Satsang means the company of reality, being in touch with the truth. It is not just singing some complicated songs which you don’t understand. Music is one part of it. The second part is understanding the logic. The third part is reposing in deep meditation and being with yourself. So which is the right company? That which makes you feel light, which makes you feel the problem is very trivial as compared to what you thought. If a company makes you perceive the problem as being bigger than it is, that is not satsang. Satsang is where you can drop what people think about you and be authentic.
Bhajan means sharing. Divine is love and when you blossom in that love, you share the love. Divine is compassion, and when you are compassionate, you are in Bhajan. Click To TweetUsually, people who are in celebration don’t go into the depth, while people who experience silence, don’t usually celebrate. However, satsang is when we value both silence and celebration. The purpose of music is to create silence deep within you and the purpose of silence is to create dynamism in life.
Music is ‘Laya Yoga.’ Laya is dissolving. This is the highest form of Samadhi (unity with the Divine). Sound is a form of energy. Your whole body is made up of atoms. When you sing bhajans, the sound vibrations get absorbed into every particle of your body. Just like a microphone absorbs sound and converts it into electricity, the body absorbs the vibrations and transforms it into consciousness.
If you are sitting and listening to gossip or loud jarring music, then that gets absorbed by your body and does not give a nice feeling. When you hear the Knowledge, or chant with all your heart, that elevates your consciousness. Being with this truth kindles the energy in you and awakens the consciousness because the sound energy very easily penetrates into the mind.
The body is made up of five elements – earth, water, air, fire and ether. The ether element is associated with sound. And sound unites. Sound reverberates in your body. Our mind and consciousness are ancient. When you dive into different layers of consciousness, there are different languages that are present there. The most ancient layer of our consciousness can understand the most ancient language of the world – Sanskrit.
When we are sitting, thinking or talking then every mind thinks differently, no one thinks alike. But when we sing or chant Sanskrit bhajans, then the mind which is so ancient identifies the impressions of all these old bhajans, our consciousness begins to unite and somewhere deep inside sharing happens. And the bhajans or mantras make deep impressions in the mind where they remain for a long period. It is like a brush. Each bristle joined together can clear all the knots in mind.
That is why even though we don’t know the meaning of some of the words, we simply chant them because just chanting them has a positive effect. It is not the meaning that is important. So when we sing, we don’t have to see how well we sing, and where we are singing. Just close your eyes and be one with the music, the sound. You dissolve into the space that is, through Bhajan.
We usually think Bhajan is just singing songs. Bhajan means sharing. Divine is love and when you blossom in that love, you share the love. Divine is compassion, and when you are compassionate, you are in Bhajan. When the mind is split into one hundred parts, there is misery. And the same minds when they all get together, becomes one unit. Then there is joy.