BIOGRAPHY
My name is Steven Carter. I am a meditation and yoga teacher based in North West London.
I have been working with sound as a meditation tool for over 20 years, using a combination of gongs, Tibetan bowls and various other instruments to create sonic environments that gently guide the listener into a meditative state of awareness.
I have always had a deep interest in all forms of music and a parallel obsession with the more esoteric experiences that human beings have sought out across different times and cultures, devouring books on everything from the classic spiritual texts of various religions, shamanic and magical practices, and the teachings of various gurus, to the explorations of Leary, Metzner and Alpert and their contemporaries, the work of the Monroe Institute and their OOBE (out of body experience) technologies, the work of Carl Jung, and many other branches of psychological and spiritual study.
In the early '90s an invitation from a friend to experience the work of a Tibetan bowl master who was staying with him supplied the link to bind the two strands together. A small group of friends sat in a circle in Jaime's living room whilst this gentle man played a beautiful selection of old Tibetan bowls. The effect was profound. All of us were transported to a blissful state of consciousness as the sounds washed away thought and left us in a deep joyful stillness. I never saw him again, but he has my deep gratitude for opening me to the full potential of sound meditation.
Although it would be several years before I graduated to using Tibetan bowls and gongs, I explored combining ambient music, natural sounds, binaural beats and recordings of various teachings to attempt to create altered states in the listener, with some success. A few years later Jaime very generously lent me his personal collection of Tibetan bowls (again, to my eternal gratitude) and I purchased my first gong. I began by experimenting on friends and developed my technique, expanded my collection of bowls and gongs, and started to do personal and group sessions.
Since then I have facilitated many hundreds of sessions and I have seen the profound and varied positive effects that manifest in participants, from physical and mental stress release to accessing numinous states of consciousness.
Recently I have used the free time I was gifted with during lockdown to explore recording and mixing my various instruments, creating sessions that can be used at any time to aid meditation. There are 20 minute versions on the Music page, or you can stream the full 60 minute sessions freely or buy them from https://chaskaquyllur.bandcamp.com/music