Awakening Through Music with Daniel Bellone
By Susan Leigh Babcock
Upon meeting musician and spiritual teacher Daniel Bellone, one is struck by his arresting presence: luminous dark eyes are framed by a flowing mane of lustrous brown hair and complemented by a disarmingly radiant smile. At 33, this Argentinean singer-composer-arranger-guitarist is one of those unusual specimens of the male sex upon whom you could hang the adjective beautiful without taking a smidge away from his roguish masculinity.
It doesn’t take but a few beats before one realizes that this dazzle goes beyond looks and charisma; there is a beaming inner light that goes right into your heart. Daniel is infused with a light and exudes a bubbling joy. It is this embodiment of awakened energy that Daniel expressly intends to spark in others lucky enough to find themselves in his ever-widening radius — especially his concerts.
Now on his second international tour with “Awakening Through Music,” Daniel is indeed growing his audiences, including people new to or outside of the Oneness community, and even those who don’t ordinarily consider themselves “spiritual.”
When I was promoting this event door-to-door in Woodstock, New York this May, I just showed people the flyer and said, “See how he looks in this picture? That’s how you’ll feel during the concert — and for days beyond.” One woman replied, “Well, I sure could use a little of that!” And, sure enough, she came to the concert and brought a friend. “Awakening is for everybody,” contends Daniel. And everybody comes away with at least a taste of the awakened state by the end of the show.
The ‘Concerts’
Daniel’s concerts aren’t mere concerts, meaning you don’t sit in the audience and just listen to a song set. An intermission-less two hours blends teachings, performance, singing along, and dancing that takes Daniel's audiences on a journey. They leave transformed, happy, lifted, inspired, awestruck — in awakened states.
Though he is sometimes described in his own promotional material as a “kirtan artist” (mostly to signal his potential audience), Daniel’s music isn’t the familiar call-and-response format where a leader sings a line of a devotional song and the participants repeat it. You may be familiar with Krishna Das who is a popular performer of this musical genre. Rather, the songs in “Awakening Through Music” are original compositions accompanied by guitar and electronic enhancements with Sanskrit words. For some songs, Daniel teaches these words to his audiences so that they may sing along. And, at the end, everyone is on their feet (on or off the ground) dancing with glowing faces and unbridled joy.
Daniel’s concerts open with a tingling, sonorous version of the Moola Mantra, the Oneness mantra set to penetrating music. At first, you might look around to see who else must be there to produce all these layers of vocal and instrumental sound. The haunting intonations of an electronically produced instrumental drone fill the room with a vibration you can feel in your chest. And Dani’s amplified voice does the work of a chorus. Instantly, you know you haven’t been on this musical planet before, and you settle a little deeper into your seat, almost wishing there were a seat belt. Where are we going?
Daniel pauses for several beats after the opening number. The cushioned silence in the room is an expectant hush of pure reverence. Something potent excites the very atoms in the air and in our bodies. Then he speaks in a soft yet laser-focused voice. Yes, we are going to experience something way beyond sitting and listening to songs.
In between pieces, we’re told, Daniel will be talking to us: teaching that sounds like just talking; just talking that communicates teaching. We’re not unhappy to hear this. If we were horses, our ears would be pricked forward. Talk to us, we agree. He introduces the four aspects of the journey on which he is transporting us.
First, he gives our minds direction, something to focus on, something to contemplate. This will be done through the teachings that introduce each new song. Our minds won’t have much time to dwell on them though as they soon get lost in the music. Ground has been prepared. Music rains and shines on it.
Once a song begins, something else is beginning to happen. Our emotions have become engaged. Music moves — like water, like wind — and it stirs us.
Then there are the words in the songs which are principally Sanskrit, an ancient language that carries strong messages to the unconscious mind. We receive the wisdom and strength of these Sanskrit words even when we do not know what they mean. Something is sprouting inside.
