THE ROLE OF HEALING IN ASIA’S TRADITIONAL ARTS by Shanta Serbjeet Singh

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THE

ROLE OF HEALING IN ASIA’S TRADITIONAL ARTS

by

Shanta Serbjeet Singh, New Delhi

e-mail:

shanta (AT) asia (DOT) com

 

 

This

is the keynote address Shanta Serbjeet Singh researched and wrote for the

4th APPAN International in Seoul, Korea, in May 2001 on "The Role of Healing

in the Arts of Asia (with special reference to India)".

Seen your liver

lately? Or checked your DNA? Did you know that your stomach

lining changes every five days, your skin changes every four weeks, your

liver changes every six weeks? Or that every 12 weeks there are major

changes in your skeletal structure, every six weeks your DNA changes?

In short, says New Age Guru Deepak Chopra, “you create the body you live

in…You are constantly reincarnating a new body in yourself. Just

as you cannot step into the same river twice, as the water keeps flowing,

so also you cannot possess the same body.”

What a miracle

this human body of ours is! We breathe out 10 to the power of 22

atoms and breathe in the same amount. As Dr. Chopra notes, these

atoms are “the very same millions of atoms which have inhabited the bodies

of Gautam Buddha, of Jesus Christ, of Osama Bin Laden or a man in Manhattan

which pass through our bodies and put the human body through a constant

process of change.”

It is this

constant replacement of raw material by the human body, thus, continually

creating a new physical body, which is at the heart of the Indian belief

that the sharira, the body, is the link between the earth

and the cosmos, between humanity and divinity. And to help this body

remain healthy, the traditional knowledge of India and indeed all of Asia

has identified the creative impulse and its expression through the

arts, especially music and dance, as a tool beyond compare.

There are so

many systems of treating disease but only one science of health.

These various systems can be broadly classified under two heads:

those which depend on external preparations, like drugs and chemical formulations;

and those which take the internal route, often called Nature Cure.

The first, the external system, uses drugs and is loosely known as the

allopathic, Western system of medicine. It is by far the more popular

because it is an easy and quick way of alleviating the symptoms of disease,

even though it is largely suppressant, not eradicatory. But in the

other system, the one that looks at the body’s interior, commonly known

as Nature Cure, the belief is not only that prevention is better than

cure. It goes further to stress that prevention is the only

cure.

A body

that changes its entire physical structure and schemata as quickly and

as thoroughly as we have observed earlier cannot possibly be reduced to

mechanical deductions of the sort that the allopathic system of healing

presupposes. Pop a pill, and are you sure it will have the same effect

on the liver, the spleen, the lungs, the skin today as it did a few weeks

ago when the doctor prescribed it? Also, says the traditional healer,

how do you know what side effects it is going to cause, not just at the

time of consuming it but for the weeks thereafter when it will stay

in the body, its chemical nature making it indissoluble, imperishable and

yet challenged by the body’s continually changing nature?

In other words,

true health needs to be created from within the body and with the help

of awareness of its real nature. This is where the creative process

comes in, particularly the role of the arts.

Indian traditional

view equates the arts of music and dance with that of a revealed scripture

– they are called the fifth Veda, after the four Vedas,

written, conservatively, some 3,000 years before Christ. The Vedas

deal with the nature of phenomena, of the existence of man and other aspects

of the vast cosmos. There is a limitless treasury of written material

in our texts and treatises, which details the effect of music and dance

on the minutest and most microcosmic layers of the body. Coupled with it

is a sizeable corpus of recent advances in scientific research and the

conclusion is exactly what the ancients had said it was: the arts

heal, they are completely therapeutic in nature and behind the apparent

good health, longevity and incredible stamina of most dancers, musicians

and visual artists lies the fact that the very nature of the work they

do, i.e. sing, dance, paint, sculpt, in short create a work of art, is

an endless source of pumping metaphorical iron, vitamins and nutrients

into the body while at the same time ridding it of disorders, imbalances

and disease.

The idea of

music therapy is a very old one in India and Shruti, my colleague, will

demonstrate some of its age-old practices and precepts in the course of

this very important conference. Also dancer Uma Sharma, who is also

here, will show you how the Indian aestheticians and philosophers of dance

have always pointed to these arts being akin to Yoga and

hence their training and teaching, too, is in the nature of building blocks

of Yogic discipline, from the physical exercises, called Asanas

to the breathing techniques, the Pranayama, which act as

a common base for enabling the body and the mind to grow towards its potential.

