Discovering Sound Healing with Shweta Oza, Ph.D

We are thrilled to welcome Shweta S. Oza, Ph.D as the newest member of our NSEV Healing clinical team!

Shweta is a certified NSEV Sound Healer, Gong Avatar, Kundalini Yoga Teacher, and Spiritual Response Therapy (SRT) Practitioner. She has been on yogic and healing path of consciousness expansion for more than 15 years.

Native of India, Shweta was born into a yogic lifestyle and at a young age developed a deep drawing to the understanding of one’s connection to the subtle realm. Upon completing her undergraduate studies in Physics & Mathematics and Graduate studies in Business, she taught Undergraduates and Executives in Business Programs and provided total business consulting to entrepreneurs. Her journey to the USA to continue further education led to an MBA from Univ. of Delaware and culminated in a Ph.D. in Business from Univ. of Maryland at College Park, finally bringing her to Univ. of Miami School of Business, where she taught, researched and served as an Asst. Professor of Marketing.

During her time in the USA, she deepened the connection to her primal roots. In the process of self-healing and self-mastery, she found SRT (Spiritual Response Therapy), Kundalini Yoga, the Art and Science of Sound - especially the Gong, and NSEV Healing.  Witnessing the life-enhancing positive impact these healing techniques had on her, she embarked on a path to systematically learn each of these, progressively integrating them and embodying their wisdom. It is from this well integrated, embodied wisdom space, that she facilitates the consciousness expanding journey of self-learning, healing and empowered growth for all that she works with. 

We had a few questions for Shweta and we really enjoyed her insightful answers.

What is Sound Healing?

Stated very simply, sound healing is the science of synchronizing and harmonizing our internal vibration to the vibration of the universe. It is what the ancient yogis called NAAD – the science of Sound.

My favorite quote on sound sums it up nicely:

“A person does not hear sound only through the ears; he hears sound through every pore of his body. It permeates the entire being, and according to its particular influence either slows or quickens the rhythm of the blood circulation; it either wakens or soothes the nervous system. It arouses a person to greater passions or it calms him by bringing him peace. According to the sound and its influence a certain effect is produced. Sound becomes visible in the form of radiance. This shows that the same energy which goes into the form of sound before being visible is absorbed by the physical body. In that way the physical body recuperates and becomes charged with new magnetism.” -            Hazrat Inayat Khan, Mysticism of Sound

The power of sound vibration has been demonstrated in modern day revolutionary research by Alfred Tomatis, M.D., recognized by French Academics of Science and Medicine for his clinical work in hearing and sound. He surmised that chanting functions to energize monks by awakening their field of consciousness.  This became evident when a group of monks became extremely ill and lethargic. After several doctors could not resolve what was the cause of their rare illness, an intensive investigation showed that days prior to becoming ill, the monks were instructed to stop their 3 hours of daily chanting to complete other task around the monastery. The moment they were instructed to resume their Gregorian chants, the monks miraculously recovered. The simple melody and harmonic vibrations served as healing instruments for the monks.  (ref. The Healing Power of Sound by Dr. Mitchell Gaynor)

What has been your Sound Healing Journey so far?

We are all entrained to sounds right from conception. We think of them as words because we have associated certain meanings to certain sounds. E.g. the sound MAA is mother and DAA is father in some form or other across languages. But when we take the layer of languages away, at the root it is just a sound, a vibration. And I was entrained to the sounds of Vedic chants – which essentially are sound arrangements for creating or invoking specific vibratory frequency - from my childhood. I did not know why and yet I always gravitated to certain chants at certain times and always found a sense of belonging with them. During my Kundalini Yoga teacher training, this connection to the sound further deepened and I was introduced to the sound of the Gong. Soon after, I was divinely led to study the art and science of sound – especially the Gong at the Gong Avatar Academy, Miami. In the consciousness expanding journey of mastering the self, I further deepened my connection to the Gong and playing it along with all sound tools from tuning forks, to singing bowls and crystal bowls, to tinchas, etc. It has been a lot like homecoming – connecting to the sounds of my childhood but now with wisdom and reverence. During this time, through certain events in my life, I started coming to Daniel Atchison-Nevel for my own acupuncture treatments. Over time, I was so intrigued by the Non-Somatic Extraordinary Vessels that I decided to immerse myself in the study of these vessels and when I realized that there is a way to merge my sound training to the application of NSEV, I was on it. That path took me to my training in Acutonics – where I learnt to work with sound in an Asian Medicine overlay. And that brings me here to the NSEV Healing and Acupuncture Clinic, where I merge these lineages to facilitate vibratory healing through Sound for all that come by.

