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INTO THE CORE OF MUSIC HEALING
ANCIENT AND NEW PERSPECTIVES IN MUSICAL PERCEPTION

INTRODUCING THE THEORY OF RASA:
THE NINE AESTHETIC EMOTIONS OF HINDU ART AND MUSIC

By SILVIA NAKKACH, M.A.,M.M.T.

A CHAPTER from:
MUSIC in HUMAN ADAPTATION ( BOOK) 1997
Edited by Dr. Daniel and Judy Schneck,
Distributed by MMB Music, INC (St. Louis, Missouri - NormG@mmbmusic.com

“Our available links with the visible and the invisible worlds are the organs of perception and feelings, which lends sharpness and color to our experience. It is possible that the gaining of this conscious participation - with and through music - will lead to the refinement of the quality of our musical life, enhancing the competence of our life-service” . Roland Steckel

ABSTRACT

Music listening has proved to have the power to change the emotional disposition and lead the individual into a whole new world of experience.

The purpose of this paper is to explore musical receptivity, integrating the ancient idea of "rasa" and its importance in healing and in education. The theory of rasa comes from texts written before the fifth century AD and is an essential part of the formal theory of art in India. It refers to the pure delight a work of art can make us feel, which becomes a powerful emotional pleasure, a thrill that comes from sharing the mood and suddenly understanding the true essence of the art work. Rasa is variously defined as savor, taste, mood, sentiment, and relish. It describes a state of heightened emotional perception triggered by the presence of musical energy or a work of art. It appears in the mind as cognition of a sentiment such as love, pathos, devotion, fear, joy, heroism, aversion, marvel, or tranquillity, in which the self is immersed to the exclusion of all else including oneself. In this listening experience, the mind experiences conscious joy even in the representation of painful events because of the integration of perceptual, emotional, and cognitive faculties in a more expanded auditory awareness refined by the combination of subtle aesthetic dimensions of sensing, feeling, and listening.

The appreciation of the mood described in each rasa combined with a rigorous work of deep listening, a selection of clinically oriented discography, and specific visualization strategies, can enhance the sharpness of the emotional reception-perception-expression of music. In a guided listening session, focus on a discreet kind of auditory awareness, and a careful selection of music, a permanent psychological transformation may take place, including the release of psychic pain of someone whose emotions were repressed. The sharing of the emotional aesthetic experience of rasa also can contributes to consolidate the relationship between the musician and the audience, as well as the music therapist and the patient ( transference- counter-transference ).

The information and the appreciation of rasas has a great therapeutic potential to examine the emotional implications of musical perception, and to refine the application of musical technologies by redefining their clinical value.

INTRODUCTION

Since time immemorial, the therapeutic value of music was considered indivisible from its own nature. Specific sounds and music were played as a form of natural medicine. Music was implemented to induce, transmit, and transform diverse realms of perception ( sensorial, emotional, cognitive), becoming one of the most effective mediators of emotional communication at an intrapsychic, interpersonal and transpersonal dimensions of experience.

In ancient times, music was not created as an amusement or a business, on the contrary, it was highly appreciated for its capacity to penetrate the veil that separates ordinary awareness from the extraordinary, allowing the mundane self to open to expanded states of consciousness. Musical expression evidenced a contact with something superior , a mean of communication with the invisible and the indivisible. For some people it was a particular form of meditation.

We are bringing back for consideration the permeable fine line between music and medicine. Within its wide spectrum of influence, musical listening and practice is meant to become a central part of clinical assessments to calm, communicate, and stimulate important functions of the body and the mind.

In the last three decades, thanks to the contributions in music and medicine from the East, bridges have been built that will allow the music therapist to be aware, evolve, and confirm his ability to heal, stretching areas of influence beyond mental disturbances and providing access to the community and general education.

