Okay John, what's this "nada" all about? Nada yoga is, most simply, a yoga of sound. Some of the commoner types of sound yoga utilize mantra- speech and language- as the focus of meditation. This is an attempt to create a populist and easily accessible yoga. Everyone has their speech, their language, that perpetual voice below the surface of their consciousness that can be equated to the very process of thought itself. Language is a tool that is almost universally available and reasonably can be used in the service of a yoga. Though paradoxically, the ego-diminishing that is part of the desired outcome of a yoga requires a diminution of our self as a language-dominated separate identity, an island, an "I."

The thesis put forward by the information contained on the Audio Mandala page is that another viable alternative sound yoga exists. In fact one that is almost as universal as a language/mantra based one- that of a yoga based on non-speech sound, specifically music. A yoga built on musicianship rather than mantras.

Understanding music in the broader context of nada yoga and with only a slight reorientation of his view point, the modern musician will realize that he has been engaged in a yoga all along. This recontextualization almost inevitably leads him to hone and embellish his pallet of musical skills in the service of a more deliberate healing and spiritual-growth function. He will see his music-making in a new light when, given some understanding of the historical forms nada yoga has taken, he realizes the yogic and/or tantric utility inherent in his instrumental skills. Every time he picks up his instrument a new world of expansion and transformation will be available to him.

A quick search of the internet or a library on 'nada yoga' will reveal an astonishing depth of information on the general topic of sound yoga that will draw any musician ripe for this kind of advancement down a long and fruitful new path. Through instrumental music performance, any musician already has a head-start on invoking an energetic and meditative stability that is not clouded by the egoistic, linguistic and conceptual clutter that overbears in the average mind/brain. To assist this launching, I'd offer the following links to some informative web-pages:

"http://www.russillpaul.com/articles/article/1162814/10604.htm"

"http://www.yogameditation.com/articles/issues_of_bindu/bindu_10/nada_yoga"

"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meditation_music"

c. 2007 John Chisholm