Mixing Music, Water and Meditation

Traditionally, achieving a meditative state has been associated with silence, taking your mind into a world of total peace where you can be at one with the Universe. However, if it suits you, there is no reason why you should not use music to help you achieve a meditative state.

For those of us who really appreciate, and can get absorbed in, music, it can be a way of becoming relaxed and taking our minds away from all the surrounding distractions. This can be a first stage in reaching a state of meditation, in which you may later not even notice the music. Using music can be especially useful for a beginner at meditation, not yet skilled in eliminating the surrounding distractions immediately themselves.

For many people who live in busy and noisy cities and towns, it is not always, if ever, possible to eliminate all sound. In such situations music is also very useful. You could say the music is a distraction from the distractions, but if the music can achieve its purpose, that does not matter. The music can be calming even in the noisiest of locations.

One variation of the music meditation may not be practical for most people. However, combining music and water can be especially powerful. When I lived in East Sussex, England, I was fortunate enough to have a hydrotherapy pool nearby. It was a small private pool, a haven of peace, with warm water for people to relax and exercise in. More often than not, I had the pool to myself, and thus the room.

The owner had set up a sound system, and always asked what type of music customers wanted. He introduced me to Enigma, and the length of their album was about the same as the length of my hour bookings. I dutifully did my post operative exercises, but also had some long spells each session just lying on the water soaking up the music, clearing my mind.

With hindsight, those sessions became like a floating meditation, with a background of ambient music. It was a few years before I discovered yoga meditation, so I had not recognized what I was doing as anything to do with meditation, but it was. So, if you have access to a pool, especially if you can have music playing, and know how to float, then give it a try. If, like me, you cannot float unaided, just have a fingertip on the sidebar to aid you.