Gong Yoga by Mehtab Benton, Yoga Yoga Founder

This is the first book ever published on the use of the gong in yoga, how its sound transforms and heals, and how to play the gong. If you love the sound of the gong, you will want to read this book!

Mehtab began playing the gong over 12 years ago in Austin for his first yoga students. "I experimented on them," he said, "and God bless them for putting up with me as I got better and better over the years. As I saw the amazing changes the gong produced in hundreds of people in the yoga classes, I knew I had to write a book about how its sound works on the mind and body and how to use it both therapeutically and in the deeper practices of yoga."

Gong Yoga tells the history and story of the gong itself, where it came from, how it has been used in the world's spiritual practices and in its music, and how it eventually became an essential part of Kundalini Yoga and Nada Yoga, the yoga of sound.

After one Gong Yoga Therapy session, one of the participants in Mehtab's workshop described the effect the sound of the gong and the yoga practices had on her: "When they played the gong, it reconstituted my layers in a new configuration -- my "self" minus lots of emotional baggage. What had such a profound effect on me was that I sank below my outer layers of personality, mind and body. When I left the workshop, I was in a bad mood. By the time I got to my car, however, I saw that I was just angry and upset at a person in my life that before the workshop I had been in denial about. So, that was the first layer that my awareness saw through. That night I barely slept -- being very energized I lay there for hours watching the flow of bizarre to friendly, scary to funny imagery -- an onslaught kicked off by having my negative edges burned away by the gong's intensity. In the early morning I saw and felt the visceral nature of the sheaths that make up my existence. When my "mind" started to do its thing again, I was thrilled to notice how it just wants to perpetuate its old stuff out of habit. That was worth so much!! I feel I will never be the same, thank goodness."

In addition to therapeutic applications, the Gong Yoga book also discusses how the sound of the gong works with the yogic practices of asana, pranayama, mantras and meditation. "I was excited to see how the gong can be used in all yoga practices and types of classes," Mehtab said, "when we began to use it in our advanced Hatha teacher training programs during a regular asana sequence. During the forward bends, we played the gong almost a "watery" tone to encourage a deep release. In a warrior pose sequence, the gong sound moved into a fiery navel point energy that carried the practitioners into a one-pointed focus."

"While I enjoy playing the gong for all types of yoga students, I see myself as basically a teacher. My real passion is teaching others how to play the gong so they can give their students and themselves the experience of the sound of the gong. That was one of the real reasons I wrote this book. It is a how to practice guide to learn to play the gong on your own."

"The great thing is that anyone can learn to play the gong in a matter of hours. For years I was an aspiring musician who tried out all kinds of instruments, the clarinet, the piano, the mandolin, even the vibraphone, all without success. Then the gong called and it seemed to play itself. I had found my voice and expression and wanted to share it with others. The gong is primarily an instrument of intuition, not formal instruction, and it fits perfectly within the yogi's frame of consciousness."

Over the last several years, Mehtab has taught hundreds of students and teachers how to play the gong. "One of the great things about having others learn how to play is that you can then work together with the sound of multiple gongs. A gong concert is an amazing wall of sound as each person adds the unique voice of their gong into the mix. This summer we had a gong yoga concert in the mountains of New Mexico in an open-air tent at a 7200 feet altitude. We had a gong playing for each direction of the compass as people laid out in the middle of the sound as the sun began to set. There were yoga students from all over the world at this gathering but they all understood the language of the gong."

This summer Mehtab and his wife Guru Karam will take the sound of the gong into other yoga studios around Texas and beyond, finishing up with a Total Gong Weekend in Los Angeles in August before coming back to Austin for a weekend gong training intensive later that month.

"Our ultimate goal," Mehtab says, "is to create a nation of gong heads, all vibrating in harmony to the cosmos of the One."