About his epiphany of the sacred role music would play in his life when he turned from making music for income to making music for healing, Todd says,
"I began exploring types of music where sound itself became a meditative trance-inducing vehicle which quickly and consistently put me in "The Zone", that space where one loses all sense of ego-self and linear time. I began to understand how certain sounds and forms of music put me in a state of deep relaxation/meditation and trance." Such a devoted attitude toward music led to his passion and mission of "helping people reconnect with their truest and most authentic Selves, leading to transformation, healing, and evolution."
This use of a gong also speaks to the ubiquitous "OM" of the Orient. "OM" is a sonic symbol of the primordial Word of the World in which unformed and undifferentiated matter (Genesis 1:2) forms as reflected in the line, "And God said, "let there be light" at which point the void divides and becomes everything from me typing to you reading. (Genesis 1:3).
Now this verse may not point to the Hindu OM. However, in the Book of Kings, it is said that the voice of God was not in any creature, plant, etc. Yet, the person meditating found the word of God as a light humming sound. "OM?!"
God, in other words, did not create the world with Hebrew, English, Spanish or any other language. Through music, chanting, and toning our ears and minds transcend the divisions of language, uniting the disparate in one Spirit.
Ok, I hear you wonderful critics saying Hindu being Indian and Christians being in the Middle East, there probably was some interaction. Great point. Yet, in Native American myth, the Keres Pueblo said of "Thinking Woman:" "So humming and singing She formed them. Humming and singing, She placed them where they belong." (Grandmothers of the Light: A Medicine Woman's Sourcebook by Paula Gunn Allen (1992, Beacon Press)). The interactions of Europeans with the Keres were several centuries after the writing of the Bible.
Do you see now why "song" minus the "g" is "son?" Thus, the Word, the Song, the OM is our Father within many teachings and perspectives.
Genesis 1:2 used primarily feminine nouns to describe the unmanifest state, such as Tehom (the Waters), Ruach (Spirit and also identified as Sophia Episteme, Wisdom and Understanding). Why are these feminine names? For the same reason that even during her time as a fetus our mother contained the eggs that would eventually become us reading and writing. Likewise Thinking Woman is female because She conceives and those conceptions are akin to thoughts emerging from our brains. The potential of those thoughts were always there. It is by the marriage of the outer world (the male) to the inner (female) that a conception emerges. Perhaps the relationship between yin and yang is vibratory, just like music.
This story of the Keres Pueblo was long before the Europeans or Asian contact with the Americas. Indeed, it was much longer than when they met up with the Europeans.
In the Native American tribe called the Kogis, this was the song of Aluna who placed everything where they belonged via Her song (take off the "g" and you have son, an accident?) Men are the shining manifestation of the creative inner world. And their job is to be seminal to continue the creative process. Thus, the Son becomes a Father.
This arising from nothing is not in times past. It is eternally now. If you want deep change, go into the same state as Genesis 1:2. As Meister Eckhart put it: "Be in the same state as when you were not." And, here we are 7 to 8 centuries later with physicists such as David Bohm working at the early part of last century finding that the core of existence (manifestation) is non-existence (the unmanifest).
This unmanifest holds all potentials within it. Being empty of one's self and one's conditioning is the key to deep change. The question is, "can we let go of our conditioning?" Or do we remain good little pigeons pecking for a small morsel of food?
We need people like Todd to light our way into getting past all this conditioning so we can birth a new world. Like the Pied Piper, he can lead us into a different world with his music. Not the new world order of the Bush family. His new order is the old order, top down. In fact, his new world order may be along the line of fascism. Its that top-down world that we need to let go of.
We need a New World Order more akin to Rob Kall's "Bottom Up." The question is, "are we willing to engage in activities that could take us into this new realm of experience and governance?" Can we dogmatic thinkers let go and open up to all? Yes, definitely speak your critiques. In fact, it is from critiques that we learn.
Our power is, ultimately, our inner space. Debates and critiques only take us deeper into this place. In fact, arguments bring forth knowledge. Isn't this what its about?
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