In this chapter, we will examine how the Yoga of Sound, through the practice of mantra, fits into the larger historical context of the Hindu tradition, and I will introduce the four distinct streams of sacred sound as yoga.
The Yoga of Sound, together with Ayurveda (the Indian tradition of healing) and Hatha Yoga, emerges from the ancient Indian cultural and spiritual vortex of the Rishis. The Rishis were visionary seers and poets, like the ancient Celtic bards, who were attuned to the vibratory structures of the universe. They were also the authors of the Vedas, the most ancient of Hindu scriptures. The spiritual visions of the Rishis during meditation and yoga practice were so profound that their visions translated into sounds, which were then encoded in mystic formulas called mantras. Mantras, as sonic structures of energy and consciousness, form the basis of the Yoga of Sound in the same way that postures or positions (asanas) form the basis of Hatha Yoga practice.
Broadly speaking, as Hinduism evolved, the Yoga of Sound developed as a science of consciousness, Ayurveda as a science of healing, Hatha Yoga as a science of physical strength and balance, and Raja Yoga — the eight-limbed expansion of Hatha Yoga — as a holistic science of the body, mind, and spirit. Similarly, Tantra developed as the science of energy, and Vaastu as the science of architecture — the Indian counterpart of Chinese Feng Shui.
The key difference between Hatha Yoga and Sound Yoga is that, while Hatha Yoga primarily develops the infrastructure of the physical body and its nervous system, the Yoga of Sound works essentially with the transformation, restoration, and reconstitution of the energies of the soul through channels known as nadis (from the same root as nada ), which are subtle channels of the chakra system related to the soul’s infrastructure. While Hatha Yoga optimizes the performance of physical organs such as the heart and the lungs, the Yoga of Sound optimizes the performance of energy vortexes known as chakras, which govern our emotional, psychic, and spiritual states of consciousness. Whereas Hatha Yoga teaches us how to effectively manage and purify the dense aspects of our being (blood, cells, and tissue), the Yoga of Sound maintains the subtler aspects of our being (thoughts, emotions, and states of consciousness) and helps keep them free of psychic and spiritual toxicity.
As Indian culture and spirituality evolved, these branches of study became specialized approaches of their own, but they continued to draw from a common pool of spiritual wisdom and consciousness. The Yoga of Sound developed its specialty around the principles of mantra shastra and mantra vidya, which are the rules and knowledge governing mantras, together with the rituals and ceremonies conducted around the use of sacred sound.
THE SOPHISTICATION of the ancient Hindu mind is evident in their six major schools of philosophy, the complexity of their five-thousand-year-old cities, and their astounding mathematical capabilities, which include the origination of our modern number system — a discovery no less important than the mastery of fire, the development of agriculture, or the invention of the wheel.1 What differentiates the Hindu brilliance in logic and rational thought from its Hellenistic parallel is that Hindus were very aware of the intellect’s limitations. They understood that only the feminine intuitive mind was capable of grasping the deepest spiritual truths in powerful flashes of intuition. The Rishis were expert at this process, and they left behind a gargantuan legacy of mantras to help awaken the same flashes of intuitive perception in us. This huge body of sacred sound is essentially encoded in the most ancient of Hindu scriptures, collectively known as the Vedas, which date to between 1500 and 500 B.C. The mantras of the Vedas were originally an oral tradition that was refined over many millennia.
While theVedas form the first formalized stream of Sound Yoga, there are actually four streams of sonic mysticism that characterize the Hindu tradition. Although each stream is distinct, they are interrelated. For purposes of functionality and effectiveness, I have attributed relevant yogic terms to each of these streams: Shabda Yoga is the use of sacred sound derived from theVedic tradition of mantra; Shakti Yoga is the sonic aspect of the Tantric tradition; and Bhava Yoga represents the devotional chanting of the Bhakti tradition. Nada Yoga, the classical term for Sound Yoga that has become popular in the West in recent years, is insufficient to cover the breadth and depth of sonic applications in yoga practice, as I will explain; I therefore treat it as a fourth stream. In addition to the introductory material in this chapter, we will explore each stream in detail in part three.
