AUM: The Power of Sound

Siddhartha listened. He was now nothing but a listener, completely concentrated on listening, completely empty, he felt that he had now finished learning to listen. Often before, he had heard all this, these many voices in the river, today it sounded new. Already, he could no longer tell the many voices apart, not the happy ones from the weeping ones, not the ones of children from those of men, they all belonged together, the lamentation of yearning and the laughter of the knowledgeable one, the scream of rage and the moaning of the dying ones, everything was one, everything was intertwined and connected, entangled a thousand times. And everything together, all voices, all goals, all yearning, all suffering, all pleasure, all that was good and evil, all of this together was the world. All of it together was the flow of events, was the music of life. And when Siddhartha was listening attentively to this river, this song of a thousand voices, when he neither listened to the suffering nor the laughter, when he did not tie his soul to any particular voice and submerged his self into it, but when he heard them all, perceived the whole, the oneness, then the great song of the thousand voices consisted of a single word, which was
Om:
the perfection.
-Siddhartha by Herman Hesse

The Pranava:

The sound Om holds a particularly sacred place in Yogic tradition and subtle body technology.  In fact, to refer to Om is to diminish its sacredness: in most traditional texts, including in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, the Om is given the name of Pranava, or that which contains the supreme prana.

Like many of the sacred symbols, sounds, and terms that draw back to early Vedic religion, the Pranava is also considered to be the sound of life’s origin in the Jain and Buddhist traditions.  In Yoga the earliest reference to the sound can be found in the Upanishads, describing the sound as the ‘whole of the Veda,’ and the ‘cosmic sound.’ Also in the Upanishads it was said that “in the beginning, there was one word and that word was Om.” 

It is the sound of creation and it has a significant role in the creation of the universe. It is also said that once we chant Om on a daily basis the conflict in our minds ends and we have a clear vision. It exhausts the war between the mind and our thoughts and unites them by giving them the same purpose, self-realization.

When separated out the Pranava has three sounds and four parts, and is therefore sometimes referred to as trimurti, the three phenomes.  The sounds are: 

A- the sound of creation and origination that resonates at the back of the throat, signifying beginnings.

U- the sound of all things in being and resonance, filling the chamber of the mouth.

M- the sound of cessation, closing, and completion that moves the circle to the front of the mouth just behind the lips.

Turiya- the silent sound at the end of the vibration that roughly translates as ‘the fourth’ and that symbolizes the silent ground of all being present not only in the silent pause after sound but also throughout the sound, interpenetrated in and as all sound and form.

Written Symbol:

Even the written symbol for Om represents these four parts.  To quote Yogananda:

The symbol of AUM consists of three curves, one semicircle, and a dot. The large lower curve symbolizes the waking state (jagrat), in this state the consciousness is turned outwards through the gates of the senses. The larger size indicates that this is the most common and major state of the human consciousness.

Curve 2 denotes the state of deep sleep (sushupti) or the unconscious state. This is a state where the sleeper desires nothing nor beholds any dream. Curve 3 (which lies between deep sleep and the waking state) signifies the dream state (swapna). In this state the consciousness of the individual is turned inwards, and the dreaming self beholds an enthralling view of the world behind the lids of the eyes. These three curves therefore represent the entire physical phenomenon.

The dot signifies the fourth state of consciousness, known in Sanskrit as turiya. It signifies the coming to rest of all differentiated, relative existence. This quiet, peaceful and blissful state is the ultimate goal of all spiritual activity. The semi circle symbolizes maya and separates the dot from the other three curves. Thus it is the illusion of maya that prevents us from the realization of this highest state of bliss. The semi circle is open at the top, and does not touch the dot. This means that this highest state is not affected by maya. Maya only affects the manifested phenomenon. This effect is that of preventing the seeker from reaching his ultimate goal, the realization of the One, all-pervading, unmanifest, Absolute principle. 

The Narrow Gate:

In other traditions, the concentration and compact package of Pranava represents the Narrow Gate of passage between the outer realm of human mind, distraction, and preoccupation and the deep inner reorganization according to the orderly principles of A-U-M-Turiya and self-realization.

“Enter the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”
Matthew 7:13-14

We find it much easier to carry on in our average suffering- not really changing anything and remaining uncomfortable or dissatisfied.  Spirituality has always encouraged us to shake off complacent suffering. It is much harder, so much more vulnerable, to pass through the narrow gate of accountability, kindness, sincerity, and self-inquiry.  

This is the place where everything must be felt.  It looks like an incredibly difficult path because we must observe, digest, and resolve the pains that we have caused and the pains that we have received and try to reconcile the heart.  What does it mean to forgive ourselves?  How about others? How does the AUM help us to transmute human pain?

A:

First we must become aware of pain- that first glimmering knowledge of the texture of pain: how it looks, feels, and responds.  We start to understand that emotional and psychological pain are one and the same thing.  Our emotions always have a thought connected to them, perhaps even a series of thoughts, looping over and over again.  And our thoughts almost always have an emotional tether- whether we know it or not. 

Seeing that these two actions taken by the Self are the same requires meditation, long pauses when we are triggered, concentrated self-study.  The chanting of Pranava is the prayer to ourselves that calls upon transformational, divine power and allows us to align with that force like an arrow piercing the deep heart.

