Early the next morning, we had a competition. When those shoes were nowhere to be found, the panic and desperation that embodied my stumbling around self at 5’o’clock in the morning was priceless. However, with a sigh of relief, I found my sister’s old shoes and went on my way to the bandhall. When I got there, of course the first place I headed was the lost and found. And voila! There were my shoes!
Then, only a short bit later, a friend of mine stumbled to practice, 30 minutes late, and a complete panic-stricken mess. Christine, an absolute sweetheart, was however a little on the individualist, crazy side—not exactly directors’ favorite. We tried to comfort her as she tearfully recounted her awful morning. When she ended her story with the exclamation of “And now, I won’t be able to march! I can’t find my damn shoes!” I couldn’t help but unleash a smile as bright as the sun. Excitedly, we figured out we had the same shoe size, and before long, she had my extra pair of shoes on her feet and her usual smile on her face.
When a situation works out as perfect as that, like a piece of clockwork, I cannot believe in ‘just coincidence’. How in the world could it work out that I would forget my shoes and bring an extra pair? I can’t help but feel as if I am-we all are- “being helped by hidden hands” ¹. From that moment onwards, I have been an unconditional believer that “Everything happens for a reason.” What is my reason to be here? What is my destiny?
As a student of the ancient Hindu Vedic texts, I have learned since a young age that we all have dharma (a purpose). To fulfill that dharma, break the cycle of reincarnation, and reach moksha (liberation) we must dispel our vasanas (desires). However, the skeptic in me did not believe when my guru taught us that before birth, we choose our parents, our situation to born into, to best facilitate the fulfillment of our desires from the previous life. But now as the strands of my life are coming together, I am beginning to see how my passions, experiences, and ideologies are intertwining into a unifying force which completes me and my quest to find my purpose.
As a child, like every other child, my world was filled with wonder—everything was my passion. I loved drawing, creating, playing in the dirt, dancing, and even cars. Yet as time took its toll, as did for the rest of the children in the world, innocent passion fled from judgment. I realized I was not as good an artist as Mom told me, my creations were silly and that cars were for boys. However, I am fortunate to be left with something to cherish: music.
Music has enveloped me for my entire life. From the time when I was given my first toy keyboard (my favorite toy) to going to musical lessons with my parents, it had a strong presence in my everyday life. My parents further encouraged music by putting my sister and I in piano lessons and the choir group at the temple. It quickly graduated to more than just something to work on; it became a hobby and favorite past time. I could spend hours figuring out the melodies to songs on the radio and favorites from Bollywood movies. As the turmoil of adolescence rolled around, I grew to love pounding out my frustrations on the piano, and pretty soon after joining band, squawking away on the oboe.
Not until my years in high school, though, did I truly began to appreciate music and understand its essence. Music has been around since humans realized they could make sounds. And even before. It is the song the birds whistle out into morning glory, the mournful howl of the coyote, the cricket chirps in the ambiance. Almost all religions use music as a form of worship and praise. In fact, musical notation came about from the hymns of medieval Europe. There are didgeridoos from Australia, sitars from India, maracas from Latin America. Even though from all around the globe, they are all sounds everybody can appreciate. Music is unlike a foreign language- one does not have to learn how to understand music. Music has no vocabulary that needs to be acquired. The essence of music is its universality. And that is my passion.
So music is one of my dearest passions, and I am fortunate to be born in a situation which wholeheartedly supports it. But what good does that do in the world?
I like to think I am more than what I like and dislike, what I love and hate. While my passions drive me, my experiences are foundation of who I am. My encounters with the world, some happy and others more harsh, shape my ideals, perception and understanding of life. In my philosophy, they are the “everything” which leads to a “reason” somewhere. I believe they have “put [me] on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for [me], and the life that [I] ought to be living is the one [I am] living.”²
For this pivotal “reason,” I suppose, I have been given a whole spectrum of life to taste a bit of. I was graciously born healthy into a family provided more than enough to allow me to flourish. Yet, this family which I love with all of my being has taught what it means to live in a broken family. I have seen the effects of parents whose vast majority of communication occurs through raised voices. I have been the one to pull them apart time and time again, consoling and listening to each side, knowing once we kids are grown up, they can finally go their separate ways and find peace within themselves. The most heartbreaking, though, is comforting an impressionable baby brother, tears streaming down my own face, knowing his confusion and fear, and that his innocence is slipping away far faster than is fair. My heart is opened to the pain of all whose home lives are not where they could be.
My heart is opened, too, to those who are feeling alone. During the course of my eighth grade year, three of my closest friends moved away. The next year was a rocky one, and unconsciously, at first, I began to lose weight. Only in retrospect, when I was miraculously assigned a 10-page research project in sophomore year English class on anorexia nervosa, did I realize I had been edging down that treacherous road. And also, my heart is opened to those who had been sexually abused. A terrifying experience, especially when alone in a foreign land, the accompanying duet of ignorance and self-blame are equally haunting. While not the ideal experiences, I now have a deep comprehension and perception that could be attained no other way.
Thus, as I ponder upon my purpose with the road I have come down, I cannot deny myself that I have gained a deep sense of empathy, a passion, in a sense. Listening to people has always come naturally to me—my first counseling session was in 2nd grade with two girls fighting over a cookie. Now, I am fully prepared to extend my love by doing so. As Professor Bump states, “It is a wonderfully healing experience simply to be lovingly openly heard by others, knowing that you are free to express how you feel without being ignored, judged, advised, or interrupted.” ³
I know I am meant to spend my life comforting and healing. Yet, I hope to do so in a manner which takes my foundation and runs with it! I hope my passion for listening and my passion for music can be “viewed as one, with correlative functions, and as gradually by successive combinations converging, one and all [form] a true centre.”⁴ And I think I have found a way to unite it all.
Music therapy “is an interpersonal process in which the therapist uses music and all of its facets-physical, emotional, mental, social, aesthetic, and spiritual-to help clients to improve or maintain their health.” Music therapy can be used to treat patients with physical, mental and emotional needs. Using music, the universal language, appeals to me as one of the most brilliant ways to increase the effectiveness of healing. And because it is a relatively young science, the possibilities are therefore so endless, and childlike creativity is high demand. The more and more I learn about music therapy, the more and more I cannot wait to be helping people, loving people, and healing them so they may, too, find their “reason.”
“I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”⁵
1. Campbell, Joseph. The Power of Myth. pp 120, 149. (X71)
2. Campbell, Joseph. The Power of Myth. pp 120, 149. (X71)
3. Bump, Jerome. “Listening, as essential aspect of Class Participation.” Course Anthology. 2008 (X88B)
4. Campbell, Joseph. The Power of Myth. pp 120, 149. (X71)
5. Campbell, Joseph. The Power of Myth. pp 120, 149. (X71)
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