Author: alexander.mcd@gmail.com

Once Upon a Time

Once long ago I dreamed of playing music. Music was the only thing that made my heart sing. I played everything – recorder, guitar, flute, I even played the bagpipes – and yet throughout that time if there is any other interest that stuck with me it was the spiritual.

I seemed weird and out of place

I did not see myself as being particularly talented in the spiritual world, but in some way I was always interested – meditation, magical rituals, yoga, tarot cards etc. The only thing I remember as a particular ability was the ability to drop into nothingness – to stop thinking, to not really be present or conscious of the world around me. I never saw that as particularly special, but looking back on it I begin to see that perhaps it was not so common. At the time I certainly seemed weird and out of place and somewhat overly righteous for my own good – perhaps a little self-righteous as well.

Throughout these years my interest in music never waned. It shifted from instrument to instrument and a little from style to style, but it was always there as an undercurrent when it was not the main focus of my life.

There was always the assumption that music is an impractical career direction

I never really seriously considered music as a career though. There was always the assumption that music is an impractical career direction and one should do something more practical with life. I started studying engineering, and ended up stopping – because I realised that engineers don\’t have time to play music – you see it was always there, even if I didn\’t believe in that direction and didn\’t seriously follow it.

I had a sudden experience of divine love and the existence of God, but I did not find it so wonderful.

In my late teens I began to seriously explore yoga and meditation. These weren\’t new to me, but I took a more disciplined approach with daily practice and started attending retreats and celebrations (which incidentally had a lot of music in them). After some time I had a sudden experience – a realisation of divine love and the existence of God. This is something that I had seen others talking about and thought must be a wonderful thing, but I did not find it so wonderful. Yes it was ecstatic and passionate, but no it was not calm or peaceful or truly happy. I always felt like I desired more – that my spiritual yearning was never satisfied.

There was something beyond Love

It took 10 years of searching, of muddling around with different spiritual techniques and ideas before I managed to resolve this emotional mess that my spiritual experiences had made of me. Eventually through my own contemplation I realised that there was something beyond passionate love (a radical concept for me at the time, though looking back on it I think it should have been obvious). I realised the experience of Oneness, connection to all things that created in me a sense of contented joy and peace. Since then I have felt like I am on the right track in my spiritual life, and can focus a little on other areas of life. It didn\’t solve all of my problems, but this experience of Oneness does continue to give an underlying Joy to all of my life since.

This experience made me want to be a spiritual teacher. I wanted to help others with their spiritual journeys in the way that I had never had anyone able to help me, so I spent the next 10 years searching for an understanding of how to help others with their spiritual journeys – obviously it is not just a matter of telling people to do what I did, to do things the way I do – that would be a bit stupid. It needs to be giving people what they need – the answer to the particular problem that they are facing.

I\’m not sure my temperament suits being a Guru.

I still want to be a spiritual teacher on some level, and I still think I have something unique to give in the realm of spiritual guidance, but I have come to feel that something about my personality doesn\’t lend itself to being a Guru. I am passionate, emotional, imperfect in so many ways. I do not have that perfect calm peaceful demeanour that we have come to expect of our spiritual masters, and I don\’t think I ever will.

And so I came back to music. Music has always been there for me, and perhaps it provides for an even deeper way of communicating spiritual truths. We can talk about them, and meditate on them, but when we can communicate them directly through art and music perhaps that can touch people in a gentler, easier to comprehend way, and give them an experience that would otherwise be hard to find. And besides music is much better suited to my temperament. Musicians are allowed to be passionate, emotional, imperfect. They are not expected perfection, only the ability to take people on a journey to some part of themselves that they would like to experience.

Musicians are allowed to be imperfect

And so here I am bringing the two worlds together – my two life passions of the music and the spiritual in an attempt to create music that uplifts and teaches spiritual truths. It seems like the right thing for me to be doing, but I am scared – partly it is a fear that can be positive – a kind of excitement like performing on stage – a pressure that can drive a good musician to perform better and put more of their passion into the show. But the other half is a genuine fear that I am not good enough to succeed, that I have no understanding of how to be a successful, popular musician (as I will need to be if I am to touch the world and to make a difference to the spiritual lives of people), but I am ready to try. Here I am stepping up to the world stage in an attempt to bring inspiration and the experience of Oneness to all.