DANCE AS

THERAPY

At this point,

it may be argued that all exercise is conducive to good health. So

what is so special about, say, the movements and canons of dance seen as

simply exercise? Or about the art of creating music? To answer

this fully, we need to look at the attributes of an ideal system of exercise.

These, according to manuals like Roger in his Dance – a basic education

technique share three elements described as the three S’s, namely

suppleness, strength and stamina. Further, they should fulfill the

following requirements:

1. Make exercise

an enjoyable experience, fulfill the urge for self-expression and lead

to becoming a habit that stays with one for one’s lifetime.

2. Partake

of the element of play, even as it makes the body supple, tones up

the muscles and the nervous system.

3. Provide

symmetry of movement and due exercise to each and every part of the body

in proper proportion. This should address each and every muscle,

tissue and cell and do so in a speedy manner, to suit today’s severe limitations

of time.

4. It should

strengthen the heart, improve blood circulation and increase the capacity

of the lungs.

5. Further,

it should involve the brain, challenge the nervous system and push both

to their outer limits so as to quicken the reflexes and sharpen the development

of a sound body and an alert mind.

Indian classical

dances, at least, and they are the ones I am most familiar with, fulfill

these criteria to the full. Children who are taught these forms develop

extraordinary powers of observation, expression and stamina and stay with

dance through most of their adult life. Moreover, recent research

has shown that learning a classical dance style like Bharat Natyam can

actually repair common eye defects like far-sightedness and near-sightedness.

Most youngsters who are shortsighted, due either to genetic predisposition

or excessive strain to the eyes have no relief for this condition except

to wear glasses. Indeed, the condition can only worsen and lead to

more strongly powered lens as time goes on. But experience has shown

that the eye movements done in the course of the dance have, in many cases,

made distinct improvement and many youngsters have been able to discard

glasses.

Again, the

question may be asked, can’t simple eye exercises achieve the same results?

Why not? The only problem is that unless a child’s creative faculties

are involved in the exercise and unless he/she is given the pill in a sugar-coated

way, chances are that he will not do that exercise in a routine way.

However, make it a part of play and it is a different thing altogether.

The role of

symmetry and balance in dance is another aspect, which sets it apart from

other exercises such as aerobics. Indian classical dance, for instance,

is built along the complex lines of Yoga and both in its training as well

as its performance, it uses symmetry and balance to create poise.

Like the bee which vibrates its wings thousands of times a minute, the

birds which fly at great height and for unbelievably long spans of time,

the monkeys which climb trees and swing from branch to branch, it is symmetry

which is at the heart of the motion. In Bharat Natyam and indeed

all Indian classical dance styles, whatever movement is done on the left

is done on the right also. There is equal involvement of the arms

and the legs. In each limb, every joint is involved. There

is a rhythm and regularity in each set of movements. In a 3 minute

piece with which the Bharat Natyam recital normally opens, the Alarippu

(literally, the unfolding of petals) there is vigorous exercise of each

limb, symmetrical on both sides, complete with bending, jumping, stretching

and exercising the torso, the waist, the feet, the heels and the toes,

besides the face and the neck. There are a total of 238 movements of the

body in this one quick piece, along with moving the eyebrows, the eyes

and the facial muscles in synchronicity with the rest of the dance.

A child of six or seven can easily perform this while enjoying the crisp

beat and the joyous movements, finishing with a sense of enjoyment and

accomplishment.

Bones and muscles

never degenerate when used regularly and their growth slowly accelerated.

Popular prejudices offer a black-and-white picture of the brain versus

brawn. We are often told that exercise develops the body while reading,

writing and thinking are meant to develop the brain. Nothing could

be more flawed. “A sound brain in a sound body” is not just a saying.

It encapsulates the wisdom of our traditional societies. On the one

hand, we know now that every cerebral activity, like reading and writing,

solving a mathematical problem or participating in an intellectual seminar

like this may be primarily concerned with the brain but it is also of clear

relevance to the body and has a direct impact on it. Certain emotions,

feelings and sensory reactions created by this activity have a bearing,

however subtle, on the body and its health. Similarly, every kind

of exercise has an impact on the brain and the nervous system. There

is the direct effect when we need to plan and think about the exercise

to be performed. At the same time there is the indirect effect due

to the release of adrenalin, certain enzymes, hormones and other chemical

substances in the blood due to these exercises.

Classical dance

involves both the physical and the neurological halves of the body and

dance students develop such a high quotient of ability to remember, calculate

and plan that their academic record, too, improves significantly.

In Indian dance training, the skills that are imparted are almost universal

– from control of the body in every position and movement, except climbing,

to a heightened sense of the body in space and overall alertness.

