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Welcome to Leap of Faith, a new weekly blog hosted by veteran religion reporter Alicia Ambrosio, exploring faith, spirituality and Vancouver's sacred spaces. First up? Sound baths.Ěý
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I have been known to arrive late when attending church. It’s my thing. I’ve mastered the art of slipping in stealth quiet and taking the first seat by the door.
It is a skill that serves me well as I arrive at a dimly lit Fraser Street studio, a few minutes late for my first gong bath.
Soraya Romao, the gong bath specialist leading the session, sits cross legged on a raised platform guiding bathers through a chant meant to help them “tune in.” She follows this with a “pranayama” or breathing exercise intended to help calm the mind and body.
About 20 minutes into the hour-long session she instructs us – even the latecomer sitting on the bench in the corner – to lie down on our mats.
Before silence descends on the room she tell us not be surprised if unexpected memories – negative or positive – come back to us during the session.
“The gong brings up the mud, and there is no lotus with no mud.” It is the ego purging itself of its accumulated gunk, essentially.
Gong baths, also known as sound baths or sound healing, developed out of Kundalini Yoga. Yogi Bhajan – born Harbhajan Singh Puri in what is now Pakistan – brought Kundalini to North America in 1968 when he accepted a job teaching yoga at the University of Toronto.
He began teaching Kundalini yoga publicly during a visit to Los Angeles in 1969 when he realized this form of yoga could answer people’s yearning for an encounter with the divine – something he saw them trying to achieve with the help of mind-altering drugs and psychedelic experiences.
Yogi Bhajan’s sessions began with a period of sharing spiritual teachings, then moving through a series of poses, and ending with him playing the gong for 11 minutes.
In Kundalini tradition, the gong is believed to vibrate at the same rate as the cosmos, so listening to the gong re-aligns your energies and provokes deep relaxation.
Yogi Bhajan instructed some of his early followers to learn and teach the use of the gong. Thus was born the gong bath.
“It seems passive, but there’s lots of thing happening,” Romao tells me on the phone a few days before I attend her gong bath.
She says the sound of the gong stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, promoting relaxation of both mind and body. Being in such a deep state of relaxation allows the mind to purge itself of the built-up gunk trapped in the ego, according to Romao.
Lying on our mats as Romao prepares to strike her gong, there is a stillness in the room. It is broken by the gentle sound of wood chimes.
She lets the sound fade before turning to the gong and giving it a tap with her mallet. Immediately the sound of traffic outside the studio fades away. The pitch of the gong changes depending on how and where the mallet makes contact; at times it sounds like a siren, or like a vibrating piece of metal (which it is) and sometimes it just sounds like a gong. At times the gong is so overpowering it is difficult to think.
Romao also uses Himalayan singing bowls, chimes and a conch during her sessions. At one point she tiptoes among our mats carrying a large Himalayan singing bowl, bending down over each bather’s head to give us a one on one experience with the cosmos. Whether or not you believe the bowl is aligning your energy, it is a surprisingly pleasant sound and, yes, relaxing.
The bath ends with Romao gently guiding bathers back to the present. We return to a seated position and she closes the session with a meditation and chant intended to help bathers “carry” the vibrations they have just experienced once they leave the studio. She says the real yoga happens "on the street, where you have to learn to see that the other person is you.”
Romao, who has been teaching Kundalini yoga for six years and using the gong just as long, says she sees what she does as a service to others: She helps people relax and realize they are part of something bigger than themselves.
“I have had people with cancer and [multiple sclerosis] come to me [for gong baths] and they’re scared. They leave happy and calm because they realize this is not an end, and this body is just this body, there is something else to this.”
She says gong baths, Kundalini yoga, and meditation can also help addicts realize that “they are not their addiction.”
People facing the regular stresses of daily life also find something valuable in Romao’s gong baths. Karen Bowen, a middle-aged woman who towers above most people in the room, has been coming to Romao’s gong baths for two years.
After a gong session, “I feel really relaxed and happy. It takes a weight off,” she says. She has seen the effect of the sessions in the rest of her life. “I’m definitely calmer and happier,” she claims.
Over the past couple of years she has brought many friends to gong baths.
“They laugh at me at first, then they keep coming,” she chuckles.Ěý
Gong bathing is an emerging practice in Vancouver. There is a small handful of gong specialists offering sessions at various yoga studios and community spaces in the city. However, demand is growing.
Romao offers a gong bath every Monday evening at the studio at Fraser Street and 20th Avenue. That session drew so many people she had to add a Wednesday evening session. Gong baths are also offered at and , with special events popping up throughout the year.
Both Kundalini yoga and gong baths are not officially attached to any religion – Yogi Bhajan was a Catholic-educated Sikh – and any anyone can participate.ĚýĚý
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•ĚýAfter graduating from Simon Fraser University with a degree in communication, Alicia moved to Rome, where she got an unexpected start covering religion. Stints in Toronto, Madrid and Toronto followed, culminating with her return home to the West Coast. Alicia has worked as a television producer and host, and is currently a freelance writer for Aleteia and Catholic News Service, as well as Leap of Faith, the Westender's blog on faith and spirituality in Vancouver.
