(originally sent 14/09/26)
Music has always played a huge role in my life, and subsequently/inevitably in the yoga classes I offer.
I grew up in Denmark in the 90s, and girl power absolutely took over my life as a 7, 8, 9-year-old. I wanted to be Ginger Spice, and was most certainly the kid that made my parents watch me “perform” the entire Spice Girls album front to back, even though I didn’t speak English and didn’t know what any of the words meant.
But music has a way of transcending language.
And luckily, my parents had great taste in music and exposed me to many of the greats while growing up. So while I continue to love pop music, my childhood home was filled with The Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, The Smiths, David Bowie and Michael Jackson.
If you’ve ever been to my class, none of that will come as a surprise.
But every now and then, when I have someone new attend class, they are confused why I play everything from Enya to Madonna, to Krishna Das, to Brian Eno. I get that some people think yoga and music shouldn’t “go together”, but they absolutely do.
The first day I met Keith (who is now my podcast host, and my best friend), he was teaching the “yoga and music” segment on the 200hr teacher training I attended in 2008. I remember like it was yesterday, that he said we could play songs with a message, as music often has a way of speaking to people in ways that words alone cannot. And he gave the example of playing Meat is Murder by The Smiths. I was absolutely hooked.
It took me a while to realise that Jivamukti Yoga is perhaps a bit… different in this way. That not all yoga methods utilise music to convey messages (which is totally fine!).
However, it was thrilling for me when I started reading the 15th century text the
Haṭha Yoga Pradīpikā (one of the primary texts upon which modern postural yoga is built), that the primary goal of yoga practice, according to this text, is to hear the unstruck sound – anāhata nadam. This is what leads to enlightenment. It IS enlightenment.
The first verse of chapter 4 says this:
namaḥ śivāya gurave nāda-bindu-kalātmane
nirañjana-padaṁ yāti nityaṁ tatra parāyaṇaḥ
“Salutations to the nadam, which is the inner guide and inner life, the dispenser of happiness to all! … One who is devoted to the inner guru, the nada, the inner music, obtains the highest bliss.”
The inner music.
This is how we obtain the highest bliss.
There’s a lot more to it, more than I can summarise in this brief piece of writing, but in simple terms the Haṭha Yoga Pradīpikā teaches that in order to hear the inner sound, we must first train our outer listening skills.
This can be done by listening to āhata nadam or “struck sound”, eg any music or any sounds created externally. As we refine our ear and become better listeners, we eventually invert our hearing to connect with the inner sound.
Some of my favourite practices for this include brāhmarī prāṇāyāma and ṣanmukhī mudrā (both of which we practice daily on Golden Yoga School teacher training), attending kirtans, curating playlists for my classes, and the Jivamukti Chakra Balancing class, where we chant while in the āsanas (if you haven’t tried it yet, highly recommend!).
Music has always been a huge part of the classes I teach, and always will be.
May you find your highest bliss!
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