Musical energy implemented as a healing practice has the capacity to improve the quality of life, facilitating relaxation, sleep, mental concentration, improving memory, learning abilities, intuition and creativity, reducing stress, strengthening our vitality, nervous system and maturing personal and inter-personal communication. All these functions are stimulated by enhancing the emotional system of perception : reception, sensation, feeling and expression. Music can activate the memory of an emotion. The more aware we become of the process of how music perception is related to our emotions, the more effectively we will be able to use it when assisting someone who needs help.

In an attempt to shed new light to the phenomenon experienced as the healing power of music, we find an answer in a collection of ancient books, the Vedas of India, which date from the fifth century BC. According to the Vedas, sound is God -Nada Brahma - and musical experience is the path towards the realization of the self, the complete knowledge of our nature, which guides us to discover the true meaning of the universe. The highest aim of music is to reveal the essence of the universe it reflects. Thus, through music as a spiritual path and sensible mirror, we are able to reach “God”, our own essential “divinity”, which transcends us. Coincidentally, for the ancient Greeks, music was the art of Muses, a noble activity which encouraged the elevation of the mind, improving also body functions.

Here are some questions that we suggest:

What do we really listen for when we listen to music ?
What is it that we do not listen to when we are inattentive during a musical experience?
What is the nature of the stimulus that moves us ? It is emotion, or an intellectual pleasure?

A statement from the composer-author Peter Michael Hamel partially responds to this query : “There is no doubt, each of us “listens” to his music, has his accepted taste, and links the pieces he knows with given emotional, mental, or even unconscious associations. The musical idiom with which we identify ourselves is often an index of our inner condition “ .

Steckel concludes that it is precisely through the energies of musical works that we may discover within ourselves the road that leads to the regions of the soul and the spirit - especially so in these times when new dimensions of awareness are being opened up on every side through the electronic and digital media and experimental music, as well as through altered perception and “trance“ experiences introduced by indigenous cultures. European and Asiatic traditions today rub shoulders, yoga-systems and revealing religious teachings are available to scholars, spiritual seekers and healers contributing to a more contemplative and insightful clinical knowledge.

In this context we propose the idea that a conscious and guided musical experience has the value of true self-knowledge, which is not limited to an intellectual or emotional activity, but includes the notion of “to know “ as “ to foresee”. For the Hindu (*), it is to become and to transform oneself. The “self” is the first and last object of knowledge not only experimental but transformative.

(*) Hindu : signifies someone who recognizes the authority of the Vedic tradition.

DISCREET LISTENING AWARENESS. EXTENDED DIMENSIONS OF LISTENING

Music has a natural capacity to transmit impressions that can immediately change our emotional and mental disposition. The more we become aware of the quality of our “participation” in the musical domain, the more transformative is the experience, to a point where we could reach an integrated dimension of listening similar to a “transparent state “ of perception. This state transcends the individuality of the composer and the listener into a “transpersonal” or mystical experience, free from space and time. This dimension is perceived by those who has developed the capacity for discreet listening, a kind of discriminative auditory awareness, that makes them able to explore and perceive mythical and archetypal sonic realms.

As musicians, music therapists, and Gestalt psychology technicians, we exercise great care in cultivating a form of integrative, “organismic” kind of auditory perception observant to the most subtle changes of timbre, modulation and intensity. Through the contemplative quality of the creative artistic process, this kind of mindful auditory perception leads to a discriminative awareness of impulses, sensations, colors, tastes, feelings, until being able to achieve the perception of ether vibrations, the purest and literally highest air : the celestial sounds of Paradise, the music of the spheres that Pythagoras described in the sixth century BC, and the Hindus referred as “anhata nad”, the universal sound which according to the Vedas in not produced by any mechanical impact. This is a kind of music accessible only to those whose inner divinity has been revealed to themselves. The life and work of L.van Beethoven is a vivid example of how this refined level of perception is available to some people. However this perceptive quality is not in all musicians, nor in all music.

