The lyrics in this song are chants I learned in yoga class over the last couple of years. I love to produce music (and play drums especially) and once I learned these chants, I could not help but put them into a rhythmic, musical format. The musical selection behind the lyrics captures a dark vibe and the song is meant to exemplify the dichotomy between the light and the dark. It’s intended to be listened to as an uplifting, dare I say, magical experience.
I first learned about the Bhagavad Gita from a Robert Oppenheimer quote, and that ignited my curiosity about Hinduism and spirituality in general. A peculiar introduction to the Hindu religion and spirituality indeed, yet this is what planted the seed for me many years ago. After much research and exploration, I decided to join a yoga group to see what this enlightenment business was all about! I learned so much about myself, about reality, about our perceptions, our delusions, and honestly, the experiences I’ve had goes beyond words.
This song, for me, represents a commitment to my underlying understanding that we are all a part of this spiritual journey we call life together, whether we realize it or not. I wanted to create something that I could listen to and show others that might somehow “awaken” them in some way. This song is much different than anything I’ve ever created musically and although I don’t believe it will be appealing to most listeners, I hope that it changes the listeners in a way that is unexpected.
The process of making this song was a truly serendipitous experience. I was first introduced to yoga in my early 30s, about 6 years ago, and the teachings I have learned throughout the years have changed my life in an extremely positive way. I could have never fathomed the depth of introspection involved in the practice of meditation before I tried it myself. This song is the culmination of the last few years of my spiritual exploration.
I was brought up Protestant, and although I lost my faith as a teenager, the bible teachings are a big factor in my paradigm, and my unconscious belief systems. The Hindu perception of God and the underlying foundations of their religion is interesting to me and I wanted to create something new and different that would honor the ancient tradition of yoga and Hindu philosophy.
I first started doing Yoga (asana, meditation, and contemplation) about 7 years ago as an experiment and I could have never imagined how it would change my life beneficially in so many different ways. In fact, Yoga made me realize that reality is not what we think it is! As humans, we are extremely limited in our perceptual abilities and because of that, the synthetic representation of reality that we create in our mind is not based on fact, it’s based on what we think we perceive as fact, which is extremely limited. Our perception of reality is a mental construction that we use to navigate our world, not actual reality. That concept in and of itself, realizing we’re not who we think we are is fascinating to me and it’s what gives me the motivation to keep exploring spirituality and music.