Steven Halpern

Chakra Balancing - Ready for Prime Time

I've just returned from the International New Age Trade show in Denver, and was amazed and delighted by the coming of age of "chakra consciousness." Since this trade show is one of the main conferences that your local, more metaphysically-oriented retail stores attend to find out what's new, what's hot -- and what they will order for their customers -- this marks an historic cultural moment.

The Hundredth Monkey Syndrome

Perhaps you are familiar with "the hundredth monkey" phenomenon. It relates to critical mass in the world of consciousness, and how an idea, or a learned behavior, shifts from being a private practice to a group, or universal, practice.

According to legend, observers noticed that after a certain number of monkeys (they picked the number 100 as an example) living on a Japanese island learned to wash their potatoes before eating them, monkeys on neighboring islands began to alter their behavior and began washing their potatoes also. What made this so remarkable is that there was no direct contact between the monkeys on the islands.

Rupert Sheldrake, the brilliant scientist who developed the theory of morphic resonance, suggests that this is the way new ideas come into being. Enough people (or monkeys, or lab rats, or whatever) begin doing something a new way, and then everyone begins to do it that way -- without a long, gradual learning curve.

That may be what we are witnessing vis-à-vis chakras. When I released my first recording, Spectrum Suite, in l975, my initial subtitle was "Music to Align, Attune and Balance the Chakras." In the circles that I traveled, professionally and with friends, everyone knew about chakras. But it was a major wake-up for me when I put out the album ,,, the basic response was "Huh? What's a chakra?

Needless to say, this made it more challenging to get coverage in the media, let alone to get stores to carry the album. Even bookstores that had a few books on charkas -- the etheric energy centers that are key energetic building blocks of our physical and energetic beings -- often could not conceive why someone would record an album dedicated to chakras.

Well, now, twenty-five years later, many more people understand the vital role that chakras play in our daily life and in our health and well being in general. Shirley MacLaine and many other teachers include meditations and other psycho-technologies to tune and balance the chakras.

One of the easiest-and most enjoyable is to "serenade" your chakras with specially composed music. For thousands of years, yogis, mystics and healers have known that chakras vibrate at specific frequencies. The lowest vibration is the first chakra, at the base of the spine, on up to the highest vibration, the crown (7th) chakra, at the top of the head.

Because anything that vibrates can be resonated by a harmonically similar tone, if you know the right notes, you can literally "play" the chakras. That is what I did over twenty-five years ago with Spectrum Suite and it's no doubt one of the reasons why it's the best-selling meditation album of all time.

The public's new understanding and awareness about chakras is also why Spectrum Suite's new twenty-fifth anniversary edition is soon to be released as Chakra Balance. Now that chakras have essentially "come out of the closet," this title makes it clearer, and easier, to get what you're looking for.

I'll have more to say about what else makes this new release so special next month. Right now, I also want to let you know about the new chakra charts and other visual aids to help you visually stimulate and energize the chakras, including chakra candles, and many other variations, all of which you can now find easily at your local metaphysical/new age bookstore.

I'm also delighted that there are more interactive sound-based tools available. I wish that every home could have at least one crystal bowl in residence. There is a new company from Canada that offers Pythagorean tuned Chakra Chimes. These precision-engineered metal chimes are mounted in a wooden frame about 15 inches in height, and have one tone for each chakra. The tone is pure (and very similar to the tones that I produce with the special instrument I use on SPECTRUM SUITE. Playing the notes on a keyboard allows for much more interesting music.

If you're interested in knowing more, contact Soul Vibration Instruments at www.soulvibs.com or call 1-250-537-1032

Contact www.crystalbowls.com for info on their complete line of bio-sonic repatterning tools. Call 1-800-358-9492 and tell them I sent you. If you're a holistic practitioner, this might be a special addition to your work that would be very complementary.

Even a few minutes a day can make a wonderful difference in how you feel. Just a one-minute tune-up before meditation can make a difference, too.

So keep those chakras tuned -- and let me know what happens.

Until next time,

Yours for sound health,

Steven Halpern

Steven Halpern is an award-winning composer, recording artist and sound healer. For over 25 years, he has been a passionate advocate of the healing powers of music for health, healing and spiritual growth. His latest releases, Deja-Blues, and Chants to Awaken the Buddhist Heart may change forever the way people perceive his musical career as he branches out into new and exciting dynamic rhythmic and vocal dimensions.

To receive a free catalog, email us at innerpeacemusic@innerpeacemusic.com or call: 1-800-909-0707.

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