The idea th
at sound is an essential part of the universe, and of our very self awareness, is not new. Humans were in fact fashioning musical instruments as far back as Paleolithic era, as evidenced by the discovery of bone flutes in southern Germany that are over 40,000 years old. Yes, we humans have been fascinated with sound and music making for quite some time.
One of the oldest traditions involving the mystical nature of sound is Nada Yoga, an Indian metaphysical system teaching that the entire cosmos, including human beings, consists of sound vibrations, called “nāda”. These teachings are found in the Rig Veda, an ancient religious text going back three-and-a-half thousand years.
As is often the case, it is fascinating to note that modern quantum physics is now echoing this same view, centuries after the yogis first observed it. Much of how quantum physics describes our world could be boiled down to “at it’s core everything is simply vibrating energy fields”. Once again, science has finally caught up with mysticism!
What is even more fascinating about Nada yoga is that its practitioners were taught to listen to these “quantum” sounds, by learning to tune in and listen to the internal world.
There is a distinction between the sounds and music of the outer world (called Ahata) and the music from within (Anahata).
Most of us have not put much thought into the idea of “music from within”, or an internal soundscape.
The closest we may come to this is when the doctor takes our pulse, or our heavy breathing after a stint on the stairmaster. But beyond the more obvious physical sounds there is an entire new world that we can learn to listen to.
Nada Yoga practitioners are taught to become aware of the process that takes place before we create a word or begin to sing. As opposed to the Western approach, where we simply have “not talking” and then “talking”, or “silence” and then “singing”, in Nada Yoga there are four different stages in the pre-verbal process. They are called Para, Pashyanti, Madhyama and Vaikhari.
First, there is Para (“beyond”) sound. This is the most subtle, as it is pure intention, without any form yet. This could be thought of as when you first have the desire to create.
Next comes Pashyanti, or “visualization”. Here we begin to form our desire into idea, in preparation for the third step, Madhyama. Madhyama is when we mentally choose words to match what we are about to express. And the final step is Vaikhari, as we vocalize these ideas into sounds. So the actual forming of words or song is only the last link in a chain, which begins with pure intention.
These four levels of listening in Nada Yoga remind us of the complexity of our creative process, and how little most of us actually “hear” as we go through life.
Although the philosophy of Nada Yoga is vast and complex, we can extrapolate the following: it is possible to learn to listen to things we may have never knew existed, both externally and internally. And this practice will not only sharpen our awareness of the auditory world in which we dwell, but according to nada Yoga, can also bring us serenity and peace of mind. As the Yogis describe it, when we truly are able to immerse ourselves into a sound, be it a concert, birds in the park, or an internal soundscape, we start to lose the distinction between ourselves and that what we are listening to.
We can become one with the experience, and everything else seems to fade away.
Most of us experience this when we crank up the stereo or go to a concert and become “lost in the music”, which in a way is the same experience that the Nada Yogis are describing. We have become fully present, and in the moment, through the magic of sound.
On a mere practical level, learning to listen consciously can affect our lives in many positive ways.
Let us examine the basic implications of such an idea, starting with the most accessible subject for conscious listening: our surrounding environment (or the “Ahata” of Nada Yoga).
It is useful to group this “soundtrack” of our lives into two categories: background and foreground sounds. Just as in a movie, our background soundtrack is going 24/7, whether it’s the traffic outside or music from the radio. The foreground would be the more obvious sounds we are supposed to be paying attention to or interacting with (our partner yelling at us about being out of milk while we are trying to watch on the news, for example).
Due to the hundreds of thousands of bits of data our brains are processing every single second, we have evolved the ability to “tune out” most of the sounds that go on around us, and focus in on the ones that are are important to us at the moment. We can even multi-task, and give 75% percent of our focus to one sound (the TV), and 25% to a secondary sound (“honey, we’re out of milk!”).
The problem is that we rarely, if ever, give any one sound all of our attention.
Have you ever been guilty of not really paying attention to what someone was saying, because you were planning what your response was going to be?
Or trying to enjoy a concert, but unable to stop making lists in your head of things you should to be doing?
Most of us have, don’t feel bad. It’s not really our fault, it;’s the combined lack of formal meditation in our upbringing, along with the sensory overloaded society we live in. It’s no wonder we all run around in an ADD tailspin, half listening, half communicating, and never wholly engaging in our surroundings.
The answer is actually closer than we ever imagined, right at the tips of our ears. Wherever we are, and usually whatever we are doing (unless piloting a 747 or something similarly important) we can take a moment to practice Conscious Listening.
Here are two exercises from Nada Yoga that are both fun and ear-opening 🙂
Nada Yoga exercise 1: hearing Ahata (outside sound)
1) First, create the right environment. Somewhere that you won’t be disturbed for a bit, and where you can sit comfortably. That’s about it. you dont have to be anywhere special like a yoga room or in a “peaceful and quiet”, because remember, we can use any sounds for this.
2) Now, start “scanning” the sounds that you hear around you. Find the loudest or nearest ones, focus on them for a few minutes, then move on to the faintest and furthest ones. What’s the softest noise you can hear, underneath all the other ones?
Then select the highest pitched sound, and then the lowest one. This is your sound environment, and you are exploring it, like a child in a magic garden.
3) Listen for patterns, sounds that repeat, and sounds that happen randomly. Notice any continuous rhythms, even as unexpected as your refrigerator turning on and off, or the grandfather clock ticking away.
4) Now “move around” with your ears and try to hear everything at once, as one symphony of all the background noises around you.
Nada Yoga exercise 2: hearing Anahata (inside sound)
1) This one will require a quite an undisturbed place. The less outside noise the better. When you are in this place, sit comfortably and close you eyes. Start with listening to your breath. Don’t change how you’re breathing, just continue breathing naturally, but tune into how it sounds. Now swallow, and notice the several different sounds you make. Open and close your mouth and hear your jaw noises. Roll your head and stretch your neck, listen for the sounds it makes.
2) Now we go deeper. Plug both your ears with your fingers. You will hear a new background noise, almost a dull roar, like a seashore. This is your blood circulating through your head! Listen ever closer and you can hear it pulse, this is your heart. Let your breath come and go, and listen for the quieter sounds. You may hear ringing, you may hear creaking, this is all part of your internal soundscape. You’re now hearing what cells hear!
3) Slowly unplug your ears and notice what the first outside sound you hear is. Then bring the focus back to your breath for a few minutes. Now you have assimilated the outer with the inner, the Ahata with the Anahata.
4) Get up and stretch, and notice your state of mind. Are you calmer? Curious? Your mood change is the subtle effect of the meditation you just did. A quieting of the mind, or in scientific terms, an decrease in the beta waves in your brain (associated with consciousness and reasoning) and an increase in alpha waves (deep relaxation).
In our busy lives it is good to be reminded that we are all just nāda, vibrating energy fields, and take time to stop, breath, and LISTEN.
