Meditations in Sound

The meditations concerned with ear energy are feminine meditations, passive—you have just to listen, not to do anything. Listening to the birds, the wind passing through the pine trees, or to some music, or to the noise of the traffic—just listening, doing nothing—great silence comes in, and great peace starts falling and showering on you. It is easier through the ear than through the eye. It is easier through the ear because the ear is passive, non-aggressive. It cannot do anything to existence, it can only let it happen. The ear is a door: it allows.

Aum

AUM is one of the basic sounds. A-U-M: these three sounds are combined in it. A-U-M are three basic sounds. All sounds are made of them or derived from them; all sounds are combinations of these three sounds. So these three are basic. They are as basic as the claim of physics that the electron, neutron and proton are basic. This has to be deeply understood. The intoning of a sound is a very subtle science. First you have to intone it loudly, outwardly. Then others can hear it, and it is good to start loudly. Why? Because you can also hear it clearly when you intone it loudly: because whatsoever you say, it is to others—and this has become a habit. Whenever you are talking you are talking to others, and you hear yourself talk only when you are talking to others. So start from the natural habit. Intone the sound ‘Aum’, then by and by, feel attunement with the sound. When you intone the sound Aum, be filled with it. Forget everything else. Become the Aum, become the sound. And it is very easy to become the sound because sound can vibrate through your body, through your mind, through your whole nervous system. Feel the reverberation of Aum. Intone it and feel it as if your whole body is being filled with it, every cell is vibrating with it. And when you begin to feel harmonious with it, you can drop intoning loudly. Then close your lips and intone it inwardly, but inwardly also first try loudly. Intone inwardly, but loudly, so that the sound spreads all over your body,  touches every part, every cell of your body. You will feel vitalized by it, you will feel rejuvenated, you will feel a new life entering you, because your body is a musical instrument. It needs harmony, and when the harmony is disturbed you are disturbed. That is why, when you hear music, you feel good. Why do you feel good? What is music but just some harmonious sounds! Why do you feel such a well-being when there is music around you? And when there is chaos, noise, why do you feel so disturbed? You yourself are deeply musical. You are an instrument, and that instrument re-echoes things. If a sound is musical, harmonious, subtle, then you will have to listen to it inside and you will have to be very alert to listen to it. If you are not alert, you will go to sleep and miss the whole point. That is the problem with mantra, with any chanting, with any use of sound: it can create sleep. It is a subtle tranquilizer. If you continuously repeat any sound without being alert about it, you will fall asleep because then the repetition becomes mechanical. ‘Aum-Aum-Aum’ becomes mechanical, and then repetition creates boredom. So two things have to be done: sound has to be slowed down and you have to become more alert. The more sound becomes subtle, the more alert you are.

Devavani

Every night before you go to sleep, you can do a small technique that will help tremendously. Put the lights out, sit in your bed ready to sleep, but sit for fifteen minutes. Close your eyes and then start any monotonous nonsense sound, for example: la, la, la—and wait for the mind to supply new sounds. The only thing to be remembered is that those sounds or words should not be of any language that you know. If you know English, German and Italian, then they should not be of Italian, German or English. Any other language that you don’t know is allowed—Tibetan, Chinese, Japanese. But if you know Japanese then it is not allowed, then Italian is wonderful. Speak any language that you don’t know. You will be in a difficulty for a few seconds only for the first day, because how do you speak a language you don’t know? It can be spoken, and once it starts, any sounds, nonsense words, just to put the conscious off and allow the unconscious to speak…. When the unconscious speaks, the unconscious knows no language. It is a.very, very old method. It comes from the Old Testament. It was called in those days glossolalia, and a few churches in America still use it. They call it ‘talking in tongues.’ And it is a wonderful method, one of the most deep and penetrating
into the unconscious. You start with ‘la, la, la’, and then you can go on with anything that comes. Just for the first day you will feel it a little difficult. Once it comes, you know the knack of it. Then for fifteen minutes, use the language that is coming to you, and use it as a language; in fact you are talking in it. Thisfifteen minutes will relax the conscious mind so deeply and then you just simply lie down and go to sleep. Your sleep will become deeper. Within weeks you will feel a depth in your sleep, and in the morning you will feel completely fresh. § Devavani is the “Divine Voice” which moves and speaks through the meditator, who becomes an empty vessel, a channel. This meditation relaxes the conscious mind so deeply that, when done last thing at night, it is sure to be followed by a profound sleep.
There are four stages of 15 minutes each.  Keep your eyes closed throughout.

Instructions for Devavani Meditation

First stage: 15 minutes
Sit quietly, preferably with gentle music playing.

Second stage: 15 minutes
Start making nonsense sounds, for example “la…la…la”, and continue until unfamiliar word-like sounds arise. These sounds need to come from the unfamiliar part of the brain used as a child, before words were learned. Allow a gentle conversational intonation; do not cry or shout, laugh or scream.

Third stage: 15 minutes
Stand up and continue to speak, allowing your body to move softly in harmony with the sounds. If your body is relaxed the subtle energies will create a Latihan outside your control.

Fourth stage: 15 minutes
Lie down, be silent and still.

