Rhythm and Poetry – with Peggy Leviton

Peggy Leviton loves the challenge of studying Veda’s phonetics, metre, and melody, which have rules like Western music but are still so different from any music or sound she’s ever heard.

Chanting Awareness

Who is this “I”?
Am I the one who breathes in…
the one who forms the syllables…
the one who gives voice to the mantra…
the one who vibrates from skull to feet…
the one who listens…
the one who hears…
the space of this resonance…
the Devata this mantra invokes…
or simply a drop of cosmic joy?

— Peggy Leviton

I’ve never met a creatively inclined thinker who doesn’t appreciate Veda. This ancient Indian poetry is the basis for Indian classical music; its prosody is a thing of divine intuition, and the sounds of the Veda are mystical high-calibre poems revealed to sages in deep meditation. The nature of an artist’s mind is trained to understand artistry and creativity, so I wasn’t surprised when piano player and teacher Peggy Leviton (she writes poetry, too) felt a deep connection to reciting the sounds of Sanskrit, even when she was initially only studying asana. “I think it was around 10 years ago at a studio where I was practising yoga. The teacher did a survey and asked the students what they liked most about the class and if we wanted to do more of something. When I filled out the survey, I wrote that I wanted more chanting. At the time, I didn’t even know what I was talking about, but somehow, it came into my head that I wanted to do more chanting. I took an online course with the author and musician Russill Paul a few years later, and he was good at explaining phonetics, so I learned very short japa mantras in that class. Still, after that, I didn’t really practice chanting because I was busy with various things. But a few years later, I was with another teacher, and even though she wasn’t teaching chanting, she chanted to us. She mentioned that the gold standard of chanting was the Challakere Brothers. That was the first time I had heard of this lineage. Two years ago, I ended up with a broken foot, and I was resting a lot and listening to podcasts — I heard an interview with Shantala. As I was bedridden then, I looked up Veda Studies online, took the free Veda Essentials course, and signed up for the Foundation Course. I knew I struck gold! This had everything in one place. Shantala teaches phonetics, sūktams, and mantras and gives a frame of reference with the theory classes. Studying with Veda Studies satisfied my curiosity and increased my appetite for chanting. I continued learning with Shantala; the most remarkable thing happened during this time. I heard a recording of her reciting the Gāyatrī Mantra, and she was doing it 108 times. On my birthday two years ago, I committed to chanting the mantra 108 times. I still wasn’t used to chanting, but I kept to it. I remember that things were coming to my mind during the chanting, like ‘Why am I doing this?’ or ‘Why 108 times?’ There was resistance, but I kept to it. Eventually, I started to feel the benefits and how it affected the focus of mind, and our senses just blew me away,” says Peggy. 

Measuring Music and Poetry

I often ask Western students how they adapt to the sounds of Veda. Initially, I was pleasantly surprised to find how good Shatalaji’s non-Indian students are at pronunciation. Now that I’m studying with Veda Studies and getting to know students and teachers from this lineage, it makes much more sense. Veda was revealed for the benefit of all humanity. Hence, its sounds are an inherent part of all consciousness because they exist in Pure Consciousness — and that isn’t defined by gender, accent, language or nationality. It is pure and unchanging. Peggy attributes her knack for chanting to karma and feels Veda is inherent to all humanity.  “I am more surprised than anybody to realise my affinity for Vedic chanting. I suspect a karmic component, especially since it differs greatly from everything I know. I was born in Chicago, but my heritage is Polish. I didn’t speak Polish, but heard it when I was young. Sanskrit is a proto-Indo-European language, so I suspect some sounds are in my genome, even though I only speak English. But I do have a clear sense that the Vedas are a substantive part of our human DNA, something we all share by virtue of being on this earth,” says Peggy. 

I started this interview by talking about the creative mind. I was curious about how and if Peggy felt an affinity for Veda because she has a background in Western classical music. While we don’t study the Sama Veda, it is the source of all Indian classical music, and even though the Veda we recite has three notes as opposed to the seven notes of music, it still has rhythm and metre. Peggy feels that “The rhythms and the meters in the Vedas are very different from Western classical music. Just the length of the syllables and the vowels are so different. I don’t usually struggle with Veda svaras but even those are different. For instance, in Western music, the time is steady. It is like 1.2.3 1.2.3 or 1.2.3.4 1.2.3.4, so the metre and timing is regular. But in the case of Veda, what we have in one line can be completely different in the next line, even if it is in the same metre because the length of the syllables is different (laughs). So, knowing Western music doesn’t automatically translate into being able to recite Veda. That has been a challenge to my ear, but I love that challenge.”

Moving from the Gross to the Subtle

Most spiritual aspirants in our time come to spirituality through āsana practice. As this limb of yoga has gained global prominence, practitioners usually begin their spiritual journey with āsana and, as a natural progression, move towards subtler aspects of yoga such as prāṇāyāma and meditation. Reciting Veda isn’t a limb of yoga but its source. Peggy has always felt inclined towards chanting, but her practice was enhanced to another level once she seriously started studying and reciting Veda. “My āsana practice has had to slow down over the years. So, the more rigorous part of my yoga practice has had to diminish. However, that’s probably good because I can devote more time to chanting and its effects. Āsana combined with the chanting, has just affected me much more deeply. I’m not as ambitious for asana anymore because chanting, meditating, contemplating, and learning all these things about the Vedas… I think these are much more important to me right now,” says Peggy. 

Most of the students I interviewed have been to India, and some even have teachers there. Peggy, however, has never been to India, so I asked if she was curious about the country and how it related to her experience of studying an Indic Knowledge System. Talking about India and Hindu culture, she observes, “A lot of the teachers I have studied under in the West have been to India. But In a way, I’m glad I haven’t been yet. And if I go now, and I intend to someday, I’m sure I would appreciate it much more. All my understanding of India now comes from what I am studying. I study the Veda Studies theory courses, which give me more perspective into the culture and give context to our practice. But it all comes back to the sound for me. There is a oneness and unity in Hinduism that I feel isn’t completely understood in the West. Many people think there are thousands of Hindu Gods, but they don’t realise it’s the same. It’s just different aspects and different components or different qualities. That’s all a part of who we are as well, right? So it’s not any different from our having those qualities in ourselves, and that’s very attractive to me. It makes sense to me as a human being. I have to live in a way that makes sense to me. We want to know what our place in the universe is. What’s our place in the world? Fundamentally, we all have to answer that for ourselves. I think Veda recitation is a beautiful way of getting us closer to that — whatever that is.

Learning and Teaching

Peggy joined the Indica Veda Teacher Training Programme this year as she understands the need to preserve and share the knowledge of the Vedas. “I feel very strongly that this should not go away anytime soon. And if there’s any minor part I can do to keep the Vedas alive, I will do that,” says Peggy. Her advice to people who want to learn Veda is to “Align yourself with an authentic lineage and find a good teacher. That’s such an important part of any practice.”

To get in touch with Peggy, email her at [email protected]