Sahajia - Songs of Sahaja Yoga
This album offers the listener an experience of Sahaja Yoga through songs composed by Lalan Fakir, Haure Goshai and many other poets, old and new, from the Sahajiya Yoga tradition. The songs describe an experience of longing and solitude, Ananda, the pure joy of divine madness unfolding in the sweet sadness of the sadhaka. These songs awaken our sleeping sel…
Music presentation from the Good Company archive.
Parvathy Baul is a singer, painter and storyteller from West Bengal. She is also trained in the Baul order and studied visual arts at Kala Bhavana University in Shantiniketan. Since 1965 she has performed throughout her native Bengal, across India, and internationally. Her music has delighted audiences from the United States to Japan.
The Bauls are a group of mystical musicians from Bengal whose music forms a traditional national music that reaches back through the centuries. This tradition deeply influenced the poetry and music of Rabindranath Tagore, among countless others. In 2005 the Baul tradition was included by UNESCO on the list of “Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.”
The CD is a double album and contains the live concert from Alhambra, Geneva, Switzerland, as well as the studio recording of the songs. Parvathy tells in English the message and history of the songs, and in the booklet you will also find the translated lyrics.
This album offers the listener an experience of Sahaja Yoga through songs composed by Lalan Fakir, Haure Goshai and many other poets, old and new, from the Sahajiya Yoga tradition. The songs describe an experience of longing and solitude, Ananda, the pure joy of divine madness unfolding in the sweet sadness of the sadhaka. These songs awaken our sleeping self and bring us into Sahaja, into the “present,” into the “here and now.”
“Music opens the heart; music can be a vehicle for transcending, transforming, and bringing a direct experience of inner presence, ‘here and now.’ In Sanskrit we find a sloka, ‘Sheelpena Sangeetha Sreshthaha’ - ‘Music is the highest art and path of expression.’ A Baul would say, ‘I sing and dance to impress my beloved, so that the beloved may come and dwell in my heart.’
In all our musical traditions, musicians were essentially Upasakas (spiritual practitioners), more precisely Naas (sound) Upasakas. In India, music is more than entertainment; the great masters of music were not considered merely artists: music is believed to be a direct path of connection with the divine.” Parvathy Baul
Artist: Parvathy Baul