There is also the refinement of reflex arcs, which control equilibrium

and muscle tone, such as posture and the refinement of the fine neuro-muscular

adjustments of a whole host of cooperating nerve fibres that belong to

both the autonomous and the central nervous system. Now, the autonomous

nervous system connects with the involuntary organs like the heart muscles,

blood vessels of the respiratory system and the muscles of the digestive

tract. Through connections that dance creates between the autonomous

and the central nervous systems, the exercises of the skeletal muscles

bring to bear a tremendous influence on them and heighten the balance between

the reciprocal nerve fibres regulating the heart muscles, blood vessels

and the intestinal tract. This indirect effect is very important

in helping a child grow into a healthy adult, free from disease.

In his book,

“The function of the Human body”, Guy A.C.C. says: “Repetition is the great

secret of success, to allow the whole coordinated performance to become

smooth and satisfactory.” He is talking only of sports and such like

activity. Dance scores over them because it combines in itself a

host of skills like speed, stamina, dexterity, endurance and grace, normally

attained by different exercises such as building stamina by stamina exercises

and speed by another set of exercises. This not only saves time but, as

mentioned earlier, also comes with a high degree of genuine enjoyment.

Moreover,

the source of the drive to dance is in the emotional mechanism, an age

old and invaluable mechanism in the nervous organization of man.

In the course

of one simple phrase, say “ KITA THAKA THA DINGINATHOM” of Bharat Natyam,

the ear listens to the gait, the eye follows the hands, the mind correlates

the hands and feet to work together with the eyes and through repetition

and intense practice a synchronization of the body, the mind and the soul,

the atman, is achieved which is truly phenomenal. Since

these dance styles are all danced in close contact with the ground, the

well-known benefits of acupressure, achieved through a vast variety of

steps, are also part of the healing effect of dance. Together with the

emotional and expressional part of our classical dance tradition, known

as Nritya and Abhinaya (the pure dance is known

as Nritta) there is a great enhancement of dance’s power to bring about

neural integration. It is for these reasons that Indian dancers enjoy

exceptional health, fitness and a disease-free body. Several cases

of poor eyesight, low or high blood pressure and similar problems have

been known to get cured within a few months of training.

While dancing,

a dancer does not open her mouth. This enables the body to release

the exhaled air, which is richer in carbon dioxide, through the nose only.

However difficult the steps, the dancer keeps a cool, calm and pleasant

face and tries to distribute the strain to all parts of the body.

Over a period of time, she develops the ability to get more energy from

less food and spend less energy doing the same kind of work that people

usually do. She is relaxed all the time. Her movements are

tension-free, smooth, without jerks. This is the quality that the

dance imparts. Control of unnecessary movements leads to control

of expenditure of energy, again the route to good health. Above all,

the balance between vigorous dance alternated with moments immediately

thereafter of relaxation, as in a walk back or in the start of an abhinaya

or an expressional segment, allows muscles to relax and to enhance the

oxidative capacity of skeletal muscles. The more the muscle fibres

metabolise alternative substrates like fatty acid ketones, replacing in

part carbohydrates (blood glucose and muscle glycogen) as the major source

of energy for maintaining prolonged contractile activity, the more the

capacity of the dance to do a lot more with much less. That is why

it is said that a dancer’s endurance is far superior to that of even the

best athletes!

MUSIC AS

THERAPY

Coming now

to the healing power of music, again. I will take the case of Indian

classical music, with which I am most familiar, as an example. But

of course the same principles apply to all traditional music systems and

the traditional Korean music that I have heard is obviously very rich in

these therapeutic qualities.

In the beginning,

the Hindus believe, there was Nada Brahma, sound as God.

Almost all the great religions of the world talk about the Word that was

there when the universe first appeared. In Patanjali’s Yoga

Darshan, divinity is defined as a special Being and is expressed

by the original word (Pranav), What this original word was,

nobody is sure, but in major Yoga commentaries it is called

OM. Recent scientific discoveries have also confirmed

that very soon after the Big Bang and before anything else appeared in

the universe, primordial sound waves were produced. This has been

the basis for the Indian belief that Sound is God, Nada Brahma.

Hence the veneration for music and those who create it.

The corpus

of Indian classical music, its theories, philosophies, methodologies and

texts are both varied and vast. Its core is occupied by the belief

that while at the surface level music affects moods, emotions and states

of mind, at a deeper level it is a vehicle of worship and meditation.

Just as sound has been with us through the evolutionary process and is

an integral part of our activities, music, too, being a part of sound,

is a natural outcome of this evolutionary process.

