(14 June 1963 – 12 June 2018)
Sundaram (Demetrios Psychas) was born in Piraeus, Greece, into a family originally from Santorini Island. From early childhood he studied music, and since an adolescent he was part of contemporary music bands performing in Greece and later also in West Germany.
His passion for music remained unwavering throughout his life and music became for him a way for research and self-inquiry. In 1986 he travelled to India where he met his spiritual Master, Osho, and where he was initiated into sannyas, into the science of meditation.
Sundaram’s interest in the effects of sound and music on human psychophysiology brought him in contact with the Sound and Consciousness Institute, based in San Francisco, where he studied Sound Healing and Therapy. He founded Sonic Alignment, a therapeutic method based on sound, a fine-tuning process that restores harmony with our original resonant frequencies.
He became an Osho meditation and meditative therapies facilitator, a member of the Sound Healers Association (Colorado, USA) and a certified Prenatal Psychology counsellor, and taught Sound Healing and Music Therapy in experiential trainings. He worked as a sound/music therapist, composer and producer of healing and meditative music.
Half of the year he lived as part of the community at Osho Afroz Meditation Centre on the Greek island Lesvos, where he set up Musurgia, Afroz’s music studio. During the last few years he was part of Die Before You Die (The Art of Let Go) team. As a musician he contributed to the workshops with spontaneous and organic soundscapes, designed scientifically with certain tones and rhythms to support the healing work of Kaifi.
For one of these workshops the team travelled, on 15th April, to South East China. They had planned to facilitate a 7-day course, Meditation – Through Life and Death with Live Music, and a 4-day workshop, Die Before You Die – The Art of Let Go with Live Music, at the Art Zen Village. Two more events were scheduled in the cities of GuangZhou and Foshan.
The music team also included Deva Dinraj from USA, who plays guitars and sarod, and Deva Nirjano from Italy, a percussionist. Sundaram played bass and as a sound engineer created healing frequencies.
Already before they left he complained of high blood pressure and from the first day in China his body started to collapse. During the second retreat he decided to travel back to Greece, accompanied by one of the team members, Om from Romania, to be hospitalized. His last ten days he spent in intensive care and was in a coma. After post mortem the doctors found aggressive cancer but believed he died from something else which they were unable to discover.
Kaifi writes: “Just one day before he was moved in a coma to intensive care, I had the good luck to see him. We talked about life and death… about preparation and let go. We spent eight hours together, with tears, laughter, stillness and silence that filled me with gratitude! It was incredible to be enveloped by all these waves of love around him. He asked me to pass on to everybody that he was doing his best to stay with us, and that he was ready for anything that may come, with awareness, fear and gratitude! He thanked you all for the support, love and for being in his life! When I asked him, ‘Do you want anything from us?’ He replied, ‘Only Love…Only Love!'”
Sundaram left behind many beloved friends and a 24-year-old son, Sagaresh, who is also a sannyasin.
Text thanks to Kaifi, alert credit to Mahana
Tributes
You can leave here a message / tribute / anecdote using our contact form (pls add ‘Sundaram’ in the subject field)…
A tribute for Sundaram’s birthday today, 14th June 2018, from Kaifi and friends:
Premgyan and Sangit write:
“Our band played a satsang during the Meera Event and Exhibition in Diessen, near Lake Ammersee. The event opened many hearts and afterwards this prayer-song for our beautiful, fragile Mother Earth came into being (it’s a live version). Sangit and I would like to offer this song as a tribute to Sundaram because we were so touched by the article and his words when he replied, ‘Only love …. only love!’ With Love.”
In 2013, I suddenly got an email from this man, with a complete translation from English into Greek of my online “Intuitive Music – A Mini-Handbook”. This is a collection of free improvisation exercises. I did not know him before, and it was a great joy to get such an homage! Moreover, now learning about his sannyas affiliation, this testifies immensely to his openness in the musical and creative field. Being a yoga practioner myself and at the same time playing experimental music, I know well how spiritual cultures sadly may be segregated from one another. He completely seemed to disregard such barriers. I greatly honour his memory.
Carl Bergstroem-Nielsen
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