THE ORIGIN OF ART

According to the wisdom of the Vedas, art is not a natural activity of man. “ Art was cast into the world by superior beings, intending to clothe the truth and to attract to it, by artifice, our spirits which had become incapable of loving it in the nude “. Art is not an end in itself, but a medium in service of sacred understanding that brings man near the truth. Art, through emotion, seeks to animate the entire being.

There are two principles which are the foundation of the aesthetic experience. The one - analogous recreation of the universe - is apparent in the plastic arts. The other - the establishment of an emotional concord between the individual and the universal laws - manifests itself in music, dance and poetry. The first is expressed through the concept of “ pramana”, right proportion, analogic precision, in architecture, sculpture, and painting. The second is expressed in poetry and music through the concept of “rasa”, savor, taste, direct apprehension of an state of being.

RASA, THE DELIGHT OF THE REASON

Rasa is an essential part of the theory of art in India. The information has been brought to us through doctrines found in an early art treatise, the Natya Sastra, ( 200 century BC ) written by Barata. It is said that the concepts explained by the author resulted from divine inspirations. In an attempt to translate Sanskrit to French and French to English, we will explore the meaning of rasa through images of taste, relish, essence, something like the nectar of the fruit, the best or finest part of it. It is like perfume, which comes from matter but it is not easy to describe or comprehend, since has non-physical properties, often yielding pleasure. In its subtlest sense, rasa comes to signify a state of heightened delight, the kind of bliss that can be experienced only by the spirit
( “ananda”). It is a pure delight that only the presence of a work of art can make as feel. It is perceived as an emotional pleasure, which Hindus refer to as the “taste of the mind”, or the delight of reason, an inspiring energy which is experienced by sharing a feeling and suddenly understanding the essence of a work of art. Therefore, rasa describes a state of enhanced emotional perception produced by the presence of musical energy and is applicable to art of all kinds. We would like to include the art of healing with music.

Rasa is perceived as a sentiment, which could be described as an aesthetic experience. Although rasa is unique, in practice we distinguish several “savors” according to the emotion which colors it : erotic love, pathetic, devotional, comic, fearful, repugnant, horrific, heroic, fantastic, furious, peaceful. The individual feels immersed in that mood to the exclusion of all else including himself. During the musical experience, the mind experiences conscious joy even in the representation of painful events because of the integration of perceptual, emotional, and cognitive faculties in a more expanded and enhanced auditory perception completed by the subtle aesthetic of sensing, feeling, understanding and hearing all at the same time. The distancing from the mundane experience of emotions made possible by a fine performance is what makes the difference.

Rasa is a multi-dimensional principle that explains thoroughly the relation between a sentiment, a mood, the creative process and its transpersonal qualities. This Eastern approach to emotional aesthetics and intelligence redefines the transformational power of music, giving a greater meaning to its application in psychotherapy and the healing arts.

From the point of view of contemporary psychology, we understand rasa as an experience of a transpersonal (*) nature. It is a germinating power hidden behind aspects of great musical creation that can reveal it, and is able to induce the complete chromatic range of each emotion. We can conclude from this that rasa involves a transpersonal quality of appreciation and perception. Rasa conveys the idea of an aesthetic beauty to be tasted, and knowable only in the activity of tasting. Thus, aesthetic experience is a transformation of not merely feeling, but equally of cognition, “ a condensed understanding in the mode of ecstasy “; the ecstasy of the intellect, an ecstasy itself inscrutable and illuminating. In the Vedas the experience of rasa is described as a flash of super-worldly blinding light, which appears to whom the knowledge of ideal beauty is innate and intuitive. It is an experience impossible to analyze.

(*) Transpersonal: the domain not just of the self-conscious but of the super-conscious, spiritual, and non-ordinary states of consciousness, represents an important interface between the individual and the collective unconscious.