The Yoga of Sound brings together all four of these streams in a comprehensive approach, allowing them to inform and support one another in a single system. Each of these four paths is normally learned in a separate school under experts who are usually proficient in only one of them. For the express purpose of providing the postmodern yogi with a balanced and wholesome sonic spirituality, I have brought together the essential and most useful aspects of each of these four paths in a cross-disciplinary system. I feel that we need such a unified system in order to have a deeply fulfilled life in the present world.
VED MEANS “to know” — not to know about, but a knowing that is direct, intimate, wholesome, and multidimensional. Vedic mantras, which we will study under the broad stream of Shabda Yoga, combine sound, word, and meaning to generate flashes of intuition, spiritual perception, and poetic inspiration.
The Yoga of Sound has accompanied the practice of Hatha Yoga postures since Hinduism’s earliest beginnings. During the Vedic age, and probably long before, practitioners of yoga remained in a yogic posture (asana) for a long time in order to invoke a particular deity and develop specific yogic powers. To achieve these powers, specific mantras were partnered with the postures; the lotus posture (padmasana) and the tree (vrikshasana) were common asanas used to obtain mantra siddhi, or powers associated with mantras. Toward the end of the Vedic age (500 B.C.), during the period of the great Indian epics,* we know that mantras invoking Shiva, Vishnu, or Brahma — the three principal deities of Hinduism that evolved out of the Vedic age — were coupled with asanas. Prior to this, it is likely that many obscure and secret Tantric mantras were used to develop yogic powers.
According to ancient Hindu cosmology, the Divine maintains harmony and balance in the universe and protects the various parts of the universe through self-emanating powers known as vibhutis. In the Vedic tradition, these governing powers are celebrated as the devas, or “shining ones,” much like the angels of the Bible. To live harmoniously with these unseen powers was considered essential for the well-being of the community, a perspective common to all ancient cultures. In Hinduism, mantras were associated with these cosmic powers and regarded as a sort of code that could link human consciousness to specific emanations of Divine power, just as the name of Jesus can connect us to his holy presence and power. Effective use of the mantras could therefore introduce in our own bodies and minds the same balance, harmony, and protection that was prevalent in the universe.
For the yogis of the Vedic age, the use of mantras helped maintain rta — pronounced “ruh-thah” — the sense of cosmic order and harmony that the Rishis perceived as prevailing throughout the universe. The notion that sonic consonance and harmony dominated the cosmos was shared by all ancient cultures, including the early Greek philosophers. Later, in the seventeenth century, Johannes Kepler mathematically proved this concept through his Third Law of Planetary Motion, which showed that a great number of musical harmonies exist among the angular velocities of the planets in relationship to the sun. Musicologist Joachim-Ernst Berendt explains: “Not only the planetary orbits, but also the proportions within these orbits follow the laws of harmonics, much more than statistical probability would lead us to expect. Out of the seventy-eight tones created by the different planetary proportions, seventy-four belong to the major scale (a most harmonic sequence) — a truly overwhelming configuration that no ‘chance’ in the world will be able to explain.”2
The uniqueness of Vedic mantras lies in their cosmic resonance, which can be viewed as an architecture of the Gods, corresponding to our solar systems and galaxies, which are the great temples of our universe. Vedic mantras embody a human replica of this cosmic architecture, providing a sense of protection to the user by building a palpable force-field around the soul. This protective force-field becomes a means by which we can align ourselves with the harmony of the universe and generate harmony in our own lives and relationships.
In Vedic brahminism,* the whole was viewed as being greater than its parts, the sum total of which could be glimpsed in flashes of powerful intuition. Grammar and phonetics played an important role in the awakening of this intuition, as the process came to rely on the structure of the sentence. Proper syntax, poetic nuance, and the spiritual power of individual words were combined into the use of language as the means toward yogic union and enlightenment. The entire sentence and the flow of sentences, one into another, were a type of vinyasa. Vinyasa, for Hatha yoga practitioners, is an arrangement of postures that flow into one another to offer a complete yoga workout of all the parts and muscles of the body. In the Vedic world, words were like yoga postures, used to awaken spiritual illumination; the knowledge of Sanskrit grammar helped one understand the spiritual and energetic relationship among individual words.