Finally, there is the awakened energy. This energy is grounded in and spilled out to us by Daniel, through the teachings, music, lyrics, and his very self. The ground has been prepared for a shift in perception, awareness, and experience. Our minds relax and our hearts melt. We are in high receiving mode. This is sheer alchemy. This is the precondition to awakening and the flowering of the heart.
If you haven’t already experienced a Daniel Bellone “Awakening Through Music” program, you’re undoubtedly vowing to attend one next time, no matter what it takes! But how is it that people with no idea of Oneness, of awakening, of enlightenment, of India, of Sri AmmaBhagavan, or of the Golden Age, are finding themselves in these venues participating in this program? And having miracles and awakening experiences? What is happening to them, for them?
If you’re Daniel Bellone, you know exactly what is happening to them — and how. And it’s on purpose.
Explorer of Life and Music
Daniel was born on October 12, 1981 in Buenos Aires in Argentina, a country fraught with cycles of boom and bust, a country of immigrants, and a country with musical traditions that pique the emotions and pierce the heart.
Daniel grew up in the kind of family one can only dream of having, with two older sisters and loving parents who have been married for 50 years. His childhood was full of freedom to be a kid, explore, and play. His friends were welcome at the big family home to play in the garden and swim in the pool. His mother, to whom he was very close, was loving and supportive; and his father worked hard to give his family a beautiful life full of opportunities.
And yet, with seemingly no cares in the world, even as a child, Daniel’s concern in life was how to help people to be happy and to overcome suffering. He would strive to make them smile. He would offer words of encouragement. And, as he grew older, he found himself trying to give the people around him clarity when they were lost. He was “the profound one” among his friends. Tucked in and among their moments of sheer play and enjoyment were transformative conversations and explorations of the interior kind.
By age ten, Daniel had been bitten by the music bug and started both playing the guitar and singing. His first band was formed when he was only thirteen and quickly developed quite a following. Soon, they were booked in the most popular nightclubs in the area.
Then, when he turned eighteen, life opened up wide and invited him out into the world. Boosted by the fuel of his lifetime savings, he boarded a jet plane for Europe and didn’t turn back until he’d visited forty-six cities in more than thirty countries over a six-month period.
This experience would mark him and his consciousness forever and send him on the next leg of his journey. His sense of self had expanded to include everyone everywhere to whom he could offer something special and from whom he could learn and grow. He would continue to explore, but now even further afield, to the most hidden pockets of the planet. He found himself yearning to discover his family roots, so he went to Italy where his grandparents were from. Ultimately, he ended up in Egypt, going from one to the next sacred temple until he’d seen them all.
The Search for Meaning
“This triggered a profound transformation in my consciousness that I wasn’t even looking for,” confessed Daniel. “I felt another depth to my life, and I could hear the ‘voice of consciousness’ inside of me. The feeling of expansion was so deep that at this time a big shift happened. I wanted to know the secrets of this life. I wanted to explore the unknown and, at that time, I was thinking that studying physics and the laws of the Universe would take me there.”
During a two-year stint chasing these secrets to life through academics, Daniel took a course in physics that changed his whole perception of the world. “The professor said, ‘Physics is a model of reality; it’s 99.999% of reality. But it will never be reality itself. It’s just a model.’ “
Just a model! This gave him great pause. No matter how close he got to knowing reality through physics, it would always be away from the real thing. “This is when I decided to jump into a deeper experience of life and let go of the ‘known’ to reach my goal. I believed that life itself would be my school and that I would engage completely with life to be able to experience those depths that I was looking for.”
He quit university and, with that, he stopped most of the activities that he been doing in life — including music. “I had to start all over again, from a place of integrity and truth. I was ready to let go of whatever was not useful for this new stage of my life. For five years, my guitar was buried in the closet, and life became my school and a new playground of exploration. I was looking into different paths — yoga, meditation, anything that would expand my boundaries. Then, at the age of twenty-three, in the year 2005, I found Oneness.