For somebody who has never had sound healing done before, what can they expect?

Most of the time, what I have encountered is people thinking sound healing equals  only group Gong Baths, or Crystal and Tibetan Bowl sound events. Some people have also encountered it solely as working with tuning forks on their body. My approach to sound healing is one-on-one and as unique to each person as they are in this world. The tools may be the same, yet the healing is custom-ordered. When a person comes for a sound healing session, I will have my initial conversation with them, in which we gather the context and the purpose of their visit. Then in the sacred space of the sound current, I work to assist them on their healing journey. The sessions use a combination of tuning forks, bowls and gong. I also use crystals for their vibration enhancing and augmenting properties and certain chants as necessary. The sessions are for everybody; some folks just want to experience the power of sound and may come in occasionally, and others having experienced the transformative healing aspect of sound have incorporated the sessions as a part of their self-care, self-healing, self-advancing process.

What can you tell us about the Gong?

Gong is an instrument that dates to the Bronze Age. Yogi Bhajan, the Master of Kundalini Yoga says, "The Gong is the first and last instrument for the human mind. There is only one thing that can supersede and command the human mind, and that is the sound of the Gong. It is the first sound in the universe, the sound that created this universe. It's the basic creative sound. To the mind, the sound of the gong is like a mother and father that gave it birth. The mind has no power to resist a gong that is well played." All the sound healing sessions include Gong playing. The extended session includes a longer immersion in the sound current of the Gongs.

You are also offering Meditation sessions here. Can you speak a bit to that?

Yes, so when we meditate, we are essentially recalibrating our vibration through the power of breath and sound (if the meditation incorporates sound). I work with each client to teach them a meditation – NSEV meditations or others that are in my learnings to best support them in creating and maintaining the vibratory frequency that best serves them and facilitates their self-healing process. When somebody comes to me for Meditation session, we first assess what is the context in which they are and what is it they would like and from there find a practice that serves them and walk them through it. Anything you want to share in closing? It is well researched by mind-body scientist that what happens to us physiologically reflects that what is going on at emotional and spiritual level for us. I have resonated a lot with this ancient yogic view of dis-ease - When we are in dis-harmony within ourselves and with the cosmos/ the universe, we are in a state of disease. Utilizing Sound and Breath Techniques is a powerful way to harmonize ourselves with the cosmos, thus integrating ourselves into a state of EASE. Also, my understanding of Dan’s NSEV approach is that by dissolving old calcified non serving patterns, we create a space to birth self serving patterns. Both sound healing and meditation support this dissolving at all levels of our being.

A poem for the Winter Solstice

“...divine love exists...these words are proof...”

Tao

Tao.

To begin, that what we speak of, is not Tao.

That said, we can say this about Tao, if while saying this we understand that what we say is our words pointing to Tao, not Tao.

Tao may be viewed as the source and womb of creation. Unnamable, inexpressible, indefinable, Tao is the natural universe as a whole and the Way of nature as whole. Undifferentiated wholeness and the womb of the limitless manifest things.

Many people, spiritual seekers, are looking for some “major” experience of undifferentiated wholeness: Tao. Their seeking seems to often take them from the very Tao they are seeking.

It doesn’t have to be that Way. Deeply experiencing Tao can happen in the little moments. Any moment. This moment.

This moment we can experience Tao, be Taoing, by deeply witnessing a single breath, a single thought or a single embodied physical sensation we are experiencing as our emotional world.

When we experience Tao, this Way,  the Tao of Taoing becomes limitless.

Just as we can experience “wetness” with a single drop of water we experience Tao with a single breath. This single breath is simultaneously all the Tao (as manifest in this moment, this now, Tao) and just  one manifestation of Tao.

A single drop of water contains all that water contains.  