Rasa is conceived as a “gustative image”. It only can be grasped by those having the power of imagination and representation, a kind of intellectual sensibility. Rasa exists to the degree that it has been tasted, it compels an act of “communion” with the work of art. Rasa does not belong to the work of art, the musician, or the listener, but unites all them in the same state of consciousness. The embellishments and the microtonal quality of Indian music are destined to “enhance the savor”, or rasa. Another important aspect of the concept of rasa is “dhvani”, resonance, or the suggestion of meaning by the presence of a work of art. In music, is a quality inherent to the experience of conscious listening. In the field of rasa, listening to music gets closer to the experience of meditation, or being centered in the present moment, rather than using music to express personality of personal feelings. Music listening reaches its excellence when we are able to leave our wishes apart and let it act according to its own intuition.

In the light of rasa, we realize that auditory perception is barely just one stage of the process of musical perception and discreet listening. In the sequence: intuition - creative energy - listening - resonance - musical expression and listening, we discover one of the most sophisticated forms of human communication. The phenomenon is much more complex than choosing a piece of music because we like it, and decide to play it in order to produce an effect. We are in the presence of a memorable aesthetic emotion that can be relived remembering the taste it has left in our mind.

We conclude that rasa could be experienced when all mental barriers have been resolved and heart knots have been untied. The principle of rasa represents an opportunity to train our perception in the refinement of transpersonal aesthetic sensibility. Thus, the creative process completes its cycle transcending the artificial duality between art and life, performer and audience, taste and truth, emotion and intellect.

The greatest music compositions have proven with their majesty to have been able to go beyond the character limitations of their composers, liberating them, although temporarily, from the psychological burdens of their personality.

The NATURE of EMOTIONS

Rasa is an experience of an aesthetic emotion which leads us to explore the nature of what we live as emotion. Generally, emotions have been left out in musical education and in the logic of musical creation where the intellectual knowledge of music has always been emphasized as being the most significant. For this reason, the ancient theory of rasa acquires special relevance in order to elucidate the healing power of music and its emotional perception.

According to Tibetan psychology, emotions consist of energy comparable to water, and a dualistic process of thoughts that follows and attaches to the emotions. This process can be compared with a coloring or pigmentation. When the transparent energy of the emotions and the thoughts are intermingled with each other they turn into the lively and colored emotions.

Its not the free expression and perception of emotions that causes our conflicts, but the psychic pain which is the result of an obscure interaction between the emotion that has been linked dualistically to a chain of thoughts. If we are able to lift the barrier of dualistic ideas, we may be able to have a liberating experience which is the absence of concepts, the essential emptiness of consciousness ( shunyata ). The nature of emotions is understood in this way, and its basic energetic quality makes them transmutable as any energy. Beyond having to eliminate or deny emotion, by expressing it freely, we transcend its confused pigmented qualities ( Chogyan Trungpa ).

Music listening and music creation spring as noble vehicles of this transformation, being the appreciation of rasa and the moods of music, a valuable way to connect with the nature of emotions, pain and release.

Emotions can be expressed freely, physically and psychologically, displaying themselves in the form of a cloud that appears in the sky and dissolves afterwards. When we allow the release of our emotions, we free ourselves from mental burdens. There is no need to control the emotions, since this would probably imprison them into the confines of mental activity.

Therefore, even if each emotion has a special energy or tone, its nature is transparent and free. We can apply this ideas to the treatment of emotional disturbances using a kind of musical stimulation that will attempt to clear, release and unleash specific emotions.

A BRIEF NOTE ABOUT THE CLASSICAL MUSIC OF NORTH INDIA
( HINDUSTANI SYSTEM).

