Carnatic Music and Healing

sumram99 · Post by **sumram99** » 23 Mar 2006, 20:25

Are there any specific ragas that one could listen to relieve diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure etc?

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 23 Mar 2006, 22:34

Though CM does not act at cellular levels, it does help in the reduction of stress and induces relaxation. Hence CM (music therapy) is a valid approach in a number of stress related disorders like high blood pressure, psychiatric disordrers, spastic functional disorders etc., What works will depend on the individual tastes and dispositions. First one has to be motivated to develop an interest and understnading of CM! We can discuss case histories here as we had done earlier if our Rasikas so wish!

sumram99 · Post by **sumram99** » 24 Mar 2006, 08:54

Thank you, cmlover. I have heard about different workshops on music and stress relief. If I remember correctly, Pandit Shashank Katti has produced some tapes with regard to this. Can you please discuss some case histories that you mentioned or you can also let me know where this has been discussed already.

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 24 Mar 2006, 09:04

Let me share something I read a while back, which I have found to be very useful to keep in the forefront my consciousness on many occasions... there is some sort of relationship to this thread.

-----
One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a debate that goes on inside people. He said, "My son, the battle is between 2 "wolves" inside us all.

One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy,sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: "Which wolf wins?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."
---------

We all know which wolf CM feeds

coolkarni · Post by **coolkarni** » 24 Mar 2006, 09:49

a nice article

http://www.narthaki.com/artindex.html

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 24 Mar 2006, 11:18

vk
Is that the reason we have

anger, envy, jealousy,sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 24 Mar 2006, 13:34

CML, first I thought you meant CM feeds those, but then I know you would not say that even in humor...then I realized you are indeed referring to the rather simple but profound message there. Yes, indeed. It is rather a simple technique to get out of a rut by completely floodding oneself with the opposite and man what a difference that makes!!

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 24 Mar 2006, 21:52

vk

I meant it partly for a joke and partly to provoke cerebration. If CM promotes the 'good' nature we should not be finding the enumerated qualities among the performers but unfortunately we do! What is needed is a commitment to CM than using it as an instrument to mint money! The same God who blesses also gave the boons to the 'asuras' who were bent on destroying the earth! Our forefathers devised and used CM to promote humanity whereas it is just a commodity today at the market place at times used for cheap entertainment. Of course it will not 'heal' since the essential ingredient (spirit) is missing!

srinidhi · Post by **srinidhi** » 25 Mar 2006, 00:14

Aananda Bahiravi for BP/stress .

Believe me, it works. Not lively kritis like Marive re gathi, but a slow sedate O Jagadamba, preferably preceded by a long alapana. To be precise, TM krishna's rendition in his album AnanadaBhairavi. By the time he comes to the lines" kanci kamakshi ninne....sharanu sharanu" in the last charanam (he neravals there), heart beat does come to normal. Of course it helps if you can understand the words and get in to the mood of the song. In fact, I have found out that rather than ragas per se, certain kritis (lyrics included) seem to offer the relief required. For instance, I have found that even Hechcharika (if well rendered does have a calming effect. (KVN's rendition for e.g)

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 25 Mar 2006, 00:28

Here is the flip side

i am told that this ragam can cause headaches and migraine patients have to watch out for this ragam. how true is this???

(from the kannaDabangALA thread
http://rasikas.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=8006#8006)

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 25 Mar 2006, 00:31

CML, you are on the devil's advocate mood, aren't you? Or just cynical about the goodness that CM can create?

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 25 Mar 2006, 00:37

What is needed is a commitment to CM than using it as an instrument to mint money!

Given the outright poverty that exists among 90% of CM musicians ( past and present ), I would say this is really not the overriding thing. Even if it exists, I say what is wrong with that as long as they can do both. Doctors can make money and at the same time work dedicatedly for the welfare of the patient ( which is their craft ), why can't musicians do the same (make money and still be dedicated to their craft)? When the vast majority of CM musicians are just barely managing to survive, we seem to indict them for wanting to make money like everyone else.

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 25 Mar 2006, 01:00

VK

You are quite right! The fault is with the society too! While one would gladly plunk down cash once healed by a 'Doctor' he would hesitate parting with even a penny having heard and stress-relived by a paashuram! Olden days the performers were fostered by the monarchs and today are left to fend for themselves. A vast majority of them are not greedy but surprisingly the ones who get appreciated are the ones who fall-out which is surprising since CM is supposed to come from the heart!

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 25 Mar 2006, 01:03

vk

doesn't every coin have two sides! We need to balance both sides as your chrokee wiseman says

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 25 Mar 2006, 01:17

vk
doesn't every coin have two sides! We need to balance both sides as your chrokee wiseman says

Absolutely. So, agreed in general. The wiseman, however, might not quite want his grandson to balance the good and bad perfectly but possibly skew however so slightly to the good set.