“I had been going through a very difficult period of my life where I felt lost and purposeless. At that time, I was pursuing an acting career, and I was a big failure. Acting was allowing me to explore the human body, our deepest emotions, fears, masks, personalities — and this meant spiritual growth for me. But my path wasn’t opening up as an actor. Something was completely off, and music wasn’t acknowledged at all.
“Adding to this, I was finishing an important relationship in my life and the amount of suffering was unbearable. I was completely hopeless and without any clarity on how to move forward. I was doing all my efforts, but they were just not working out. I had been knocking on the same door for seven years, a door that nobody was answering.
“One day, one of my childhood friends called me up and said she was going to attend an aboriginal sweat lodge ceremony called temazcal where you can purify yourself and get clarity for your life. At that time, I was open to anything that might bring me out of my terrible state. So I went with her. When the person who was running the ceremony opened the front door of his house, I saw him shining, completely golden in color. I couldn’t believe what I was experiencing. I blinked and he became ‘normal.’
“It turned out that he was one of the early devotees of Sri AmmaBhagavan, the husband-and-wife avatars in Southern India who founded the Oneness movement, since the year 1990. In the ceremony, I was exposed to mantras for the first time. My experience was deeply mystical. I could see the unfoldment of my whole life: all the things that would happen to me in different stages, my role in this world, and even what would be my contribution in this lifetime. This shift was profound. All I really wanted to know then was more about Sri AmmaBhagavan — and, of course, the mantras.”
And so it would be. His mentor friend guided Daniel to India in 2007 for a 21-day retreat and initiation as a blessing giver. But even as he was receiving more clarity about his life and its purpose, it was hurting Daniel that he couldn’t find ways to express all that was happening to him. Everyday language was not adequate.
He found that his heart was only at peace when he was chanting words of gratitude in Sanskrit. This was true, he noticed, for the people around him, too. Music had come back in a powerful way through the melodic chanting of the mantras. “In the beginning years, I would sing the mantras by myself in front of my altar to my beloved Divine, and this would fulfill me completely.”
So, not surprisingly, Daniel began singing these chants in his blessing circle as it grew slowly and steadily. He became a Oneness Trainer and began teaching in 2010, holding courses up to four times a week for the next few years. This kicked off the next phase in this young explorer’s life: translating at Oneness University.
The United Nations of Spirituality
Since pretty much no one outside of India speaks the native languages, and since educated Indians tend to learn English, courses at Oneness University are conducted in English. However, English-speaking attendees are in a relative minority. That means lots of headsets and a dozen or more translators who serve the hundreds from around the world in each course. Until recently, when the Chinese took over, the largest group was Spanish speaking. To save money on translation sets, the translator for the dominant language group speaks through a regular microphone transmitted through giant speakers when the guide who is teaching pauses every sentence or two for the translators.
Between 2008 and 2014, Daniel translated either over a microphone or into a headset mouthpiece literally dozens of various courses, including the old Level One and Level Two courses; 28-day Deepenings; 28-day Special Deepenings; Trainers and Advanced Trainers courses; and video translations for the Spanish-speaking community. “I had the opportunity to live and work at Oneness University for several months every year. In 2013 I spend my whole year translating course after course in the University.”
Daniel takes pains in creating a precise translation into Spanish for teachings. Translations include the Sanskrit vocabulary that he makes an effort to normalize for his listeners to where the Sanskrit term and its nuances are as familiar as if they were native to his listeners.
“I don’t want to miss a single little corner of the teaching when I am translating,” he said. “I want to translate exactly, not more or less or similar, what is being said. Because of my long-standing knowledge of Sanskrit, I can intuit what the guides are aiming at when they use these esoteric terms. They’re using Sanskrit as if we already know them. These words become normal and easy to understand, while they incorporate much more than their ordinary English or Spanish counterparts.
“In the mantras that I sing, the Sanskrit carries the consciousness. I deliver that with the same precision and accuracy as I do the translations at Oneness University. I am not just conveying a sense; I am conveying a consciousness."
