The Yoga of Music
and Swamiji
By Rev. Jorge Alfano B.MSc, C.H.
I remember back in 1981 I was just getting started in NY and I was looking for a yoga school so, I came to the Sivananda NY Center on 24 str. in Manhattan. I was a 22 years old musician, an emigrant from Argentina. I had the amazing fortune of walking into the center and the smell of beautiful incense and the mysterious and heavenly sound of Indian music played on the Bansuri flute (Krishna bamboo flute) by Master G.S. Sachdev was so embracing and magical that I knew I will never leave!.
Add to this that the gentleman behind the welcoming desk realized my state of trance and joy and he proceeded to invite me to dinner with the rest of the people in the backyard paradise garden where everyone was enjoying his cooking and talking about yoga and spirituality ! .
My experience couldn’t get better , I just walked into another dimension……… then I realized that this humble and luminous men who invited me in was Swami Vishnudevananda , the great yogi from India who taught thousands of people about yoga, meditation and spirituality. I was in heaven, felt like home, this made my straggling life in NY a lot easier.
Since I started practicing yoga at the center I notice the continuous presence of music, special music, not your everyday music from the radio. I
I was very attracted to this and to everything Swamiji had to say, I attended as many Satsangs (especial meditations) as I could where I learn a lot of the sacred chants of India ( Kirtan ) and started to pay close attention to all of the teachings specially those related to sound, music and spirituality.