Healing Course FAQ

It is a free online course in Himalayan sound healing, taught in the Nepali tradition. It has four courses and thirty-six lessons, from playing your first bowl to twelve-chakra work, and it comes from the working notebook of a Nepali sound healer. Everything is on the course page.

Yes. All four courses and all thirty-six lessons are free to read, with no account, no email address and nothing to pay. The only thing that costs money is an optional printed or emailed certificate at the end of a course, and you never need one to finish.

The material comes from Sunita Poudel, a certified sound healer in Kathmandu. She wrote the notebook during her own training and used it in her sessions. We organised it into lessons and filled the gaps where it assumed knowledge, but the sequences, timings and bowl placements are hers, as she was taught them.

Most courses cover the seven chakras and their colours, then stop. This one keeps going: it teaches both the Vedic and the Tibetan system, the rule that working root to crown is therapy while crown to root is healing, warm water therapy for elderly clients, Panchatatva five-element cleansing, an 18-day treatment programme, and the twelve-chakra system.

Course One covers holding, striking and rimming a bowl, the seven notes and your first session. Course Two gives one lesson to each chakra. Course Three is about working on other people, including sound massage, warm water therapy and the 18-day programme. Course Four covers the twelve-chakra system, brainwave entrainment and Reiki with bowls.

Course One: Foundation has 8 lessons. Course Two: The Seven Chakras has 11. Course Three: Healing Methods has 9. Course Four: Twelve Chakras has 8. That makes 36 lessons in total, and each course ends with a short quiz.

Both. The two systems give different notes to the same chakra and run in opposite directions, and Course Three teaches each one and why they should not be mixed in a single session. For a quick overview first, read our comparison of Vedic, Tibetan and Western sound healing.

The direction you work in. Moving the bowls from root to crown is therapy. Moving from crown to root is healing. It is one rule, taught in Course One, and it shapes every session in the later courses.

People who own a bowl and suspect they are not getting much from it. People who meditate and want a way in. Massage therapists, yoga teachers and bodyworkers adding sound to what they already do. And people with no interest in treating anyone, who simply want a quiet practice that works.

No. You do not need any musical training, and you do not need to believe anything in particular. The course teaches the tradition as it was received, and you can take from it what is useful to you.

No. Every lesson is an open page on our website. There is no login, no enrolment and no email list. Bookmark the lesson you are on and come back whenever you like.

Start with Course One: Foundation, even if you already play. It assumes nothing, and the rules it sets out, such as which direction you work in, shape everything in the later courses.

Yes, every lesson is open and you can read any of them at any time. The courses do build on each other, though, so if you skip ahead and something does not make sense, the answer is usually in an earlier lesson.

Course One takes about two hours to read and roughly a week to practise properly. The later courses are longer and are meant to be practised, not just read.

No. There is no schedule and nothing expires. The lessons stay online, so you can work through them at whatever pace suits your practice and return to any lesson whenever you need it.

One bowl is enough to begin. Course One is built around a single bowl, and Lesson 1.4 explains why an A or B bowl is the most forgiving first choice. Our guide to choosing a singing bowl covers the practical side. Courses Two and Three assume a seven-bowl chakra set and Course Four uses twelve, but you can read and understand every lesson without them.

Use our Live Singing Bowl Tuner. Play the bowl near your phone or computer and it shows the note in seconds. Do this before Lesson 1.5, where the notes start to matter.

No. Course One is self-practice only, and everything in it concerns your own body and your own bowl. Working on other people begins in Course Three, which covers client intake, contraindications and the limits of what a sound practitioner should take on.

Each course ends with a quiz of ten questions with four options each. Answer all ten correctly and the page shows your completion code. The code is free.

No. A wrong answer points you back to the lesson that covers it, and you can try again as many times as you need. The questions are there to make sure the material landed, not to catch you out.

Simply take that course's quiz again. Answer all ten questions correctly and the same code appears.

No. The lessons and the completion code are free, and nothing is locked. A certificate is only for people who would like a formal record of finishing.

Certificates are optional and priced per course.

Open the certificate for your course, enter your completion code and the name you want printed on it, and place the order. Choose your certificate format on that page. Emailed certificates are sent within two working days.

The name you enter when you order. It is printed exactly as you type it, so check the spelling before you place the order.

No. It is a certificate of completion showing that you finished the course and passed its quiz. It is not a licence to practise. Courses Three and Four teach you to work on other people, and no online course can establish that you are ready to do that safely. Supervised practice with a teacher is what makes a practitioner.

The later courses do teach sessions for other people, and many massage therapists, yoga teachers and bodyworkers use them to add sound to their work. Before you work with clients, practise under a qualified teacher and check any rules that apply to your practice where you live.

No. Sound work is genuinely useful for relaxation, stress, sleep and settling a busy mind. It is not a treatment for disease and not a substitute for medical or psychological care. We teach the tradition as we received it, and we are careful not to claim more for it than it does.

Try our 30-Day Singing Bowl Routine Calendar first. It builds a short daily practice, and the lessons make far more sense afterwards. The chakra quiz will also suggest which note suits what you are working on.

Send us a message through our contact page and a real person will reply. For orders, shipping and returns, see our general FAQ.