Ring the Bells for Freedom From Fear

The great Sufi philosopher and scholar,Ibn-el-Arabi expressed the unity of all creation when he said: "Three yet only one, most things that appear as three, are no more than one."

Deepak Chopra, Melissa Etheridge and I come from diverse backgrounds but we have one thing in common. Our love and desire for a peaceful and harmonious world.This longing transcends our Hindu, Christian and Muslim upbringing and our Indian, American and Pakistani roots. It's a yearning firmly grounded in our common humanity.Together we live in a rapidly transforming world where change is both exhilarating and anxiety causing. Exhilarating for those who are prepared to embrace the light of diversity and scary for the fanatics and bigots who sense the loss of their power if the people of the world were to reject their message of hate. In Afghanistan, Pakistan and most recently in India the terrorists are trying to drive a wedge between Hindus and Muslims, Shias and Sunnis, South Asia and the West. This year alone their targets include untold innocent men , women and children from Mumbai to Islamabad from Peshawar to Kabul.

Another casualty in this battle between darkness and light is music, which is steadily going silent.

Since the suicide bombings in Afghanistan and Pakistan, apart from a few brave artists, the majority are sitting at home totally numbed by the violence, not writing, not protesting, totally resigned to their fates. Like the recently targeted Taj and Oberoi hotels in Mumbai, the Islamabad Marriott was also a place of culture, poetry and music before it was blown up by terrorists. Arts and culture provide a people with a sense of identity, joy and normalcy and that's why the terrorists abhor it so much. These killers don't belong to a country or any religion, they only bow to the gods of hate, fanaticism and bigotry and their aim is to create maximum chaos and anarchy.

When Melissa Etheridge and my band Junoon performed last December at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Norway, we were doing sound checks before the show at the Oslo Spectrum. Listening to Melissa sing just from a few feet away, I was blown away by the power of her voice and the unity of vibrations contained in it. She gave me goosebumps. When I asked her to remain tuned to that frequency, she laughed, held my hands and said "I live there"! Later that evening Nobel Peace Prize winners Al Gore and Dr.Pichauri, chairman of the IPCC and the star-studded Nobel gathering all agreed with my observation.

Melissa and I became friends and musical admirers. In January, she invited me to her home to spend a couple of days in Los Angeles where we talked about many things. Among them, Love and Unity and how they are universal themes running from Rumi to the Beatles. In both East and West it's poetry and music which unites humanity rather than politics which tends to divide and demonize 'the other.' Melissa and I also talked about the children of Abraham: Jesus, Moses and Muhammad and their common spirit of brotherhood and sacrifice.

We sat with acoustic guitars and out of that intense talking and jamming came RINGTHE BELLS.

In April when Melissa was recording her album (A NEW THOUGHT FOR CHRISTMAS), I flew down to California to record my guitars and vocals, we sang face to face, her emotional rendition inspired me to sing some traditional Qawwali (Islamic Sufi devotional singing),and tarana bols like 'Ta-na-derey-na-' which are a metaphor for mystical unity and oneness.

We were joined on our journey by our friend Deepak who is also well aware of the deep divisions and fear that exists today between races, regions and religions. Together we hope that people will confront fear with an alternative vision of hope. When you see with the heart all the masks fall down. Can music bring people and cultures together in the darkest places, in the most extreme of circumstances and triumph over the violence and divisions? I believe so and that's why I'll be ringing the bells of peace and change all over the world!Wont you join us?

The comments to this entry are closed.

Salman Ahmad

Posts By Category

Posts By Date

Ring the Bells for Freedom From Fear