It began, like so many of his spiritual experiences, with the sensation of flying. He was flying alone in the soul body over a land of mountains, fields, and villages on the astral plane, the realm of reality directly above the physical. The land below him would have been beautiful had it not been covered by a pall of gloomy darkness that shrouded it like charcoal smoke. There were no colors; no living beings moved; everything lay frozen under a blanket of black, murky oppression. Jeff decided to bring some illumination to this forsaken land and began emitting a sparkly blue radiance from his soul body.   Gradually, he turned the landscape beneath him from black to blue, leaving a wide swath of color, light, and life behind him. As he flew along, the starry luminescence dropping from his spirit body seemed to animate the mountains and villages below as if they were awakening from a long, troubled sleep. Rivers flowed, plants bloomed; people and animals began to awaken and go about their business. Then he noticed the farther he flew, the harder his task of illuminating the terrain became. He had to spend more and more time focusing his attention on keeping up a steady stream of blue light – as if the originator of the darkness had noticed him and was putting up resistance.   At last he arrived at the base of a mighty black mountain that towered over all others, its summit lost in the murky sky. As he began to ascend its steep slopes, Jeff realized he was in for a true battle. A current flowed down upon him from the peak of this mountain, a cold, invisible current that pressed him back with the implacability of an ocean tide. It was a palpably malignant force that tried to implant fear into him – a panicky feeling that he would be sucked down into the abyss, never to return.   Jeff fought back bravely, banishing his fear with thoughts of the Living Master, the spiritual guide of all students of the Path of Light and Sound. He chanted HU, the love song to God. He envisioned himself as immortal Soul, knowing that in Its true form as a spark of pure consciousness Soul was above good and evil – impervious to the negative force.   Despite this, the going was slow, very slow . . . at one point Jeff almost despaired of ever reaching the summit. Rising to the top at this rate, he figured, would take days – maybe weeks. Then he remembered something Tari Niras, his lifelong spiritual mentor, had told him: Light and Sound were the twin aspects of Divine Spirit, the substance upon which all reality is based. Light represented the more ephemeral qualities of wisdom, knowledge and insight; Sound the more tangible qualities of energy, change and power. While both made up the highest quality of Love – of the two, Sound was the stronger. What he needed was to somehow get the Sound working on his behalf, as well as the Light.   Having attained this inspiration, putting it into practice was fairly easy: He would use music. Jeff, a mediocre practicing musician at best, nevertheless was gifted with a phenomenal memory for music. He often entertained himself on the subway or in the gym by playing entire symphonies or concertos in his head.  Sometimes he embarrassed himself by whistling along out loud, abruptly breaking off when people stared or sent quizzical looks his way. In this situation, however, his talent and training combined to give him a powerful tool against the storm wave of the dark current.   After casting about for a moment, he settled on the first symphony by Gustav Mahler, entitled “The Titan.”   As the faint strains of the first movement floated into his mind, strength began awakening in his heart. Confidence started flooding into him as the famous opening clarinet notes imitated the song of birds at dawn, then swelled together with string and wind instruments to stir the whole musical countryside to life. Vigor filled Jeff’s spirit body. Energy throbbed inside him. Powered by the music, Jeff fought to turn the tide of the oppressive downdraft from the mountain. . .