Plagues – biblical and modern

As I write this the plague of Covid-19 is currently spreading across the world, and it was pointed out to me that it is not an isolated plague, but rather simply the latest in a series that have struck us this year.  First there were the fire storms that struck all over the world, and then the fires were followed in some places by floods, and now this.  When will it end you may ask, and I think the answer is – when we learn the lesson and make the necessary change.  This whole situation is deeply reminiscent of the stories of the Hebrews in Egypt – and the series of plagues that struck.

I wonder what it was that the Egyptians were doing that was so damaging to their environment and ecosystem that it could bring such catastrophes.  The only hint of a reason we are given is that they would not set the Hebrews free.  This is not much to go on, but you find that the pattern is repeated throughout society – so if there is a lack of freedom in one place, there will be a lack of freedom everywhere.  If the society is oppressing one people, and forcing them to act against their inner natures then they are likely forcing the animals to work too hard, stressing themselves, trying to produce more from the land than it can really stand.  Clearly this forceful behaviour resulted in forcing the ecosystem into an unnatural state – which unbalance resulted in the plagues.  I am not much of a historian, and I do not know the history of the downfall of the great Ancient Egyptian civilisation, but perhaps someone else better qualified can say whether I am correct and environmental degradation and unsustainable farming practices had a part to play.

None of this is to say that it was not miraculous.  It is widely agreed that miracles are not things that happen outside the laws of nature, but rather natural phenomenon that by their timing guide us in the right path.  The Hebrew word for miracle \”nes\” means a sign, and they are signs that show us the way.  When we follow the signs we can keep on track.  We can find a blessed path through life, but if we ignore the signs we will only end up in more conflict with the nature of things.  In the story of Egypt people did not listen to the signs, and so step by step the plagues got worse, and the unfortunate suffering that they went through – we imagine must have been avoidable if they had only listened.

So today what are the signs telling us, and are we going to learn the lesson quickly? or are we going to wait and weather the storm of greater plagues that may be on the way?

Obviously there is an environmental element to much of what is going on.  We do need to relate to the Earth in a more caring, gentle way, and even the virus Covid-19 likely would never have touched human beings without the invasive interference of humans in natural ecosystems, and the fires and floods are even more clearly related to the unsustainable practices.

There is also an economic element – if we were not so globally inter-dependent, if we could maintain some kind of local self-reliance then this virus would not hit so hard – people could simply retreat to their small farms and villages and allow the crisis to pass.  In fact as I am staying currently in rural Portugal – an area that still produces much of its own needs – we see exactly that – no hysteria, people peacefully going back to their gardens, and having a reasonably pleasant time.

The economic element relates also to the community element.  This virus seems to both isolate people from community, and at the same time to strengthen community spirit.  Again if we had strong small communities this would hit us much less severely, it could be so easy to isolate ourselves as a small community rather than as lonely individuals, so there is the impetus to return to a more village based way of life.

But what is perhaps less obvious, but equally or even more important is the spiritual element.  Of course the isolation that we are experiencing draws us away from our religious communities, but gives us more reason and time to explore our own personal spirituality.  I am certain that people will be doing a lot more meditation and prayer and yoga in this time than they would in their ordinary lives.  This can be a good thing, but I would like to look at another aspect.  Many religious teachers say that when things go wrong in the world it means there is a lack of piety – a lack of spiritual depth – not only that spirituality can help us respond well to the crisis, but also that the lack of true spirituality directly causes the crisis.  I tend to agree with this outlook, and I think it works in several ways.  Firstly there is the direct impact of the quality of spiritual energies that are created.  The flourishing of the spiritual healing field in recent years has seen much demonstration of how high quality energies have healing effect, and in contrast how low quality energies can actually lead to disease and malfunction and this is true not just in the bodies of individuals, but also in communities, societies, and ecosystems.  Prayer circles, rain dances, kiirtan sessions etc seem to have some effectiveness in warding off disasters, and I would suggest that if they were done in more refined ways they might have even more effectiveness.