The classical music of North India is considered modal, and is based upon a microtonal system of intonation - 22 microtones within an octave - against a continuous harmonic drone which is not accompany by traditional Western vertical harmonies. The slow development of the melody is the heart of this music. The haunting melodies an the microtonal intervalic logic is in part originated by the interdependence between music and cosmology. This is how the “raga”, the song or melodic composition, emerges. The raga is regard as the “color of the mind” , being the result of tonal arrangements ruled by cosmological and aesthetic laws related with dimensions of light ( i.e.: night and day ). The ragas are associated with specific rhythm cycles called “tal “that offers an almost harmonic counterpoint allowing the melody to develop through improvisations and composition patterns. A raga is complete when it achieves its tonal taste or “rasa” which is another element in classical Indian music.

In this musical system which components are raga, tal and rasa, each musician is at once a composer, a performer, and interpreter, who knows the ascending and descending patterns of the scale from which the raga is created. This open structure allows the musician to improvise, while subtly and meaningfully developing the musical idea inherent to the raga, expanding music to extremes of unbelievable mastery and creativity. The inexhaustible genius of the Indian Master and composer Ali Akbar Khan, shows us with overwhelming precision the creative force behind this music, with a virtuous appreciation of the dynamics of raga, tal and rasa.

Great Western composers such as Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Messiaen, Shostakovich, Chopin, Piazzolla and Lou Harrison, among many others, brilliantly perceived and displayed the idea of rasa in their creations. We can say that rasa is suggested in all the music works we remember, and that have been preserved precisely because of its inherent aesthetic emotional qualities.

THE NINE RASAS

Rasa is essentially indivisible. However, its academic division into nine rasas allows us exploration. The variations that we characterize as the nine sentiments are like beams of different colors which we perceive when light passes through a prism, in this case “enchanting the mind”. That is, rasa is a unique entity colored in different way. Specific colors are assigned to each rasa, and also a certain association with an Indian deity.

SHRINGARA: The erotic sentiment.
It is one of the most evoked feelings by art; it is related to the passion among lovers, sensuality, and even the desire of being in love. There is a great range of modulations and complementary expressions of love. The color is dark blue. Its associated with the god Vishnu. The whole range of romantic themes; Brazilian popular music known as “samba-cancao”, and some episodes of occidental operas. It is the most common of all rasas, and the most clearly appreciated in the East and in the West.

HASYA: the comic sentiment.
It suggests laughter and the experience of playful joy, celebration and fun. The color is white and is associated with the god Shiva. Circus music, and much of the happy folklore music of Northern and central Europe, and India, Africa’s dance music, celebratory moments of the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven, or the Magic Flute of Mozart. The comic opera from Italy, and passages of the theater-music of Shostakovich.

KARUNA: the pathos sentiment.
It suggests sadness, psychic pain, desire of what we have lost, depression. It is pertinent to Freud’s majestic metaphor describing melancholy and grief : “ the shadow of the lost object falls upon the self “. This is a very common rasa in musical expression, and it is expressed through many shades and subtleties. In the body is represented in the form of tears, dry mouth, memory loss. Concomitant feelings are: sorrow, anxiety, illness, weakness, insecurity, indolence, paralysis, weeping and complaining. This kind of pathetic feeling could be very intense and devastating, inspiring many of the master pieces of our musical legacy. We may see this rasa in the earthly lament of tango, or in a more mystical devotion which represents another sense of what Karuna is, suggesting compassion, and unconditional love. We understand this as the sorrow that a spiritual seeker ( a” bodhisattva “ ) draws from human beings and makes it part of its own. It is a mystical dimension of Karuna which refers to its literal translation in Sanskrit as “ experience of spiritual service”. The color of this rasa is gray, and is associated with the god Yama, the Indian god of death that guides the persons who dies to the other world. The most descriptive music of this rasa are the major Indian ragas and the series of devotional songs known as ”Meera bhajans” . In the West, the music of Argentinean new tango composer Astor Piazzolla, some movements of Mahler’s symphonies, such as the Fifth Adagietto, and Albinoni’s Adagio in G minor. Minor scales generally induce Karuna.

