My bowls at the Integratron in CA.

HIMALAYAN SINGING BOWLS:

In addition to their traditional usage for meditation, singing bowls are used for deep relaxation, stress reduction, holistic healing, Reiki, chakra balancing, and World music. Many people find that the rich blend of harmonic overtones which the bells produce have a direct affect upon their consciousness.

Playing the bells usually causes an immediate centering effect. The tones set up a “frequency following response” that creates a balancing left/right brain synchronization. Meditating on the subtle sounds of the singing bowl tunes one in to the universal sound within and without.

Singing Bowls create a pulsating tone, that feels good and helps you to relax. The more you listen the deeper you relax, as your brainwaves begin to entrain with the Bowl’s tone.

The benefit of this entrainment is that your brain waves can be “toned” so that you can deliberately experience pleasant and/or productive mental/emotional states.

The upper end of the theta brainwave range is of great importance to healing the body, mind and spirit. At 7-8 (Hertz) cycles per second  our deeper intelligence, creativity and self-healing mechanisms of the body are activated. This is what is commonly referred to as “being in the zone”. Singing Bowls can be used to put you into this special brain wave state that supports the achievement of your unique goal toward better health.

The bowls produce a uniquely warm vibration that feels great. They produce a clear fundamental tone that sounds as pleasant as any musical instrument. They also produce multiple harmonic overtones that sound angelic. The combination of the smooth vibration, warm fundamental tone and singing overtones makes listening to singing bowls a very unique experience.

The harmonic overtones interact with our nervous system. This is a controversial and little understood part of the experience. But one can deduce from the pleasing effect of the sound, the tendency for people to become relaxed and even go to sleep, and the deepening of meditation practice that the singing bowls have some effect on our brains.

While the so called “Mozart effect” has largely been dismissed, there does seem to be some effect of sound on our brains. Tomatis and others have worked in this field for many years. There is a lot of anecdotal evidence about alpha and theta waves, but nothing conclusive. Hopefully in the future someone will research and better understand the hidden power of sound.

Singing bowls are tools and perform a function in this regard. They do one thing extremely well, perhaps better than any other object. Singing bowls vibrate and produce a spectrum of sounds that are universally loved due to the pleasant quality of the tone, calming effect on people and the environment.

Bowl of Light

Quartz crystal singing bowls

Crystal bowls, containing the qualities of amplification, storage, transfer, and transformation, are powerful tools in effecting change in one’s life. It is important to approach the use of the bowls with a reverence for the potential contained in combining intention with the properties of crystal.

Our bodies, too, are crystalline in structure. When working with crystals, there may be profound effects on the organs, tissues, and cells, as well as the circulatory, endocrine, and metabolic systems.

Thoughts are energy forms. When thought energy interacts with a crystal, those thoughts are changed to more harmonic forms, which change brainwave frequencies, showing possible alterations in consciousness. Thus, the power of positive intention or affirmation combined with the use of crystals provides remarkable healing results.

There are several elements to the sound of the Crystal Singing Bowls that make them incredibly suited for meditation and sound healing purposes. Unique to the Crystal Singing Bowls is the presence of what are called vocal formants. Understanding what formants are is as simple as singing vowels such as ‘ahh’ or ‘oooh.’ Formants are the elements of sound that makes vowels sound like they do. The bowl or bell shape gives the sound similar characteristics to the human voice. This quality is why they are known as singing bowls. The use of both bells and choirs is a well-known part of many religious and spiritual ceremonies. Studies have also shown that the human mind reacts positively to the sound of singing. One need only picture a mother calming a child with the sound of her voice, or a yogi chanting OM to understand how deeply we react to vowel sounds and singing.

They are excellent tools for creating natural binaural beat tones. Scientific studies and a multitude of experiences by practitioners suggest that the use of binaural beats is an effective way to treat anxiety and similar disorders, and to achieve a meditative mental state The Crystal Singing Bowls offer a unique advantage over beats created by synthesized tones because the sounds are created acoustically. The sound is natural, more complex, and more pleasant to listen to. Importantly: when two bowls are used, the process of entrainment occurs naturally between the two as they feed back between each other and cause each other to resonate towards a state of equilibrium.

The Singing Bowls generate not one single note, but several. Musically speaking these are known as the fundamental note (lowest note) and the harmonics. The harmonics generally follow musical intervals, so playing a single bowl has similarities to playing a chord on a piano. What the ‘chord’ might be depends on the construction of each individual bowl. In some cases the harmonics are close enough to each other in pitch that they add a natural vibrato to the sound, following the same principle of interference beating that makes binaural beats possible. Think of a piano player using major or minor chords to make their audience feel different emotions. Another example would be Tibetan monks overtoning so as to create multiple tones with their voices.