The less direct, but perhaps more obvious way in which spirituality influences these plagues and natural disasters is by the relative fullness or lack in our hearts – the sense of spiritual satisfaction and openness that can be achieved leads to the instinct to support and connect and work in harmony with those around you.  When this feeling is not satisfaction, but rather a lack or emptiness then it leads to greed, competition and the other mental ills that have led to our materialist, capitalist society being so damaging to the environment.  The religious teachers often suggest therefor that we should be doing more religious practices – doing more meditation, following more commandments, trying harder to be good people – but here is where I disagree.  I do not think it is so much the quantity of spiritual practice that is important, but rather the  quality.  Of course to some extent quantity does matter.  For example in someone who does very little of a spiritual nature, and lives a very materialistic lifestyle – then any little extra of meditation or prayer or whatever they choose to do will make a difference in their lives, but for those who are already engaged in spiritual practice the big changes in their lives depend not on how much they practice, but on how they practice.  I think that in order to resolve the crisis we are under at the moment the call is for us to both practically and spiritually to come into harmony with the environment, each other, the cosmos, and the divine.

This means we need to go beyond following commandments, righteousness, and even love of God – all of which although good things still have in them a sense of separation.  We need to move towards ways of practice that create the sense of unity, harmony and peace that enables us to live in harmony with all.  This kind of connection to ourselves, the divine, and the world around us has several benefits – the first is the peaceful satisfaction that allows us to enjoy and be in harmony with nature and the world around us, and secondly paradoxically it engages us through that connection into service – into doing what we can for this world around us.  In this way with the combined impetus to peace and harmony and to service and action leads to gentle wise action that improves rather than damages the environment and community around us.  Of course there is the third element – the way someone who embodies this kind of connection radiates a loving peaceful feeling around them.  This is what Saint Francis did to gather the wild animals around him as his friends, and it is this peaceful radiance that allows the living masters to gain the respect of both sides of serious armed conflicts and seemingly effortlessly mediate solutions.   If we as spiritualists and spiritual communities can together embody and radiate such peaceful, harmonious connectedness then we will be unstoppable in creating a beautiful, harmonious way of living that will be immune to such plagues as we are seeing today, and by its harmony will in fact attract the blessings rather than the curses of the natural and divine worlds.

Words of Power or \”Don\’t Translate Your Prayers\”

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Prayers, Ritual words, Mantras, Chants, Sacred books – the words that you use in spiritual practice and religion are not just prose – they are not just simple statements of fact that we can understand with our rational brain.  They operate on at least three separate levels simultaneously, and in the combination of those three levels they do not just tell us something, or say something.  They Do something – they change our state of consciousness.  In the best case when well written they elevate us to the state of joyous connection with the divine and with all things, and people will report unexplainable happiness and inspired wisdom following the use of these words, but if they are not written with such inspiration that could put us in any other state of consciousness – they could create depression or loneliness, or a sense of passionate love and desperation, or even the sense that God doesn\’t exist and there is no point to religion and spirituality.

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In most cases this is not too much of a problem because ritual words are either written by spiritually elevated teachers who know what they are doing, or they are evolved slowly by the community, and the community will naturally choose the best and discard the worst and by process of natural selection create the best possible expression to suit their needs.  (That second community based process can be rather slow and go through some less inspiring forms before it finds its inspiring form, and sometimes i think it is worth hurrying it along a little)

But where it does go wrong is when you translate those words of power into another language.

Let\’s just take a little aside to understand how these ritual words work, and how they affect us so strongly.  As I said above they work on three levels simultaneously.  The first level is the meaning – what do the words say?  They need to express something that is uplifting if they are going to be uplifting – they need to express something that is inline with their purpose – You cannot build inspiring texts from words of insult or other coarse language, and in the same way you cannot build inspiring texts from any language that is not inspiring in some way or other.  This meaning level of the text is the most commonly understood, but perhaps surprisingly to some it is the weakest in terms of its effect on our consciousness – hence the common use of archaic language that we don\’t understand in our spiritual services – it doesn\’t matter too much what the exact words are as long as the general spirit is good.

