Dear Karen,

I'd like to know if it is acceptable to use a gong? I don't have a bell, much as I'd like to acquire one at some stage in the not-too-distant future. In the interim, I have a fine Chinese brass gong which can make vast amounts of noise if I want it to and which resonates marvellously. Would this do as an alternative to get me started?

- Vajrakumara, UK

Karen's reply:

Before I had a Balinese bell I had series of different types of bells, ranging from low to high in sound. I found I needed to make several circuits of a building, starting with the lowest sounding bell first and gradually refining the energy with each subsequent circuit as I worked my way up to the bell with the highest note. Nowadays one circuit with a Balinese Space Clearing bell or Empress bell will do the job that all these other bells used to do, and in a fraction of the time. This is because of the unique way the Balinese bells are crafted.

Gongs are very powerful. The sound resonates deeply throughout an area, and you could certainly use one for maintenance Space Clearing once a week or so (providing it doesn't annoy the neighbours!). However if you choose to use a gong for the initial Space Clearing you would ideally also need to use a series of bells afterwards, to refine the energy as I described above.

There's another very interesting difference between using gongs and Balinese bells. I teach my practitioners how to use the bells to access and bring to consciousness levels of information that become lodged in the walls of a person's home. I have found that gongs will only do what I call 'blanket Space Clearing' (ie. they do the job but are not subtle enough to allow information to be discerned) whereas bells can bring to light the most remarkable information, which can be tremendously helpful in moving on the person in their spiritual journey. There are many levels of Space Clearing which I have not yet written about, but there is a little more information about this in my article entitled, What is Space Clearing?