Before moving to California I had only seen tabla in the form of a documentary video of Ravi Shankar and Allah Rhaka at the Monterey Jazz Festival. It was amazing to watch, but I never imagined myself actually playing those drums; it was too foreign, exotic, and different. When I arrived at CalArts in 1998, my experience with tabla became very real and accessible.
Collective Consciousness
When two or more people get together, their thoughts are stepping stones to the consciousness they share. When we think, there are two components. First, there is the thought. Second is the consciousness that listens to that thought. Most people just focus on thoughts, but in a collective consciousness, they share the consciousness that listens to those thoughts. They don’t always have to agree, for their bond is strong enough that the disagreements don’t break up their shared consciousness.