Recent Positron

Emission Tomography (PET) studies conducted by scientists have shown that

certain types of music activate neural pathways similar to those associated

with euphoria and reward. These same pathways are activated in response

to other pleasurable activities like eating and sex, giving rise to emotional

happiness.

In classical

music, as in deep meditation, the mind focuses on a single thought for

a long time. When contemplation, reflection and concentration, samadhi

(together called Sanyam in Patanjali’s works) are done on

a single thought, it produces a sense of well being and relaxation that

stimulates or “tickles” the pituitary gland and releases those chemicals

into the body which produce a sense of pleasure.

Though this

process is not fully understood as yet, it is similar to what we feel when

we hear soul-stirring music. It is known as the principle of equivalence.

The major portion of the 100 billion neurons of the brain act like a laser

on the sound waves of music and create much the same effect as happens

during meditation. Different types of music, sung at different times

of the time cycle and in different seasons stimulate feelings of

sadness, anger, joy and peace.

According to

a great contemporary Indian singer, Pandit Jasraj, he has managed to control

blood pressure with music. He knows two doctors who have used music

to control diabetes, to a significant extent. Music, he believes,

has the power to cure insomnia, headaches, depression and other mental

problems of mankind.

Swami Vasudevananda,

a monk of the Gurudev Siddha Peeth, Ganeshpuri, near Mumbai, explains the

purifying force of chanting of Mantras and of music thus: “Like everything

in this universe, our body is made up of vibrating energy. Even though

our body appears to be dense, every cell of the human body has its own

frequency. There is a sound present in each tiny cell, however minute

the cell might be. Wherever there’s movement, there’s vibration,

there’s sound. The body’s inclination is to be in harmony with itself.

All the different parts of the body, all its cells, want to move in unison,

the way a shoal of fish or a flock of birds does, always moving but never

bumping into each other. When this natural rhythm and harmony is

disrupted in the body, that’s when disease and disorders arise. However,

when the vibrations of the chant sound within our bodies, the cells themselves

respond; they resonate with the pure vibrations of the mantras

(ancient ritual phrases) so that harmony can be restored…. Chanting calms

and clears the mind and actually rejuvenates it. Everything that we listen

to leaves its residue in the mind. Chanting the pure syllables of

the names of God breaks through this mass of varied thoughts and impressions

and opens us to a higher awareness, a clearer perception of ourselves and

the world.”

In normal life,

we utilize only five to ten percent of our total mental potential.

The rest remains untapped due to our inattention to the vast untapped source

of consciousness. In this context, music, like meditation, can be

redefined as a process of becoming increasingly familiar with our deepest

layers of consciousness, from where thought processes originate and where

it merges in the end. Like an ethereal balm, music eliminates psychological,

social and cultural conditioning gathered consciously or unconsciously

over the entire period of the evolution of humankind.

In New Delhi

recently, Dr. Richard P. Brown, a top scientist in the field of advanced

experiments in the ways in which Yogic techniques of breathing,

Pranayama, relieve stress, enable people to connect better

and be healthier, said that these techniques of rapid breathing activate

a nerve, Vagus, that connects with the diaphragm and some of the organs,

including the heart and the brain. As a result of this stimulation,

messages are sent along three different pathways to tell the body to shut

off areas of worry – in the frontal cortex and in the brain stem - and

then to the limbic system, which controls positive emotions, awakening

it. At the same time, says Dr. Brown, hormones like the Cuddle hormone,

experienced during sexual activity and the birth of a baby are released,

encouraging bonding. Amazingly, he says, these Yogic

techniques even control eating disorders. “People often soothe themselves

by eating. But after this course (of special exercises of Yoga)

as the tension drains off, people can actually begin to lose weight.

The hormone that promotes connectedness also has a relationship with a

peptide hormone. Controlling the release of this hormone can in turn

influence hunger and the body’s ability to take only the required amount

of food.”

Is it any wonder

that one of our oldest texts, the Skanda Purana, contains a verse that

emphasizes the value of dance and music thus:

“Uttering

the name of God once, by yourself, is equivalent to hearing His name being

chanted one crore times;

Offering havan

(sacrificial fire) to His glory once is equivalent to uttering His name

one million times yourself;

Singing and

dancing to His glory once is equivalent to offering havan

one million times;

Geyam

Geya Samam Vidhuhu: There is no possible equivalent to the act

of Geyam (a composite word which includes gayan, i.e. singing,

vadya, instrumental music and nritya, dance)

for the glory of God.”

 

 

Shanta Serbjeet Singh is the Chairperson, APPAN-INDIA (Asia Pacific

Performing Arts Network)