Question: Is it advisable to train one’s voice, if one has not much of it?

Answer: One might ask: Is it advisable to do physical exercises when one is very thin? If one is thin, it is even more necessary to do physical exercises. So if there is no voice, it is more necessary that one should develop it.

Question: Does the voice change through the different ages?

Answer: Yes. Every age, infancy, childhood, youth, and more advanced age changes the pitch of the voice. The advanced age is an expression of what a person has gained, and so the voice is also indicative of his attainment. No doubt, as with every step in the age of a person, so with every step forward in spiritual evolution, there is also a difference in the voice. Every experience in life is an initiation. Even in the worldly life it is a step forward, and that experience changes the voice.

Question: Do the words one has spoken in the past continue to affect one’s life?

Answer: Certainly, certainly.

Question: Which is more powerful: to say something mentally or to say it aloud?

Answer: If you say it mentally and do not speak, it is powerful. If you speak and do not say it mentally, it is powerless. If you say it mentally and speak it at the same time, it is most powerful.

Question: Would you say a few words about the modern art of declamation or recitation?

Answer: There is little to be said about it. Very often people think that, when they have to recite, they must have a different voice, they must become a different being. A person does not want to remain what he is, he wants to be different. There is nothing more beautiful, nothing more convincing and appealing and impressive than reciting in one’s own natural voice.

Question: Would you tell us how it was that Tansen kindled candles by singing?

Answer: It is told that Tansen, the great singer, performed wonders by singing. Tansen was a Yogi. He was a singer, but the Yogi of singing. He had mastered sound, and therefore the sound of his voice became living, and by his making the voice live everything that he wanted happened. Very few in this world know to what extent phenomena can be produced by the power of the voice. If there is any real trace of miracle, of phenomena, of wonder, it is the voice.

Khan, Hazrat Inayat. The Mysticism of Sound and Music: Revised Edition. Shambhala Publications. 2014.