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 25 Mar 2006, 01:46

Yes indeed vk!
We are all a mixture of satva, rajO, tamO guNaas. The moment we become totally saatvik then we have no business on planet earth. Again CM feeds on all three guNaas. There are ragas that primarily induce lust (shringara) and again those which induce serenity. During grahastaashrama we do need shringara as otherwise human race will be extinct! Finally at the fourth ashrama (sanyasa) we need to contemplate only on liberation. There is a design when at the last moment MD asked his sishyas to sing 'Meenakshi mE mudam dEhi' in gamakakriya which inspite of the sahityam itself is a highly elevating raga. In spite of a myriad of kritis in different ragas he chose it! The paasha mOcani had to be entreated in a particular raga and as an upaasaka he knew the secret! Sometimes we fail to look deeper into the actions of our ancients!

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 25 Mar 2006, 04:36

Here is an orthogonal thought to all this.

Consider this:

(This may sound like some high philosophy but it is actually not. )

The natural order of things is disorder. Why? Because it is a question of probability. If there are million things to arrange things in an disorderly fashion and only a few ways to arrange something in an orderly fashion, more often than not, things are going to be in a disorderly configuration or tend towards that.

Having established that, it is a corollary that the equilibrium state is one of perfect disorder. Equilibrium is usually thought of in a benign way or considered a good thing or an orderly thing but it is actually not. It is the opposite.

To move things from disorder to order you need something external ( usually so.... there are some self organizing things in chemistry....)

For our internal stuff, which also satisfies the above universal principles, CM (or any good music ) acts as that external agent to reverse the natural tendency towards disorder and chaos... So intermittent or a steady dose of this external CM agent is helpful to pull all that back from getting to that natural disorderly state.

Sorry if it sounds bleak LOL but hope you see where I am going with this.

mohan · Post by **mohan** » 10 Apr 2006, 17:21

Music therapy is a legitimate profession in the West. See for example

http://www.musictherapy.org/

or

http://www.austmta.org.au/

I know, here in Australia there one can attend a University and get a degree in Music Therapy.

There are a few people in India who have done research into this field but I don't know the details. See for example http://www.indianmusictherapy.org/therapy_CDs.html

10yearslate · Post by **10yearslate** » 21 Apr 2008, 09:40

Sri Ganapathi Sacchidananda Swami of the Datta Peetham in Mysore advocates music therapy. Has quite a following as well.

I met an MD (Dr. Phanishree) connected with His hospital in Mysooru who is running a number of controlled and random experiments on patients who undergo music therapy as a complement to allopathic medication.

http://www.dattapeetham.com/

He still has no empirical link on how music arrests/improves degenerating cells in say a cancer patient, but has plenty of anecdotal evidence about patients recovering out of sight.

As the good Dr. Phanishree said, music has no bad side-effects!

VK RAMAN · Post by **VK RAMAN** » 21 Apr 2008, 19:33

Let us visit Howrah or Victoria Central railway stations in India and see how disorder finds order in its own way although people are running hither and tither to catch trains with blairing announcement of platform change for arrival and departure of trains; everybody reaches home; but for an outsider like us it is mind boggling.

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 02 Jun 2008, 06:41

An event related to music and health.

http://www.worldsciencefestival.com/200 ... -the-brain

".....As part of the 200th anniversary celebration of The Abyssinian Baptist Church in the City of New York, where Calvin O. Butts, III is pastor, the Abyssinian Baptist Church choir will join neurologist/author Oliver Sacks in an exploration of the power of music to inspire and uplift, and as an effective tool in the therapeutic process. Blending neuroscience with the choir's vibrant and extensive repertoire, along with reflections on the role of African-American sacred music's significant historical expressions, this program provides a stimulating context for Sacks' true-life accounts of patients whose lives were altered by the empowerment of music....."

Neurologist Oliver Sacks has spent a lifetime exploring a vast array of human experience â€“ from Tourette's syndrome and autism to phantom limb syndrome and schizophrenia. His many best-selling books include Uncle Tungsten, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, and Awakenings, which became an acclaimed film. Sacks is a professor of clinical neurology and clinical psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center. His writings appear regularly in The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books.

Here is a news story about the above event: "Neurologist, choir explore music's healing power" http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080601/ap_ ... ZkEsoE1vAI

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 02 Jun 2008, 08:01

VK,
Thanks.Such interesting information about the book by the eminent doctor on the healing power of music.
Like Dr. Satish Kumar's experiments with the healing power of CM, his playing Anandabhairavi for his surgical patients (among other rAgAs too, I guess) for its therapeutic quality.
While scientists and health care specialists impress us with such findings, even as ordinary humans, we do know of the value of good music which enhances our thinking and elevates us to a higher plane, bringing us joy ...

rajeeram · Post by **rajeeram** » 02 Jun 2008, 08:58

There was this article in the Times recently about a Harvard doc, Dr Claudius Conrad, who is a researcher in both music and medicine and a pianist to boot.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/20/healt ... .html?8dpc

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 02 Jun 2008, 09:23

rajeeram,
Something worth remembering: accelerando produces tranquillo!
Quite true, I think. This happens not only to the listener but also to the performer. Dr. Conrad may have a point there about Mozart's recovering from his little ailments with the power of his own music...

pranathi · Post by **pranathi** » 02 Jun 2008, 11:51

As a reiki person I have experienced the amazing healing power of music. Even a non reiki person can experience healing, even if he doesnt believe in the concept.. check this out..www.CDbaby.com/sbooke