RAUDRA: the furious sentiment.
It emerges from sharing the great rage of a character in art, music, or literature. The rage is expressed through aggression, or battle to defeat the enemy. This kind of rage is caused by situations related to injustice, insults, revenge or jealousy. It may be experienced by virtuous or evil characters, nobles or bandits, human or supernatural. It is always determined by a desire to fight the enemy. A complementary emotion, or tonality, is impatience. Red is the color associated to this rasa. The divinity is Rudra, the fierce god of the Vedic hymns which has been identified later as a manifestation of Shiva. This rasa is not mentioned in the development of ragas, but it appears in the mood featuring in art , theater and music that accompanies epic theater performances, for example episodes of great master epics of Indian literature as the Ramayana and the Mahabarata. In Western classical music we find examples of this rasa in operas by Wagner, and intense episodes in the works of Stravinsky and Beethoven.

VIRA: the heroic sentiment.
This rasa arises from the enduring emotional state of energy. It is characterized by a lack of sadness, a sense of power, patience, heroism, steadiness, tact, and strong temper. Complementary feelings - or tonalities - that can emerge from this rasa are : satisfaction, judgment, pride, determination, confidence. It involves energy felt by authority, superior or virtuous people - not necessary to address an enemy - contrary to Raudra which implies an adversary. The associated color is yellow. The divinity, Indra, god of heavens and wars that rule the celestial kingdom. In music it is suggested in the ragas through the challenging counterpoints between the melody and rhythm which induce energy and force. In the European romantic tradition, Beethoven’s music is with no doubt the most heroic European expression, a great example of Vira is found in passages of the Fifth Symphony. Also in Baroque court music ( i.e. Marin Marais).

BAYANAKA: the sentiment of fear.
It suggests almost panic and aversion. It is physiologically characterized by trembling in feet and hands, a change in skin’s color and loss of voice. This rasa is an inspiration subject for many theater plays, and specially for film music. There is an old electronic Russian instrument, the Teramin, with a higher register than a violin, used particularly to produce the feeling of fear and suspense in movie scenes. The suggestion of ghosts, devils, or death induces Bayanaka which is more expressive in painting and sculpture than the music field. A terror experience could turn into pleasure when seen from a safe distance. The associated color is black. The divinity is Kala, god of death and time. It is not suggested during the development of the raga, but in film pictorial music of every culture, such as Morricone, or some Oliver Messiaen’s compositions for organ. Finland, op.26 by Sibelius, and moments of symphonic intensity in Beethoven and Wagner also suggest this rasa.

BHIBHATSA: a disgusting and odious sentiment.
It suggests repellence that leads to hatred and It is often arises as a result of feeling offended or arguing about subjects which disturb or hurt. The body remains immobile, or agitated, feelings of nausea and convulsions arise leading to unconsciousness, disillusionment, illness and death. It is like seeing or feeling annoyance, sensing the smell of a slaughterhouse, or having to close one eyes before a bloody scene in a film. As we observe in sculpture and paintings, movies and plays, this odious feeling can become delightful because of its power to excite imagination. The sensation of pleasure emerges as a result of viewed or experimented from a psychic distance. The spectator’s safe distance is entirely capable of yielding an aesthetic experience. It is about art and metaphor. The related color is blue. The divinity associated is Mahakala, an angry manifestation of Avalokitasvara, the goddess of compassion and wisdom, the protector of Buddhist law. Pictorial examples are the Tibetan Tantric “tankas”, which represent wrathful manifestations of protective divinities of the “dharma” ( teachings ) and the “sangha” ( spiritual community). This rasa does not appear in the classical music of India, but in other arts and film music. In the West, there are various illustrations in the lyrics of the songs of heavy metal and rock, and some symphonic passages of the expressive music of the late 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century.

