The one-hour twelve-chakra session
The longest session in the notebook, and the only one Sunita labels with two words rather than one: healing and therapy.
Every other session in this tradition is one or the other. This one is both, and the reason is in its shape.
By the end of this lesson you will be able to run the full one-hour twelve-note session, and you will understand why running the scale in both directions makes it a different kind of treatment.
Why it is both
From Lesson 1.6: crown to root is healing, root to crown is therapy.
This session descends the entire chromatic scale and then climbs back up it. Down is the healing. Up is the therapy. Nothing is left out, which is why it takes an hour and why it is the only session in the notebook that claims both.
down — healing
C · B · A♯ · A · G♯ · G · F♯ · F · E · D♯ · D · C♯ · C
up — therapy
C · C♯ · D · D♯ · E · F · F♯ · G · G♯ · A · A♯ · B · C
Note that the run starts and ends on C, an octave apart at the top and bottom. Thirteen steps down, thirteen back up. And as Lesson 4.1 established, there is no E♯ to be found on the way.
The session
1 — The C♯ bowl, one round. Begin by playing the C♯ bowl clockwise for one complete round. This is the opening move, before any tingsha, and it is unique to this session.
2 — Tingsha at the ears and head. Slowly, three times, at both ears and above the head of the person receiving. Gently — this is close to the head and three quiet strikes are the intention.
3 — Descend. Beginning at high C, work down through all thirteen steps to the low C. Strike each, let the tone run out, move on. This is roughly twenty minutes at a proper pace.
4 — Ascend. From the low C back up the same thirteen steps to high C. Another twenty minutes.
5 — The crown. Take the B bowl to the crown and play there to close.
6 — Silence, then the usual ending. Six minutes of quiet, one tingsha, and wake them as Lesson 3.9 describes.
Timing
| Stage | Roughly |
|---|---|
| C♯ opening round | 2 minutes |
| Tingsha at ears and head | 3 minutes |
| Descending — thirteen steps | 20 minutes |
| Ascending — thirteen steps | 20 minutes |
| Crown bowl | 5 minutes |
| Closing silence | 6 minutes |
| Waking and aftercare | 5 minutes |
About ninety seconds per note. That sounds slow until you try it — a bowl allowed to run completely out takes longer than most practitioners expect.
Thirty seconds each way. On the same pages, the notebook records the technique of playing a bowl clockwise for thirty seconds and then anticlockwise for thirty, smoothly, at particular positions — the solar plexus is named specifically. That is the same counted technique as Panchatatva. Use it at whichever positions you want to give more weight to; it is what turns a strike into a sustained passage.
The throat sequence
One passage in the notebook describes the throat in more detail than anywhere else, and it is worth following as written.
- Strike the C bowl and hold it beside the throat, letting the tone run long.
- Then strike the crown bowl.
- Then the third eye bowl.
- Then the order C → A → B, three times.
It breaks the strict descending order, and deliberately — the throat is given its own small ceremony inside the larger session. If you take one specific detail from this lesson into your practice, take this one.
The big C bowl
The notebook specifies that the C in this session is a big bowl. It opens the low end of the run, it is where the descent lands, and it is where the ascent begins.
A large standing bowl on a cushion at the feet is what this calls for. It does not move for the whole hour, which is convenient, because you will not want to be lifting it.
If you have seven bowls, not twelve
Run the same session without the sharps.
Down: C, B, A, G, F, E, D, C. Up: C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C. Sixteen steps rather than twenty-six, which brings the session to about forty minutes — and it is a genuinely good session, not a compromised one.
The sharps add resolution, as Lesson 4.1 put it. They do not add the thing that makes this session work, which is going all the way down and all the way back up.
Practice
Do it on yourself first, seated, before you give it to anyone.
- Lay out whatever bowls you own in note order, as in Lesson 4.2.
- Open with your lowest sharp, or your C if you have no sharps.
- Work all the way down, one strike per bowl, full silence between.
- Then all the way back up.
- Close at the crown, then sit for six minutes.
- Write down where in the run your attention wandered.
That last note is the useful one. Almost everyone loses concentration at the same point on the way down and again at a different point on the way up, and knowing where yours is tells you what to watch for when a client is on the mat.
Common mistakes
- Rushing to fit the hour. If you are running short of time, do fewer notes properly rather than all of them badly.
- Skipping the ascent. Then it is a Vedic session with extra steps, not a healing-and-therapy session.
- Loud tingsha at the ears. Close to the head, quiet, three times.
- Booking anything after it. An hour of sound plus waking plus talking is closer to ninety minutes of your day.
- Offering it as a first session. Too long for someone who has never done this. Give them thirty minutes first.
- Moving the big C bowl mid-session. Place it once, at the feet, and leave it.
How do you know you got it right?
You ran the whole scale down and back up without losing your place, and the session took at least fifty minutes.
And you could say, without looking, which note comes after G♯ going up and which comes after G♯ going down.
Something to sit with
An hour is a long time to give someone your full attention while saying nothing.
Most people have never received that from anyone. What do you think is doing the work in this session — the notes, or the hour?