The second level that words affect us is their poetry – the sounds and rhythms and ways that the words are put together.  Do they have a rhythm that is pleasing to the ear?  are their rhymes and recognised forms?  Does the sound that we hear, and the feeling on our tongue when we speak them create an experience that is inline with the inspiration and upliftment that we are looking for from them?  The sounds of the poems affect our consciousness in a stronger way than the meanings, but they can only have their desired effect if the meaning is also appropriate.

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The third and by far the strongest level is also the most esoteric (of course) – it is the energy that is conveyed through those words.  This energy is something that can be built up over time through use of the words – for example if people around the world are using the words in sacred, beautiful ways then those words take on an energy of sacred beauty, and share that with us every time we use them.   Texts can also be energised consciously – empowered by putting yourself in a particular state of consciousness as you use them and thus sharing that consciousness with them.  So the texts become a medium of direct communication of a state of consciousness from the people who have already experienced it and energised those words with it to those who have not experienced it, or need a boost. A well developed spiritual teacher with sufficient mystical experience should be able to consciously create and empower words to have particular effects and to create particular states of consciousness.  Incidentally this can be done through other media as well – body postures, yoga postures, musical compositions, symbols etc.  In some cases the power of the sounds are backed up with other elements that go along with them – eg in the Hebrew and Arabic texts the letters themselves also have a similar powerful effect on the consciousness as well as the sounds.

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This energy that is carried through the words is by far more powerful in its effect on our consciousness than either the poetic sounds, or the meanings, but it depends on both of them.  Without the appropriate meanings and sounds the energy does not stick (not that the words will have no energy, but that they may be appropriate for a different kind of energy – a different state of consciousness)

What does this mean for translations?  It means that we translate the meaning – and this we manage reasonably well – though even here it can be difficult and we lose a lot of subtlety, the poetry is almost always completely lost, though some put some effort into recreating some kind of poetry.  But the energy – the empowerment of those words is completely lost – even in the best translation the same energy does not translate with the words, and so we create words without power.  If the words were truly without power this would not be too bad – we would have created a ritual that does nothing – and then at least we would be doing no harm, but words always communicate energies and states of consciousness – on some level everything always holds an energy and words are no different.  Therefore what we have created is not something that has no power, but rather something that has a random power that we do not understand.  And while if we are very lucky this might be an uplifting power – most often it is not – it creates an experience that is detrimental, or confusing to us.

Let me give you an example – until a few hundred years ago the Catholic Church had all its bibles in Latin, and held its services in Latin – and then they started to translate everything into different languages including English.  Now the old Latin services were very uplifting – as attested to by the love that we still hold for the Gregorian Chant of those days.

[Here\’s a latin christmas carol many of you may be familiar with – but listen to the subtle difference in feel and effect]

Now some very well meaning people decided that we should celebrate in language we can understand and so we created the English Liturgy.  What they didn\’t realise they had done is created words of power that have a sense of boredom in them – a sort of tiredness – so church became depressing – people kept going because they believed in it, but slowly that belief was leached away by the lack of inspiration and upliftment experienced in the service, and this fueled the move away from the church and to modern materialist rationality.

[The same hymn sung in English – see if you can feel the difference in effect]

We can never know what would have happened if the church had kept words of power that were inspiring and an inspiring service, but i would be sure that many more people would be attending church today if that were the case.

So don\’t translate your prayers, ritual words, mantras, chants etc – leave them in their original sacred form.  Or if you really do feel the need to translate make sure you have a genuine mystic or spiritual teacher who can help you to make sure that your translation is also formed and empowered such a way that it has a positive influence on your consciousness, and on the consciousness of others who attend your services.

P.S.  And if you are not sure you believe me try it out – find a ritual prayer or chant from your tradition and its translation – and meditate with it – start by rating your happiness level on a scale of 1 – 10 then chant it 10 or 20 times or even more until you feel its effect – now rerate your happiness level, and do the same for the translation.  If I am right (and I am pretty sure I am) you will find the happiness level much lower after reciting the translation.