ADBHUTA: the sentiment of wonder and marvelous.
It is inspired by an incredible surprise, something fantastic and out of this world, close to the supernatural. It is something similar to feeling astonished, thrilled and exited by an extraordinary event, sound or view. The associated color is gold. The deity is Gandharva, a masculine celestial being. It is featured in images and sculptures of gods, as well as in surrealistic art expressions ( “dada”) of beginning of 20th century. In the context of music can be associated with the intellectual, abstract fascination produced by conceptual creations of the avant-garde, modern music from the Forties on. brought into by Shroenberg’s serialism, John Cage and Stockhousen. It is creative music that inspired detachment from the beauty of harmony and at the same time nourished the creative unconscious of archetypes, fantasies and novelties.

SHANTA: the quiescent sentiment of inner serenity.
It inspires a feeling of inner peace to someone who has found the emptiness or vanity of all things, achieving detachment and withdrawal from desires and the external world. The enhancers of this mood are holy hermitages, sacred places and pleasant groves. Among the tonalities are joy, remembrance and kindness toward all beings. This is the mood of the ascetic, and it is related to the monastic serenity of who devotes his life to God. It is the calm, healing and pleasant rasa inspired by long, slow, meditative drones. This rasa evokes a feeling of remembrance and gratitude, linked to the repetition of God’s name, or the mode of prayer. Differing from Karuna’s devotional expression, Shanta does not refer to love among human beings, but peace resulting from an spiritual encounter. “Its nature lacks of ego” . Nothing disturbs the contemplative mood that this rasa inspires. The color related is that of jasmine and the moon. The deity is Narayana, the personification of the creative energy of Vishnu. This mystic feelings are very much expressed by Indian ragas, specially during the pure melodic development ( alap ) before the accompany rhythm cycle( tal ) starts. Also Shanta is suggested in some slow and evocative religious songs (bhajans). It has inspired great works of mystic literature and early European devotional music as the works of abbot Hildegaard Von Bingen, Gregorian chants, and several masses by the greater masters of the West, such as J.S Bach. In Tibet we have the example of the overtones and harmonic chants of the Gyuto monks, the “mantras” of popular India (seed syllables that are repeatedly sung to induce adoration and meditative states), and also the reciting Vedas. Lullabies can also be included in this rasa since they are relaxing, and its mood is purely serene provoking peace and sleep. Some works by American composer Pauline Oliveros in the series of “Sonic Meditations” are specially effective to induce Shanta, besides being very stimulating intellectually.

During the progression of a piece the rasas can be combined and one mood evolves into the other, like examples of romantic songs which unfold into sadness and pathos, or pathetic moods which are enhanced with energy ending with joy.

CONCLUSIONS. RASA and HEALING

The introduction of concept of rasa in the field of the healing arts seeks to bridge disciplines and to deepen the appreciation between music and emotions, pushing the current music therapy vocabulary beyond the confines of conventional psychiatric treatment and Western musical aesthetics towards an entirely new and ancient look at the emotional being and its potential to create, be transformed and be affected by music.

The information and the appreciation of rasas has a great therapeutic potential to examine the emotional implications of musical perception, and to refine the application of musical technologies by re-defining their clinical value.

Understanding rasa stimulates the creative unconscious, having the potential to transcend the barriers of ego and emotional attachment. It activates transpersonal sensibility by ripening the non-mundane appreciation of music and its emotional qualities.

If we consider the music therapist as an artist in the management of the language of sound and its emotional resonance, a necessity at an educational level comes forth regarding a deeper understanding of the emotional being and the intelligence of emotional perception. In order that the work with music reaches its therapeutic level, the practitioner will have to exercise great care to cultivate the inherent appreciation of musical expression, as well as a circumspect and almost scientific perception of the tonalities of emotions evoked by the music used in his work. It is the application of an analytic logic very similar to the practice of medicine. Thus, the musician and therapeutic artist will cultivate the skills of a researcher, a plastic artists or a poet, since it is in the experience of cultural diversity, improvising, playing with metaphors, and making mistakes where the practitioner will find the synthesis and the core of his professional identity.

