Music and Meditation

In traditional Indian classical music, there are several raagas. Each raaga has a distinguishing set of notes, which are supposed to be played in a certain order. In the starting phase of playing the raaga, the artist keeps going from one note to another and then coming back; like Re-Ga-Re, Re-Ga-Ma-Ga-Re. Its like keep emphasizing on particular notes in various patterns and establishing them in your heart again and again. This continues for several minutes and is deeply meditative. The artist is very sensitive during this period and generally won't tolerate any disturbances. Any movement/talk can make him/her lose their focus. Once they are done with the initial phase, then they get in the right frame of mind to start the actual performance.

I find there is some resemblance of this with pranayama and mediation. There are seven chakras(energy centers) in the human body. There are some meditation techniques, where attention is taken to different chakras through breath. You start focusing on the incoming and outgoing breath from the nostrils, then take attention to the center of eyebrows, then gradually from center of the eyebrows to the throat, then from there to the heart and so on. This continuous focus on the chakras through the medium of breath leads to cleansing of chakras. Doing this for few minutes, makes the mind very calm and brings in deep relaxation. Like the alaap in case of classical music, any disturbance can completely unsettle the meditator. However once the meditation is done, there is deep calmness within, which makes him/her ready to take any outside challenge.