Simultaneously, water is experienced and manifests limitlessly; a single drop, in a cup, as gentle rains to hurricanes, mists and dew and clouds, rivers from gentle to rough, oceans with all its tides and as sweat, blood and tears.

From its subtlest & unseen manifestation to its coarsest & most visible we are engulfed & embedded in the “sea” of Tao. An undifferentiated wholeness that is infinite, constantly in a state of transformation & change and forever (through what we call life and death) giving birth to itself.

This oneness, this Tao, enfolds within and holds us in her womb at all times …and beyond what we call time.

Completely and always accessible and well beyond the grasp of human experience and comprehension we are embedded in the cosmic womb: taoing.

Grateful for each breath and deeply blessed from the great unknowing. Alive in the cosmic womb limitlessly giving birth to herself. 

Tao

10 things you can do today to experience joy

1.     Take a slow meandering walk around your neighborhood, without your phone.

2.     Write, scribble, draw on a piece of paper with colored markers or crayons

3.     Listen to birdsong

4.     Look at the moon

5.     Find your favorite flower… in your yard, garden or nearby park

6.     Turn off the lights, light a candle and have a conversation by candlelight

7.     Prepare and drink a cup of tea, slowly

8.     Spend time talking or playing with a child

9.     Sing a song you love, out loud, really loud, alone or with friends.

10.  Write a list of 10 things you can do today to experience joy.  

Extraordinary Vessel Haiku

 "The Extraordinary Vessels"  are an integral part of a simple,  profound, integrated, holistic worldview where the universe is viewed as constantly giving birth to itself.  The extraordinary vessels are viewed as the primordial fields where this cosmic dance plays out.  They are the foundation of one of the world’s oldest systems of healing and cultivation evolving originally in ancient China. The Extraordinary Vessels were used in cultivation practices (Shamanism, Alchemy, Qi Gong) long before they appeared as part of acupuncture, where they are the deepest, most primordial pathways. 

Over the last thirty years, I have written thousands of words about the extraordinary vessels, invoked them daily in meditation more than ten thousand times, and used them in the clinic for treatments more than one hundred thousand times. Through all this I have only just begun to explore the limitless depth and breadth of what the extraordinary vessels encompass. It has been and is a humbling experience that has enriched my life in more ways than I could ever describe. I offer up this little movie of haiku/not haiku and hope it shares a taste of the extraordinary vessels. 

The moon as meditation teacher and guide

It is my deepest belief that the world’s earliest meditation & cultivation practices grew out of and are deeply embedded in our ancient, primordial relationship with the moon. 

Our brains are busier than ever before. We live in a time of information and sensory overload. Although we have more "time saving" devices than at any time in human history most modern people are experiencing time in a narrow, linear and quantitative way that is the source of much stress. But time is not linear. The world unfolds in cycles and in our deepest selves we know this. This dissonance between how we are living our lives "out there" and what we experience deep "in there" is the source of much of our modern angst.  Cultivating  our relationship to the moon revives and develops our instinctual and intuitive relationship to and understanding of the cyclical nature of time and the relationship between the mind/body/spirit and the undifferentiated cosmos.

When “hanging out “ with the moon, our vital functions are slowed and exterior inputs are subdued. This allows us to notice the flux at the center of the stillness, the universe giving birth to itself.  It is here that we foster the primordial, undifferentiated wholeness that lies at the womb of our existence.

As we immerse in the moon and our deepest selves we explore, engage and cultivate our archaic consciousness and our relationship to our selves, to the world outside our selves and to our unique place in the time/space continuum.

With careful cultivation we can enhance mental clarity & imagination, ease emotional processing and expression & cultivate deep spiritual connection to our selves and the world in which we live

This cannot be accomplished by reading books or studied with equipment or measured or dissected.

When we cultivate with the moon as teacher and guide we enter the domain of devotion, compassion, passion and love. It is a descent into the slow, still dance of the Dao where one can notice the universe breathing as it gives births to itself. The deep pulse, flux, at the core of it all nourishes us.

Nurturing our relationship to the moon and deepening our meditation practice can assuage our modern neurosis and anxiety. As we listen carefully to the ancient wisdom people that still exist and dance on the deepest level of our consciousness we lay the basis for our understanding and knowing of our unity with the world.