The conscious experience of rasa trains the ear and the imagination, inducing the memory of the emotion that needs to be released, beyond the duality of taste and fashion, connecting the individual to healthy functions of the brain and the mind. Being in the transpersonal field of rasa is similar to feel creative.

Understanding rasa enhances the quality of the music we listen to and we create by a deeper exploration of the interdependence between timbre, tonality, sonority ,harmonic progression, duration, inner pulse and the way that musical elements affect consciousness.

Finally, a continued practice and study of rasa experiences improve our ability to acknowledge the emotional quality of a conflict we desire to resolve. If this happens, we may continue to generate a deeper, global, and less egoitistic sense of healing, which will bring about a more compassionate therapeutic attitude, with the addition of discriminative awareness for emotions, and a brighter ear for great music and its power to release stress and negative emotions. The appreciation of rasa is a vehicle for transformative insight.

The theory of rasa, only apparently sophisticated, has the intention to free the artist from the poverty of his ego fantasies. By expanding the healing power of art and music we can achieve an individual transformation that could unveil the deepest roots of our devotional being.

We hope that these new reflections about the most ancient artistic wisdom will serve to inspire musicians, doctors and healing artists, as well as to assist in reaching the heart of healing through the music that they implement as a vehicle toward a healthy society, free from ignorance and suffering.

REFERENCE BOOKS:

RASA , Rene Daumal
New Directions Publishing Coorporation, 1904-1944

Through Music to the Self, Peter Michael Hamel
Element books, 1976

Orderly Chaos, Chogyam Trungpa
Shambala, 1991

Herz der Wirklichkeit, Roland Steckel
Wuppertal,1975

My Music, My Life, Ravi Shankar

Acknowledges :

I owe special thanks to my teacher Maestro Ali Akbar Khan who devotedly have been teaching me to appreciate the gift of music, and to my husband, Michael Knapp for his unconditional support to my work.

THE WORKSHOP

This workshop provides tools and applications to integrate the principle of rasa into a broad range of healing practices, from body work to music therapy and education. Participants experience ways to perceive rasa in singing and in listening to specific musical selections of Eastern and Western traditions. A careful selection of evocative music, both recorded and performed live ( on voice and cello ) is used to illustrate and enhance the process of emotional awareness, and to inspire and unleash the artistic consciousness of participants.

Participants experience techniques to improve concentration, sharpen the appreciation of deep emotions, bridge the gap between the unconscious and conscious mind, and stimulate creative expression. Specific methods to address anxiety and states of emotional imbalance are introduced. The practices include brief voice education in breathing and support by means of scale singing and deep listening. Professional applications will be discussed, a selected discography and bibliography will be provided.

The Possible Agenda, technologies; methods and practical exercises :
Information and demonstration of the 9 permanent emotions ( rasas)
Guided sonic meditations, deep listening, relaxation and breathing exercises
Visualization and contemplative listening
Raga singing and improvisational music making
"Gestalt "interpersonal exercises to discuss and integrate the information.

PRESENTER’S BRIEF BIOGRAPHY
Silvia Nakkach,M.A., M.M.T.

Composer, vocalist, educator and psychotherapist. MA in Psychology, MA in Music Composition. Music-Therapy scholar and consultant. Founder of the Transmusic therapeutic method, an integration of ancient, indigenous, and consciousness studies, sound-healing systems and creative expression. Director of the international Vox Mundi Project. Her discography includes 6 albums. Her focus is on the healing energy of the voice and the creation of music technologies for emotional release. She is in the faculty of four universities in three continents, and have recieved many grants and comissions for her compositions. A particular strengths that Nakkach’s brings to the field of music and consciousness is her experience working with microtonal Indian music, as well as with the people of the Amazon, from whom she have gained new insights about healing emotions, the sacred, and the power of poetry and music merging as one indivisible healing art.