LA VIA DEL GONG

THE MYSTERY JOURNEY OF THE ANCIENT GONG

Don Conreaux formerly known as Baba Don and Guru Jagat. Master Don was one of the five original Kundalini Yoga Teachers designated by Yogi Bhajan in 1969. Don also studied the gong writings of Dane Rudhyar. He established the Nanak Dwara Ashram Teacher Training 1970-1976 in Phoenix, Arizona.
Don originated The Gong Yoga of Holistic Resonance, Gong Therapy, The Gong Bath, The Gong Puja, and Gong Master Training in the Way of the Gong. Don has produced students of the gong in many countries of the world since and holds trainings internationally. He also conducts his Mysterious Tremendum Gong Consort and Sacred Tone Ensemble.

We follow Don Conreaux, master teacher and player of the gong who is the leading international proponent of the Gong sound as a Meditation Therapy, and also the originator of the Public "Gong Bath" as a Mass Healing Sound Event. Don has many students around the world who are known as Gong Masters and who serve their communities and countries with "Gong Bath" events. Don travels with his Improvisatory Tone group called The Mysterious Tremendum Ensemble and promotes the first day of world peace.
To the gong player, the gong is not simply a musical instrument but a mysterious tone producer that has a tremendous effect on the listener. Along with its tremendous sound and rejuvenating power, it has a very mysterious past that goes back at least to the early "Bronze Age, 5 to 6 thousand years ago at the very beginning our modern society and its collective memory.
The gong seems to evoke a powerful vibratory presence as it is played in various ancient sites and natural acoustic places, as well as in spaces of sacred architecture,
Although the first gongs arose in a span of almost 2 thousand years as the beginning Bronze Age varied around the globe. The very first gong might have been given birth somewhere near Bagdad in present day Iraq, around 3500 BCE. One of its very first names may have also have been "Mithra" which means "a friend to all".
Don says that the great universal popularity of the gong amongst holistic health practitioners of today is due to the fabulous psychological support that it gives to the healing response of the listener and the holistic resonant gift of relaxation it gives to the nervous system.

Dear students of the global gong:

Seasons Greetings to a wonderful family of Gong Masters

Since 1969 when I first heard and sounded the gong introduced to me through Yogi Bhajan and studied the syntonic music teachings of Dane Rudhyar, I have focused my energies on bringing the gong and its attributes to as many people as possible.
In 1984, I began the world service journey of the gong of world peace. It was called the Mahatma Gandhi Salt March for Peace and began at the Paramahansa Yogananda Lake Shrine in Los Angeles and landed in New York City several months later where the International Center for Holistic Resonance is now located.
Yogananda had become my first yoga teacher in 1952.
In 1967 my first wife ’s ashes were scattered on the waters of the Lake Shrine. It was significant to me that this life change began here. Synchronous and meaningful co-incidences seemed to me purposefully placed like sign posts on the spiritual journey throughout all our lives.
It was Dane Rudhyar who said that the Gong released the same force which Gandhi called Satyagraha or Truth Force. A cross country peace walk was designed to regenerate the human spirit. The Salt March to the Ocean stood for obtaining lost spiritual will power and that to me was the human power needed for saving the planet.
Humanity had lost the Salt that it needed to be a force for truth and for being one loving family. The gong offers the ocean of Om and its Salt Giving power. The bronze gong itself is a living example of the science of synthesis as it was the world's first alloy and still stands symbolically today for the holistic synthesis of diversity into functional harmony.
Why did the Gong suddenly take the spotlight in 1969? This question entered my mind because it was over 5,000 years since it was first amalgamated somewhere in Sumeria and the area we now call The Middle East..
The answer came finally in 1984 at a meeting with the then Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations and now Chancellor of the World Peace University in Costa Rica, Dr. Robert Muller.
It became clear to me why, in order to realize world peace, it must be regularly celebrated to finally evoke it.
According to Dr. Muller this is a local global ceremony. People gathered in circles, hold hands, give thanks for life and breath, and listen to all the gongs and bells of peace ring together around the planet while we celebrate as one planet family the First Day of World Peace whenever that day manifests.
It was then that the establishing of World Peace Bell Gardens around the world became one of the most goals of my gong journey.
Today others have recognized the Magnum Opus or greater work of the gong and are practicing gong mastery in their cities and countries.
Today more than ever, the sound of the gong rightly used is needed to alleviate the mental, emotional suffering of humanity and to synthesize the diverse people of the world into one human family.
As these final years of the 5,000 year Mayan calendar unfold, we see expoential climate change and reptilian world violence become more chaotic, stress and depression increasing to further bog down the spirit of human kindness.
The gong, according to the Buddha, stands not only for the evocation of happiness and loving kindness but functional harmony, as well. The dysfunction of society's global brain cannot resist against the functional harmony and multi-unity of resonance produced by the gong of world peace.
The Tai Loi characters on the face of the gong also stand for the hope of humankind to bond together despite our dissimilarities of culture, religion and politics in order to make possible a functional future for our children and their descendents.
Please continue to take on more of the work of the gong during the remaining seven years window of opportunity 2007 - 2013.
The more meaningful each individual effort, the greater the healing response in others.

Love,
Don