The center of sound
This technique can be done in many ways. One way is to begin by just sitting anywhere. Sounds are always present. It may be in a market or it may be at a Himalayan retreat: sounds are there. Sit silently, and with sound there is something very special. Whenever there are sounds, you are the center. All the
sounds come to you from everywhere, from all directions. With sight, with eyes, this is not so. Sight is linear. I see you, then there is a line toward you. Sound is circular; it is not linear. So all sounds come in circles and you are the center. Wherever you are, you are always the center of sound. For sounds, you are always ‘God’, the center of the whole universe. Every sound is coming to you, moving toward you, in circles. This technique says, bathe in the center of sound. Wherever you are, if you are doing this technique, just close your eyes and feel the whole universe filled with sound. Feel as if every sound is moving toward you and you are the center. Even this feeling that you are the center will give you a very deep peace. The whole universe becomes the circumference, and you are the center and everything is moving toward you, falling toward you. If you are sitting by the side of a waterfall, close your eyes, and feel the sound all around you, falling on you, from every side, creating a center in you from every side. Why this emphasis on feeling that you are in the center? Because in the center there is no sound. The center is without sound; that is why you can hear sounds. Otherwise, you could not hear them. A sound cannot hear another sound. Because you are soundless at your center, you can hear sounds. The center is absolute silence: that is why you can hear sounds entering you, coming to you, penetrating you, encircling you. If you can find out where the center is, where in you the field is to which every sound is coming, suddenly sounds will disappear and you will enter into soundlessness. If you can feel a center where every sound is being heard, there is a sudden transference of consciousness. One moment you will be hearing the whole world filled with sounds, and another moment your awareness will suddenly turn in and you will hear the soundlessness, the center of life. Once you have heard that, then no sound can disturb you. It comes to you, but it never reaches you. It comes to you, it is always coming to you, but it never reaches you. There is a point where no sound enters. That point is you. Do it in a market: there is no other place like a market. It is so much filled with sounds—mad sounds. But do not start thinking about sounds—that this is good and this is bad and this is disturbing and that is very beautiful and harmonious. You are not supposed to think about sounds. You are simply supposed to think of the center. You are not supposed to think about every sound moving toward you—whether it is good, bad, beautiful. You are just to
remember that you are the center and all the sounds are moving toward you—
every sound, whatsoever the sort. Sounds are not heard in the ears. They are not heard in the ears; ears cannot hear them. They only do a transmission work, and in the transmission they cut out much which is useless for you. They choose, they select, and then those sounds enter you. Now find out within where your center is. Ears are not the center. You are hearing from somewhere deep down. The ears are simply sending you selected sounds. Where are you? Where is your center? If you are working with sounds, then sooner or later you will be surprised— because the center is not in the head. The center is not in the head! It appears in the head because you have never heard sounds: you have heard words. With words the head is the center; with sounds it is not the center. That is why in Japan they say that man thinks not through the head, but through the belly— because they were working with sounds since a long time. You have seen in every temple a gong. That was placed there to create sounds around a seeker. Someone would be meditating, and the gong would be sounded or a bell would be rung. The very disturbance seems to have been created by the sound of the bell. Someone is meditating, and this bell or gong seems disturbing. This seems disturbing! In a temple, every visitor who comes will hit the gong or ring the bell. With someone meditating there, this would seem to be a constant disturbance. It is not—because the person is waiting for this sound. So every visitor is helping. Again and again the bell is hit, and the sound is created and the meditator again enters himself. He looks at the center where this sound goes deep. There is one hit on the bell: the visitor has done that. Now the second hit will be inside the meditator, somewhere inside. Where is it? The sound always hits at the belly, at the navel, never in the head. If it hits in the head, you can understand well that it is not sound: it is words. Then you have started thinking about the sound. Then the purity is lost. You can also create the sound just by using your fingers, or with anything which closes your ears forcibly. Then a certain sound is heard. What is that sound and why do you hear it when the ears are closed, when the ears are plugged? Just as there are negatives of photographs, there are negative sounds. Not only can the eyes see the negative: the ears can even hear the negative. So when you close your ears, you hear the negative world of sounds. All the sounds have stopped. Suddenly a new sound is heard. This sound is the absence of sound. A gap has come in. You are missing something, and then you hear this absence. That negative sound is known as the sound of sounds—because it is not really a sound, but its absence. Or, it is a natural sound because it is not created by anything. This absence of sound is a very subtle experience. What will it give to you?The moment there are no sounds, you fall back upon yourself. With sounds we move away; with sounds we move to the other. Try to understand this: with sounds we are related to the other, we communicate with the other. If sound is the vehicle to move to the other, then soundlessness becomes the vehicle to move to oneself. With sound you communicate with the other, with soundlessness you fall down into your own abyss, into yourself. That is why so many techniques use soundlessness to move within. Become absolutely dumb and deaf—even if only for a few moments. And you cannot go anywhere else than to yourself: so suddenly you will find that you are standing within; no movement will be possible. That is why silence was. practiced so much. In it, all the bridges for moving to the other are broken. So one approach is to hear the sounds coming to your center, another approach is to stop all sounds and feel the soundless center. These both have been given in one technique for a special purpose—so that you can move from one to another. The or is not a choice to do this or that. Do both! That is why both have been given in one technique. First do one for a few months, then do the other for a few months. You will be more alive, and you will know two extremes. And if you can move to the two extremes easily, you can remain young forever.