Music The Nectar of Life

The book focuses on the genesis, evolution, and applications of music. It provides rare knowledge on the emergence of natural musical notes (swaras) from the eternal impulse of Nada and consequent emanation of the Shastric (Indian Classical) Music. Different effects of the ragas and their applications are elucidated. Excerpts of ancient Indian text and modern scientific findings are presented with reports of some organizations and laboratories across the world, which demonstrate positive effects and constructive applications of music in agricultural production, music-therapy, and social harmony. The book also analyzes the negative effects of adulterated music and substandard lyrics with evidential support.

Refined music is not only a medium of entertainment and a mode of soothing effects on the mind-body system, it is also a source of spiritual enlightenment. Recognizing the eternal linkage of music with the emotions and intrinsic nature of the living beings, Vedic sages had discovered special ragas and the spiritual sadhanas of music. Information on the sadhanas of music for spiritual elevation is another distinct feature of the book. The books also tells us how we could propagate refined and spiritually elevating music today when the liking of people is mostly entrapped in artificial, fast-beat & destructive music and when commercialization and perversion of this easy mode of entertainment is at its peak?

Pandit Acharya Shriram Sharma (1911-1990) was said to be the simplest of men. Throughout his life he owned only two sets of clothes. He began every day with a pad of paper and a ball point pen. And his spiritual practice, throughout his life, was the recitation of a single mantra. And yet, wherever he went, he sowed seeds that would grow into a mighty movement. Upon the basis of his simplicity was established the integrity of a movement that would renounce the addictions of modern life. With his pen and paper, he wrote discourses on every aspect of human culture and well being that would be translated into 13 languages. And by means of his mantra recitation, he laid the energetic foundation for a new human culture based on the practices and wisdom of ancestral India.

In his own time, he was revered as a visionary, a prophet and a world reforming saint. We are living in the interlude between two epochs. The 20" century has passed into the at", the last phase of the grand transition of an era is going to be a very bulent period of human history. During this transition into the New Age, scientific spirituality will play key role in transformation of peoples' thoughts and deeds and hence, in creating supportive environment for a better future

The three aspects of spiritual science as explained by Acharya Shriram Sharma incorporate - viewing consciousness to be law- governed, thinking within a paradigm that includes spiritual dimensions, and applying scientific method to the study of consciousness, provide the grounds for a universal spirituality that includes all traditions by transcending the boundaries of each.

**Contents and Sample Pages**