During the period of intense introspection and prayer he experienced during his year at OU in 2013, Daniel found himself clearly shaping the kind of life that he wanted to create for himself. “As soon as I came back to the world, I was like a rocket on fire to the stars. Everything that I wished for started happening big time.”
When you hear Daniel speak in between musical offerings in his concerts, the precision and integration of the teachings of the guides and Sri AmmaBhagavan feel stamped on his consciousness. His words and the ideas he expresses are simple and graspable. You can tell he has lived his life through them. They are not merely memorized or learned. They carry a power and he delivers them with an ease reminiscent of the guides themselves.
And with this comes the greatest gift of all in Daniel’s concert: compassion and hope. Instead of a guy who was been handed a beautiful life and a beautiful human temple in which to live it, you see a friend who has also struggled and come out the other side. You see a mature adult who beams with childlike innocence the radiance of acceptance and self love. You hear in the timbre of his voice lifetimes of emotions, the vibrations of a higher existence, unmediated love. You feel his love. Not love for any specific person or thing, although Daniel loves all people — and especially his Divine. No. You just feel Love.
No one comes into this world without something to push against for our growth. It isn’t about what your obstacles are, how much of this or that karma you have, or even your parents or life’s crazy twists and turns. There is no comparing. We all have something. Daniel has had something. And he’s here not only to show us where transformation takes us, but also to give us a leg up through his heartfelt, hope-filled concerts and teaching.
Awakening and Humility
Those who are on the journey of awakening are both exalted and humbled by it. Gaining a direct experience of the Divine, awakened states, and a gradual slowing of the mind’s incessant chatter are very welcome milestones. During times, however, the pain and disaffection for our human selves — as our lovely parts become sullied by an unbid awareness of our formerly suppressed and rather unlovely parts — can be excruciating. Life puts us through paces. Obstacles loom and overwhelm us. We see how we’ve behaved, and misbehaved, in the past. This is awakening?
Daniel would be the second person to tell you — after any of the guides or Sri Bhagavan himself — that awakening is not the goal. Awakening is the beginning, where real and lasting transformation becomes possible. Transformation is what we’re really after, where all experiences, when fully experienced, are joy, and where we gradually attain lasting inner peace despite persistent outer challenges.
That’s a hard concept to imagine becoming reality. “Really?” say our minds. And then there’s the knotty problem of time. Yes, transformation can happen in an instant. But it also may take days, weeks, months, or years to dissolve or to be released, little by little.
To experience Daniel is to experience why we are willing to stay with the “what is” in this journey of awakening. He is what it looks like, he is what it feels like, to be living a life of non-resistance and liberation, of dream fulfillment, of ever-diminishing fear and ever-growing Divine co-creation.
“When we are awakened, we feel joy in everything. We feel love for everybody. We see our parents who caused us so much pain, and we feel love for them. We remember the past, and that memory doesn’t cause us to suffer anymore. We feel pain, but it dissipates quickly as we fail to attach any kind of story to it. Life is like surfing, and we enjoy being on the surfboard.”
Life will never stop throwing us curveballs or presenting us with obstacles. After awakening, we still suffer losses and feel hurts. Our relationships are still not perfect. We are not perfect, and we do not have to act like we are. We can be ourselves! Awakening gives us the insight and the clarity to see things for what they are, without the drama and the victimhood. We become free.
“It’s amazing that awakening is happening to all of us. It’s really worth it. Something like my musical teaching program can really help people gather the strength to go through it. When they do, it bears fruit."
Measuring Success
Oneness University advocates that we experience success in our lives, that we fulfill ourselves. Only then can we truly turn around and give fully to others. Daniel’s success can be measured on both sides of the equation. Obviously, he is living his dream: traveling, meeting people, sharing his music and mantras and teaching, embodying enlightenment, giving joy.
Is he seeing results from his audiences beyond the appreciative applause at the end of a concert?
The answer is yes.
