World Music Day 2021: Listening to music provides the effect of meditation; Bhajan singer Shivali weighs in

Music is love and freedom, it has existed from when the universe exhaled Aum and flourished in every being’s heart. Music has always been a way to commune with the higher and evoke feelings of emotion and healing with one another. Music has the power to influence your mood and unleash your emotions. It is also playful and soothing because a melody is similar to the natural flow of a stream. It doesn’t require any conscious study, thought or energy. It simply allows you to trace and follow it, and that creative movement frees you from the things that have us stuck and troubled. Even, neuroscience shows that listening to music provides the same effect of meditation. So, on this World Music Day 2021, Bhajan singer Shivali Bhammer talks about how music can give us the soothing meditating effects.

Relation between music and spirituality

Music lives loftily above an ego infused world. You will find someone in East Asia feeling the same way about a song as someone else on the other side of the world. Or you can go to a classical concert, and regardless of an individual’s background, they find themselves identifying with the music. This brings you closer to spirituality because it is breaking boundaries and barriers that we have formed within ourselves. And if the point of spirituality is to feel oneness, then music enables that.

How music can provide the effect of meditation?

It would be next to impossible to find someone who doesn’t enjoy music. Perhaps it is because of the way sound vibrates and when we listen to it, we tune in to that particular frequency which gives us a sense of connection and belonging. Music that particularly helps in healing are mantras. The rhythmic patterns can give you a boost of energy and are designed to open your chakras and still the mind. Even listening to mantras can also ease your stress and anxiety.  

Classical music can help you relax as you work and break the monotony of your daily job – especially if you sit in front of a laptop. There is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ type of music, it is a personal connection between you and sound. Sound is energy and that energy is transferred to you, therefore you decide how you wish to receive it. People can even change their preferences according to time and their mood- like bhajans and mantras in the morning, then music with more beats during workout, western classical music while working, Hindustani Classical Music while relaxing.

Whenever your mind is running in a hundred directions and you feel distracted, take a moment and listen to any kind of music. Breath slowly, close your eyes and allow yourself to let everything go. For all the things you don’t have the courage to say or release, so, the music will do it for you. Remember a song is temporary, so is this moment and our problems. So, let it seep out of you through the sound. And just like Krishna’s flute or Saraswati’s Veena; find your life in the beauty of a single beat, trace your story in the melody, and honour it with a gentle smile.

Also Read: World Music Day 2021: 4 Best breathing exercises for all amateur singers to improve singing