Moon teaches us the beauty of constancy, the grace of the deep knowing that repetition brings. This is a genuine peace that comes with the celebration of cycles and experiencing the world in her truth as cosmic waves dancing,

Mother Moon connects us in the most conscious way possible to our own breath, our own heartbeat, our own constant falling and catching of our selves that is our moving through the world.

Moon comforts us and connects us to the continuous flux that is our human existence.

Moon plunges us deep: past our desperations,  into our core,  perfuming and permeating us with a positive awareness that is the foundation of a happy, holy existence.

Many believe keeping a positive attitude is an invitation to avoid all emotional processing and expression. This certainly is not the case. Yes, a positive attitude is at the very core of our being. Yes, a positive attitude is there to be dropped into at any moment. A "positive attitude" lives in the deep sea on which all human struggles occur. Our emotions, the anger, the fear, the grief, the worry that surge to the surface during our struggles provide an opportunity for expression and assimilation that when wholly engaged can be healing.

Our emotions are not demons to be slain nor are they demons to be avoided in pursuit of a positive attitude. Deep exploration of our emotions embraces the ride of ourselves and allows space and time for expression and processing. It is a genuine healing process.

Cultivating our relationship to the moon, our nearest celestial neighbor,  shows us a unique way to engage & navigate our selves and the world with the greatest ease.

The healing process plays out simultaneously on the physical, mental and spiritual level. They are, in fact, three aspects of the same whole. Struggling with illness or challenging times is difficult but also allows us an accelerated opportunity for healing, growth and embracing the totality of the human experience in a heightened way.

Moon meditationallows a similar opportunity to engage this deep healing and growth process. Of course meditation immersion, is a conscious decision and under our control in a way an illness or challenging times are not.

But there is something to be said for the choosing as well. To consciously and intentionally retreat to a place, both internally and externally, with a shared group is a challenge to our ordinary selves that live our ordinary lives. The radical shift in our external environment, if only for a short while, allows for profound and deep internal exploration of all the processes that make us human. To collectively and individually explore and engage the moon and our deepest selves through a myriad of meditative and cultivation practices provides the grace and space for harmonious transformation of the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual for each of us as individuals and for all of as an inseparable whole. 

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Conscious creation of context: Yangwei - Outer Gate

Differentiating the undifferentiated. Fashioning form out of the formless.  Easing beyond the edge. Embodying the single cycle within the limitless swirl. Creating some-thing out of no-thing. Such is the work of the conscious life.

Consciously creating context out of the contextless. This is the primal & holy work of the Yangwei, our Outer Gate.

Existing boundaries are the pre-existing differentiating work of those who came before us. Moving beyond the existing boundary allows us to engage our own capacity for “boundary making,” our own capacity for the creation of context. An elegant and engaged and unpolluted Yangwei responds with innate intelligence to all manifest contexts within time and space.

Our Yangwei allows us to navigate gracefully beyond the edge of our existing, comfortable contexts into the less familiar, less differentiated world.  A harmonious Yangwei moves confidently and quiescently into the undifferentiated wholeness that enfolds and embraces us all.The creative process (the process of creation) moves us and requires us to move from the direct experience of the world in its formless form of undifferentiated wholeness or less differentiated wholeness towards the making of form, the creation of context, of meaning.

To an extent, each “creating of form” is a re-creation of our original forming of ourselves.

To an extent, each “creating of context” is the re-creation of the original formation of our cosmos.

It is a process that must be expressed at its earliest stages symbolically, then metaphorically and finally, when at all possible, through the formation of structured language, structured process, structured institutions, and structured structures in the way of gates, roads, buildings and the world we “live” in.Each structuring, each making of a form out of the formlessness moves the edge and requires us to reach further into the depths of our undifferentiated space to move beyond the edge. The human capacity for doing so (stored in the Chong, Ren, Du)  has become less fluid, less graceful, as we “settle into” and “settle for”  the boundaries we have constructed.

Our capacity to meet and creatively define and construct our world has become calcified, rigid, tamed, more civilized.

We “know” what we “like” in advance of the experience. Our ideas are constructed and rigidly adhered to no matter the reality of the world as if flows at us.