Taken deeper, observing our pain might show us that not only are thought and emotion on the same continuum, but so is the body.  When we look in one direction on the line we see thought; move over a little and we’ll see our emotional landscape; move over more and we’ll see our physical body engaged also in this field.  

This becomes apparent when we start to notice that our emotions have a physical impact on our bodies: not just our stress levels (though that’s a valid connection point, too), but a physical point of contact in our body.  Maybe our stomach hurts when we have a thought or a certain feeling, maybe there’s a tightness in our neck or heart.  Somatic reminders of pain should not be ignored for they are perception literally knocking on the door of the body.

U:

How do we digest pain? Not all at once!  Pick and choose what feels manageable.  Some topics are decidedly NOT manageable to digest all at once.  So choose the small things first.  Surprisingly these can take a long time and can start to unravel whole patterns of being.  Sit with a problem, neither identifying it nor objectifying it.  

Don’t push away or distance pain- we cannot without dissociating anyway if the pain is real and valid. Find a meditation group, a self-inquiry group, a women’s or men’s circle.  Talk to a friend or a professional.  But stick to the same topic until it feels fully digested and moved through the physical body.  

Please remember to identify where in the body tissues the emotional pain is felt, and what thoughts are also tied in.  The entire landscape must be digested, not just one prong of the pain-body-experience.  This process is why the “narrow gate” is so challenging.  It takes time, patience, courage.  Keep going.

M:

How do we resolve pain?  Resolving will happen spontaneously in the body, heart, and mind when we have effectively digested our pain-thread.  We will know this has happened because we begin to communicate more clearly without tripping so much on our triggers. We develop stronger boundaries with people.  We have more capacity for kindness.  We stop labelling people that have injured us as evil or bad, which only gives more power to those people by instilling fear into us.

Boundaries and kindness work together as the lesson of Ahimsa teaches us.  

Because the path to resolving pain is so challenging, by the time we get there it’s fairly simple to open our hands and let go.  Maybe one day this is possible and the next it is not.  But we do not push down our feelings: we return to looking at what comes up as it comes up, however frequently or infrequently.

Eventually the feeling of our feelings, noticing what we notice, committing to stay at the event horizon of our citta-vritti’s (mind stuff, thought-emotion stuff) is like a balm.  Eventually that narrow gate is the easier gate and ignoring or dismissing or dissociating becomes the pain.  Eventually the tuning fork of the heart rings so loud at every disturbance that it is actually worse to walk through the wide way where there’s plenty of room to push things around.  Eventually we have nowhere left to hide because yoga has done a big sweep through the house and all our dusty corners.

Turiya:

Most spiritual practice follows the standard trajectory toward stillness, toward peace, toward quiet as an absolute end-goal. This is sometimes described as the inward path, or the “direct path” of non-dual awareness highlighted in many ancient teachings and religions. This is the path of Yoga and the celebration of Turiya, the silent state of divine Oneness.

But do not be tricked by the stillness of Turiya, for this silence represents all things.  When turned outward it will collect life with it, as it absolutely should if it is to contain absolute spiritual application. 

Turiya reminds us that nothing ever remains still- not even in the stillest moment is life- without the deepest movement. Not even in the most peaceful place is there not the possibility of unrest just as in the whitest white there will always be potential for dark and in the darkest dark there will always be a movement and flicker. 

The perfect unbroken quiet state of consciousness represents a specific challenge because striving toward that hints at a loss or rejection of the movement of life that always returns. It always returns, and usually louder on the heels of the quiet. Both are Turiya, as is all.

The material that arises out of quiet is incredibly potent and powerful because it is born not out of the mind but out of deep consciousness (chetana). It is the material that sits directly on the mirror of the self, and so we must look at what is born from stillness as a divine gift and a place of real transformation.  

It is exactly the place where self-inquiry becomes the practice, representing our ability to alchemize patterns, thoughts, and emotions: seeing them as both part of ourselves and also, paradoxically, quite impersonal to our individual character.

Dharana, or one-pointed concentration (the sixth limb of yoga) draws us toward perfect stillness, but the Turiya state shows us that dharana flows two ways. Noticing what arises gives us a point of fine focus. Noticing we can notice. And then the practice moves us not only to the death of the self but to the life of the self equally. 

This is the outward path of the heart.  The vibrant. The arrogant self-importance of the mind and thought. The righteous emotions and feelings. That which celebrates. Shakti.

So I love and I pray that love meets life. May each infinite pause meet in the smallest of gaps where the one breaks and the next starts. Let us dance in that gap that can flow both ways.  OM

“When you were already One,
You became two.
Now what will you do?”
Jesus: The Gospel of Thomas 

If we are willing to dissolve as the divine, to dip our toes across that great threshold of the tight heart and allow an aperture that forever challenges our convictions that we end where we end, that the distant sound is far and our heartbeat close, then we should have the courage and the wisdom to allow for the lessons that bring grief, discomfort, irritation, even rage, and every other modulation of fear that cracks us, that leaves us face-down on the floor in the middle of the night praying for help.

When we open beyond the physical-emotional-mental body we find wide rings of space.  It is the gift of self-inquiry and the promise of turning inward toward the honesty and accountability of the heart.

Turiyatita:

Go beyond the fourth. Saturate back into life, as life, because of life, with life, through life, and as a gift from life.