles to create different physiological and spiritual effects. One style is invigorating another soothing, still another is healing. The power of music and dance to transport both the artists and the audience into higher states of consciousness is fully acknowledged in the Hindu tradition. Musician meditation. follow the source of a note back to its source in the original composer, the Goddess herself.

In the West, science, the arts, and religion have become three completely separate domains. In Hindu culture, however, spirituality permeates every department of life. Each activity, from building a house to playing a musical instrument to diagnosing an illness, reflects and sacred and fundamentally interconnected  character of all life. Everything in nature is inherently meaningful because it's all the expression of the divine Word. When we live in harmony with this inner truth, our outer lives also gain meaning and spiritual purpose.