Music, Silence and Authenticity in Yoga

From time to time, discussions arise within the yoga community about whether music belongs in a yoga class. Some practitioners feel strongly that practice should unfold in silence. Others see music as a valuable support for movement, breath and atmosphere.

I find these conversations interesting because they often reveal a deeper question beneath the question.

• Are we really discussing music?

  
  

• Or are we discussing authenticity, tradition and lineage?

  
  

• Are we asking whether there is a single authoritative way that yoga should be practised, or whether multiple approaches can coexist within the broader landscape of yoga?

Perhaps we are also asking what best supports presence: silence, sound, sensation, breath, or the particular needs of the people in the room.

Silence has an important place in many yogic traditions. Practices such as pratyahara, the turning inward of the senses, and meditation invite us to notice what emerges when external stimulation falls away. There is wisdom in creating space for stillness and listening deeply.

At the same time, our experience is not shaped by silence alone. Sound can also influence how we experience ourselves. A piece of music may bring awareness to the breath, evoke emotion, soften mental chatter or create a sense of rhythm and connection. Through silence, we may notice our inner landscape with greater clarity. Through sound, we may encounter that same landscape in a different way.

Neither experience is inherently superior. Both can become opportunities for awareness.

Yoga itself has never been a single, fixed thing. Across centuries, cultures and lineages, practices have evolved and adapted. The posture-based yoga most of us encounter today would be unfamiliar to many practitioners from earlier periods. Yoga’s history is not one of complete uniformity, but of continuity and change.

This leads me to wonder what we mean when we speak of authenticity.

If authenticity is defined solely by tradition, then every adaptation risks being seen as a departure from what came before. Yet yoga itself has changed throughout its history. If authenticity is not simply a matter of preserving forms unchanged, perhaps it lies elsewhere.

Perhaps authenticity is found in intention, integrity and understanding.

Perhaps it is found in how we engage with practice, rather than in any single expression of it.

For me, music sits somewhere within that enquiry.

I do not see it as essential. Equally, I do not see it as a problem to be solved.

Sometimes silence feels appropriate. Sometimes a carefully chosen piece of music can soften the edges of a busy day, support a rhythm of movement or help create a sense of ease in the room. Neither is inherently more yogic than the other. Both are simply conditions within which practice unfolds.

What matters more to me is intention.

Is the music serving the practice, or distracting from it?

Is the silence creating spaciousness, or becoming another rule to defend?

As teachers, our responsibility may be less about determining the correct answer and more about understanding the effect of our choices.

My own teaching remains relatively simple. I offer movement, breath and occasional reflections drawn from yoga philosophy. I do not see myself as a spiritual authority, nor as a guardian of tradition. There are practitioners, scholars and lineage holders with far deeper knowledge than mine. My role is simply to facilitate a shared practice and create conditions in which people can explore their own experience.

Whether that happens in silence or alongside gentle music feels, to me, a secondary question.

The deeper invitation remains the same.

• Can we meet ourselves with a little more awareness?

  
  

• Can we notice what helps us become more present?

  
  

• Can we practise without becoming attached to the forms that practice takes?

Perhaps authenticity is not something we inherit from tradition, nor something we claim for ourselves.

Perhaps it is something we cultivate through thoughtful practice, honest enquiry and a willingness to remain open.

And perhaps that includes remaining open to both silence and song.