The Benefits of Chant
The benefits of chant have been known for thousands of years. Most world cultures, including Chinese, East Indian, Egyptian and Aboriginal societies have sophisticated systems of using music and chant to meditate, heal and build community. Check the Bibliography for more information.
Treasure Hunt: Read through the following quotes. Underline the effects of music and chant that are mentioned. There are at least 30.
Discuss: Which benefits have you personally experienced? Which benefits have had the greatest effect on your life? How?
Answers
Some benefits described in these quotes include:
Treasure Hunt: Read through the following quotes. Underline the effects of music and chant that are mentioned. There are at least 30.
Discuss: Which benefits have you personally experienced? Which benefits have had the greatest effect on your life? How?
- The art of music is divine and effective. It is the food of the soul and spirit. Through the power and charm of music the spirit of man is uplifted. . . . Thank God that thou art instructed in music and melody, singing with pleasant voice the glorification and praise of the Eternal, the Living. I pray God that thou mayest employ this talent in prayer and supplication, in order that the souls may become quickened, the hearts become attracted and all may become inflamed with the fire of the love of God! Tablets of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, p. 512
- Intone, O My servant, the verses of God that have been received by thee, as intoned by them who have drawn nigh unto Him, that the sweetness of thy melody may kindle thine own soul, and attract the hearts of all men. Baha’i Prayers, p. 3, 1954 edition
- And those that chant the verses of the Merciful in most melodious tones will attain thereby unto that with which the kingdoms of earth and heaven can never compare. And they will inhale therefrom the fragrance of My realms which none discerneth in this day save those who have been granted vision by this sublime Beauty. Say, verily, the verses of the Merciful uplift the stainless hearts unto those realms of spirit which cannot be described in words or expressed in symbols. Blessed are they that hearken! Bahá’u’lláh, Kitab-i-Aqdas, p. 61, paragraph 116
- The musician’s art is among those arts worthy of the highest praise, and it moveth the hearts of all who grieve. Wherefore, O thou Shahnaz, play and sing out the holy words of God with wondrous tones in the gatherings of the friends, that the listener may be freed from chains of care and sorrow, and his soul may leap for joy and humble itself in prayer to the realm of Glory. Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, p. 122
- It is the music which assists us to affect the human spirit; it is an important means which helps us to communicate with the soul. Shoghi Effendi, to an individual believer, dated November 15, 1932, quoted in U.S. Baha’i News, no. 71, p. 2, February 1933, in Compilation on Music, p.
- Music... will help dissolve your perplexities and purify your character and sensibilities, and in time of care and sorrow, will keep a fountain of joy alive in you. --Dietrich Bonhoeffer
- Sound or vibration is the most powerful force in the universe. Music is a divine art, to be used not only for pleasure, but as a path to God-realization. Vibrations resulting from devotional singing lead to attunement with the Cosmic Vibration … Words that are saturated with sincerity, conviction, faith, and intuition are like highly explosive vibration bombs that have power to remove the rock of difficulties and to create the change desired. Paramahansa Yogananda, Cosmic Chants
- Music sets up a certain vibration, which unquestionably results in a physical reaction. Eventually the proper vibration for every person will be found and utilized. George Gershwin
- The highest goal of music is to connect one’s soul to their Divine Nature, not entertainment. Pythagoras (569-475 BC
- Music... will help dissolve your perplexities and purify your character and sensibilities, and in time of care and sorrow, will keep a fountain of joy alive in you. --Dietrich Bonhoeffer
- The power of music to integrate and cure is quite fundamental, Dr. Oliver Sacks, a neurologist and author of Awakenings wrote. “It is the profoundest non-chemical medication.”
- Get yourself a drum. When you sing a song and playa the drum, you’ll be surprised how your mind, body, and spirit will react. Everything becomes calm and joyful. Our bodies love the songs. The songs allow us to touch the hand of the Creator. When we sing and touch the Great Spirit’s hand, He gives us power. Songs are another way to pray. My Grandfather, teach me a song today. –Ethel Wilson, Cowichan Tribe
- For you are not the mere physical form that you appear to be; but the real man is the soul and not that physical body which men can point to. Know then, that your true nature is divine. --Cicero
- The finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion. Herein lies the germs of all art and all true science. Anyone to whom this feeling is alien, who is no longer capable of wonderment and lives in a state of fear is a dead man. To know that what is impenetrable for us really exists and manifest itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, whose gross forms alone are intelligible to our poor faculti4es – this knowledge, this feeling . . . that is the core of the true religious sentiment. In this sense, and in this sense alone, I rank myself among profoundly religious men. –Albert Einstein
- Through art, mysterious bonds of understanding and of knowledge are established among men. They are the bonds of a great Brotherhood. Those who are of the Brotherhood know each other, and time and space cannot separate them. Robert Henri
- Let us investigate a song which is above all songs: one which will develop the spirit and produce harmony and exhilaration, unfolding the inner potentialities of life. –Abdu’l-Bahá
- To chant but one verse with joy and gladness is better for you than reading all the Revelations of the Omnipotent God with carelessness.” Ministry of the Custodians, p.373
- Chant is a devotional practice, a form of heartfelt prayer. We call out to God, we honour God, we thank, we beseech, we invoke, we bow, we bless, and we celebrate. . . . Whether you are an experienced singer or the person who was asked not to sing in the class play, you can share in the wonder of chant. Chanting is not “singing”—it’s about breath, about heart, and about Spirit, and we all come fully equipped to participate.
- In chanting with groups . . . disparate voices begin to touch each other, their multitude of tones searching for a common vibration. We breathe together and the silence in between the musical phrases grows quiet and crystalline. Securely held in the repeating forms of the chant, we become free to let the Spirit of the chant take us where it may.
- As we give ourselves to the chant, we let go into an ever-changing river of melody and movement, patterns weaving and disappearing, feeling and emptiness, sound and silence. And if we are so graced, there are moments seemingly out of time when something happens—when the boundaries that separate “me” from “you” disappear. Robert Gass, Chanting: discovering Spirit in Sound
- “Therefore, . . . set to music the verses and the divine words so that they may be sung with soul-stirring melody in the Assemblies and gatherings, and that the hearts of the listeners may become tumultuous and rise towards the Kingdom of Abhá in supplication and prayer.”
- “. . . singing and music are the spiritual food of the hearts and souls. In this dispensation, music is one of the arts that is highly approved and is considered to be the cause of exaltation of sad and desponding hearts.” Bahá’u’lláh, Baha’i World Faith, p. 378 (1976)
- In accordance with our teachings, music and the arts are to be encouraged, and they add immeasurably to the vitality and spirit of the community. Universal House of Justice to a NSA, cited in The Importance of the Arts in Promoting the Faith and Compilation on Music, p. 12
Answers
Some benefits described in these quotes include:
- Frees people from the chains of care and sorrow
- Creates sweetness, harmony, exhilaration
- Uplifts stainless hearts to realms of spirit which cannot be described
- Adds immeasurably to the vitality and spirit of the community
- Exalts sad and despondent hearts
- Enables a deeper comprehension of the sacred texts
- Causes souls to leap for joy
- Serves as a ladder by which souls may ascend to the realm on high
- Unfolds the inner potentialities of life
- Heals body, mind and spirit
- Causes hearts become tumultuous and rise towards the Kingdom of Abhá
- Inflames people with the fire of the love of God
- Kindles and quickens souls
- Attracts the hearts of all
- Others_______________________________________________________________________________________