Paper: Sunday Times, The (London, England)
Title: Easy listening – Mind & Body
Author: Lorna V
Date: January 31, 1999
Section: Features
Page: Style 34
Your troubles will be washed away by soothing sounds from a tiny speaker system – that is the promise of Sahaj healing. LORNA V had to hear some more.
Is your job stressing you out? Do you have an inexplicable feeling of dissatisfaction and frustration with life? You may be doing what you have always wanted to do, but you are spending most of your waking hours in an office.
After pressured days, with the phone constantly ringing, and endless meetings, there are times when you cannot wait to get away from other human beings. Yet, when you are alone, you want to be with others.
You cannot deal with anyone imposing emotional pressure on you. Most of all, you fear that you cannot even deal with yourself.
These kind of feelings are what the guru Dharam describes as “emotional burnout”, a result of the alienation caused by stressful city life. He estimates that 80% of people who come to him suffer from this.
A specialist in Chinese medicine, acupuncture and kundalini yoga, Dharam was the genuine wise teacher and healer I was looking for a year ago when I was seeking a way to survive the media jungle.
One of the ways this Englishman-turned- Sikh worked on me was through sound.
During the sessions, which were like private meditation, but with the luxury of lying down rather than trying to sit still and upright, he played tapes of soothing mantras.
Dharam, 42, began his career in healing and health after drama school, when he realised that he didn’t even want to watch the television programmes he had parts in. From practising kundalini yoga, he went on to teach it, training also in oriental (Chinese) medicine and acupuncture, with additional studies in shamanic techniques and the cabbala.
His strong interest in sound led him to explore ways to help people create a sense of wellbeing for themselves. Through healing circles, in which he leads a group of people with sound, mantras and rhythms, he began developing one-to one Sahaj sound healing a couple of years ago, taking the person experiencing the Sahaj session to a state of mind that advanced and continued meditation can eventually achieve.
At the beginning of the Sahaj sound experience, you lie on a specially designed, undulating couch, which moulds itself to every contour of your body. An onyx egg is placed in each hand and you are cocooned in a blanket, with a light beanbag covering your eyes and the distinct smell of essential oils close to your nose. Tiny speakers are wired up on your chest
(corresponding to the heart chakra). As electronic and natural sounds start up, the speakers gurgle.
The principle, explains Dharam, is to fascinate the sensory system, in particular the ears. The melange of sounds includes the heartbeat (which imparts a secure, grounding feeling), drumming electronic music and natural noise. Taken from a range of 80 sounds, they resonate at different frequencies, corresponding to the energy field of various parts of the body.
Through a microphone (so the message is amplified in the mind), Dharam first instructs you to breathe so that you are physically fully relaxed. He describes this as the body being “earthed”, enabling the spirit energy to emerge. In practical terms, it’s about going through the physical transition from your daily life to deep relaxation, clearing your mind and psyche so that you can then go to a different state of mind called the “Sahaj”, meaning “at ease”, the opposite of stress.
By this time, the chatter in your mind will have died down. You are in the deepest state of relaxation, similar to hypnosis, with one part of you observing the rest in an altered state of consciousness. Time is suspended, and as sounds circulate through your body, you feel like a cross between a speaker and a cloud-being, floating with a purpose.
A gong – whose sound contains the universal “om” – is the final key element used by Dharam. This, he claims later, is “a wide spectrum sonic shower that cleanses the auric field”.
In contrast to the discordant, frantic sounds that dominate our lives (traffic, radio, television, crowds, etc), the “organised” and repetitive sounds used in the session are more than just casually soothing. Just as a massage gets rid of knots and tension, physically balancing your body, the sound treatment balances your energy field.
At the end of the session, it is as if, having slept for years, you have woken up understanding exactly what everything is all about. Unlike most alternative treatments, which leave you feeling so relaxed that you cannot do anything, this has the opposite effect. It is not that you slow down, it is a case of not rushing. Your thoughts have become clear. You understand why nothing around you – the congested traffic, the throbbing crowds, the latest clothes in the shops – matters.
Most of all, it turns down the chatter in your mind, especially if this has been a worry.
As Dharam puts it: “You alter your relationship with your mind. You realise that you can turn down the sound of the chatter, instead of letting it control you.”
Although he is the creator of Sahaj sound healing, Dharam stresses that the technique is “an adaptation of spiritual technology practised by sages. It’s not made up, that’s why it works. The ancient principles are adapted using
modern technology”.
At the beginning of a session, he assesses what the client needs, and it is not unusual for people to describe what they are going through mentally and emotionally. “This is particularly suitable,” he says, “for emotional problems, for people who suffer from anxiety, an inability to express themselves, difficulties in relating to people in general, or their partners.”
Whereas, 10 years ago, Dharam points out, it was the hippie-boho set interested in these ancient techniques for connecting with the world, these days people from every background and occupation are searching.
“These sessions give people the spiritual sustenance they are looking for,” he says.
“There’s a collective sense of a need to find new meaning to our lives, as people realise they spend too much time hiding behind mental armour.”
And I thought I was the only one.
Guru Dharam can be contacted on 0958- 928252. The first Sahaj session takes 1 1/4 hours, and costs Pounds 50 Lorna V edits Time Out’s Sell Out Section.
Author: Lorna V
Section: Features
Page: Style 34