The catalogue of responses from program attendees is the measure of his success. At the end of each concert he invites people in his audience to email him if they have noticed anything different, anything changing, any miracle small or large occurring in their lives. He has gathered quite a collection of anecdotes and testimonials from physical healings to palpable shifts in consciousness.
There was, for example, a woman in her 60s who at first didn’t get up to dance at the end of a concert because of a painful hip that has hobbled her for decades. She routinely missed out on such celebrations of movement and self-expression. All of sudden, she was inspired to get up and move, and she danced with abandon and, surprised, relatively no discomfort. She was elated. Comparing herself to the inevitable one person in the audience with the Deeksha brain-tickle, she wrote, “It was subtle for me. I wasn’t uncontrollably laughing, but I noticed the chronic pain in my hip was absolutely gone when I got up to dance.”
[For call-outs:
“For women living with the pressures of modern life, painful and irregular menstruation has become the norm. After participating in Daniel’s concert, my period is not only on time again but also the symptoms — like pain and congestion — have disappeared!”
“It's like I was back at Oneness University again. With his wisdom and the sharing in presence, Daniel is as good as the Oneness guides! Brilliant!”
“Over the past 20 years, I have had a repeated dream around a very painful memory around my first love when I was 19 years old. The magic is that after the concert, I had the dream again, but now there is no pain, anger, or repressed emotions. I was very peaceful. When I woke up, I found I had made a break from this pattern.”
After the concert, my whole mentality has become very calm. I am much more gentle when I speak. Even if I talk to the people whom I didn't like to meet in the past, I can still treat them peacefully. It is such grace for me to meet Daniel. I hope I can see him again soon.
Teachings were very logical and organized. Daniel's music has great variety: it can be happiness, it can be dancing in the clouds; it can be as quiet as a deep ocean. Great gratitude, deep gratitude to the Divine. There is so much I can't express in words or writing.
“Since I have gone to your concert I have had many transformations in my life. At your beautiful concert, I felt so amazingly at peace, enlightened, in awareness. I went to Woodstock first, and I felt so amazingly clear, words cannot explain. That’s why I had to go Connecticut two days later. That was so powerful. The music really touched my soul, and the Sanskrit — well what can I say. I am speechless.”]
A World of Good
Daniel’s world tour started two years ago and he hasn’t stopped traveling since. He has done more than four hundred concerts in China, USA, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Taiwan, India, Argentina, Chile, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Austria, Hungary, Denmark, Thailand, Mexico and many other places all over, meeting thousands of people sharing “Awakening Through Music” concerts and his courses.
“In my concerts I clearly see three levels of experience happening. The first one is the music. This engages the mind and gives the variety and entertainment we need to keep happy.
“The teaching in between the mantras creates a framework for the mind to move as the energy of the chants is comes through. Mantras are the second level of experience. These sacred sounds have the power to affect the unconscious mind, allowing it to enter a mode of “receptivity.” Mantras can communicate with the unconscious mind. It is there that at least 85% of the mind dwells and it is there that all perceptions of life are created, together with our responses to life and the kind of destiny that we create for ourselves. Mantras also create a sacred context for the third level to happen.
“And finally, ‘Awakening’ happens on the higher level and is much beyond the mantras or the music. Actually, Awakening doesn’t need them since Awakening is not something you achieve but something that is given to you when you are “receptive.” Mantras and music help to open you up to enter this mode.
“I’m experiencing such an extraordinary wave of transformation and Awakening all around me with the people coming to the concerts and workshops that I’m offering worldwide. We are living in such auspicious times when anybody on this planet can receive this Awakening that is the beginning of the end of suffering for our species.
“My whole purpose is to reach all the people — even the ones who are not on a spiritual journey — and help them to discover the most sublime experience of life. And to end their suffering. Music is a universal language of Love, and the teachings are so simple that they will help anybody wherever they are to have a deeper experience of life and become fulfilled.”
Shanti. Shanti. Shanti.