We export our expertise to navigate the world to outside “experts.”

There is a comfort to be found in all of this to be sure. There is a sense of security, or order. The Way is mapped and therefore safer and more predictable.

But the Map is not the territory.

Our ever increasing reliance on Pre-Existing & Pre-Constructed maps of the Way have deeply constrained and contracted our capacity for expanding out into world and navigating our Way with grace and ease.

We are embodying this hyper-contraction and it manifests in our lives and bodies as deep sense of isolation, depression, stress, stiffness, pains, headaches and a loss of connection with the limitlessly gracious and giving world in which we live.

To be free of this “pain” we must engage our capacities for meeting the world with our senses literally touching, seeing, hearing, smelling, breathing in and eating all that is momentarily outside us with awareness and gratitude.  The ordinary is the extraordinary. In this process we learn from the natural world outside of us, both from our successes and our failures. Along the Way, we gather a sense of confidence and ease as we navigate the magnificence that is our world.

"World’s Largest Shared Acupuncture’ Event a Surprisingly Spiritual Experience"

Healing Explorations & Shared, Group Acupuncture is one of our greatest joys. NSEV acupuncturists are offering these type of events on a smaller scale at an ever increasing rate. It's hard to believe it's been five years since we ALL GATHERED TOGETHER and had an event of this magnitude. The last time we did the  the Huffington Post called it, "a surprisingly spiritual experience".   

Check out what the Huffington Post had to say!

For all of us in the NSEV Healing community  it's  a truly remarkable experience to gather together so many healthcare providers and healers from such diverse backgrounds all with the single intention of creating a genuinely fun and fantastic and  HEALING EVENT  for our beloved South Florida community. 

We are once again honored to partner with University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine's iCamp program whose participation makes this event possible. 

We are thrilled that ALL PROCEEDS will go to benefit the wonderful work of THE Wu Project

What is a Healing Exploration & Shared, Group Acupuncture

NSEV Healing Explorations combine practices from a variety of the worlds’ wisdom and healing traditions including music, art, movement, meditation, massage and more to provide a compelling & direct experience of acupuncture's extraordinary vessels. The experience is designed from a worldview inspired by a Chinese traditional healing paradigm. Acupuncture’sextraordinary vessels represent and engage the primordial fields that shape our external and internal realities and provide the core functions mandatory to human existence. .

A shared, group acupuncture experience engages the vessels to provide a deep exploration into our individual and collective selves. Each participant receives the identical four acupuncture points to access one of the eight extraordinary vessels. The vessel is then accessed in the individual and in the group as a whole. Our relationship to our selves and the world outside us, how we move through the world & receive the world and our connection to the world are cultivated when we engage the extraordinary vessels 

Check out the details and please join us for this remarkable event!

Healing Exploration & Shared, Group Acupuncture

• Saturday, April 22, 2017
• 7:30pm  9:30pm
• Miami Marriott, Biscayne Bay: Grand Ballroom

Our Constantly Changing Cosmos

Our Constantly Changing Cosmos

We tend to think of ourselves as a “permanent structure” to which change is occuring.  Perhaps it would be more useful to view ourselves as a constantly, changing phenomena that is “structuring change” in particular and predictable ways.

We (the I part of we)  are one of the 10,000 (limitless) things that emerge from this universal play of constant change. We are simultaneously acted on by this change and are the act of change itself.

Here we can see structuring as a swirling, spiraling dance between constructing and deconstructing, forming and unforming, gathering and letting go, birthing and dying.

The very nature of this changing dynamic is itself constantly changing in time and space.

What is perceived from one perspective, as a death,  is from another perspective, a birth.

What is one moment a death is the next moment a birth.

As a particular structuring phenomena moving through time and space we interact with and are interacted on by an infinite number of other “change structuring phenomena”. We are simultaneously awash in and engorged with the structuring and destructuring universe that is the cosmos and beyond.

This constant change can be experienced in cycles. The breath cycle, the daily cycle, the monthly cycle, the yearly cycle, our life cycle. Our inhalation & exhalations, our rising from and going to sleep, the dark moon to the full moon, winter to summer and our birth to our death.

All & always the constant interplay that is our constantly changing cosmos.