In the Vedic approach, mantras were also viewed as vehicles of the spirit realm, as they transported both the chanter and the listener to specific states of consciousness. The rhythmic and poetic meters of the Vedas were therefore compared to horses, their counterparts in the material world that help us travel physical distances.
SHAKTI YOGA,* another stream of Sound Yoga that we will study, comes from Tantrism. Tantra means “fabric,” and it describes the universe as an intermeshing web of energetic relationships — a view that is identical to current discoveries in particle physics, cited in chapter two. According to Tantric cosmology, the individual letters of the Sanskrit language, from which mantras are constructed, are derived from sonic structures that form the basic building blocks of the universe. Here we see the reverse of the Vedic view of language; in this case, the part — the individual letter — is greater than the whole. Hence, in Tantric philosophy, every part of the human body, including the genitals and excretory organs, is sacred — just as every part of the earth’s body is held as sacred.
Tantra has become popular in the West because of its strong association with sexuality, in the same way that Hatha Yoga has gained popularity because of its amazing fitness routines. A key difference between the Vedic and Tantric uses of mantras is that, in Tantrism, the part is viewed as being greater than the whole because it contains the whole. This perspective, too, is corroborated by modern scientific discoveries such as the hologram, in which the whole is indeed present in every part, even when the part is broken up into little pieces. Another illustration of this principle comes from a controlled biological experiment, in which worms kept in a dark box were shocked with electricity when flashed with a bright light. Later, these worms were ground up and fed to a second batch of worms that were not put through the same shock treatment — yet they, too, reacted by coiling up in response to the flashed light in exactly the same way as the first set.3
Tantra functions on the principle that energy is constantly being exchanged among all the parts of the universe through an intricate system of channels. The human body is viewed as a microcosm of the universe, replicating this complex network of universal energy channels. The sounds of the individual Sanskrit letters and the basic sounds of human energy, such as grunts, groans, and other inarticulate sounds, are codified in mantras that represent the flow and control of energy in and through the human organism. These basic sound structures, also known as bijas (“seed syllables”), are extracted from fundamental sound forms that make up the energy of the universe.
While Hatha Yoga postures help align and strengthen the body’s complex network of energy channels, in Tantrism the mantric sounds employed by the yogi wield the energetic force (kundalini), awaken siddhi (spiritual powers and perceptions), and lead to the realization of ecstatic union that is both sexual and spiritual. In Tantrism, the use of sacred sound therefore becomes important in the way we relate to our sexuality and the flow of energy in and through our body. Through the use of yoga and sacred sound, Tantrism teaches us to respect our sexuality and to connect more intimately with the innate intelligence of the body. Imagine such a teaching as a part of the high school curriculum, helping our teens effectively manage and channel their sexual energy, then carry this ability into adulthood and eventually marriage.
DEVOTION is an act of relating to the Divine with love and reverence. It requires keeping the channels open in all our relationships so that the movement of energy is bidirectional, flowing from us toward the Divine and from the Divine toward us. Devotion brings us to the next stream of the Yoga of Sound tradition: Bhava Yoga, which comes to us through the Bhakti movement that is comprised of devotional sects within Hinduism. Prior to the emergence of the Bhakti movement, which spread widely in India during the Middle Ages, the common person was caught between two extremes: the institutional Vedic tradition, which relied on the precise use of ritual, posture, and sound; and the wild, untamed, eccentric Tantric tradition, which many ordinary people found strange and frightening. The former was aligned with the state, while the latter claimed self-realized spiritual authority.
Yogis have always known that devotion drives yoga practice to its depths — to the very nature of the soul. The fifth niyama* pertaining to the second limb of Raja Yoga is Isvarapranidhana — to lay all one’s actions at the feet of God. Devotional yoga began in the pre-Christian era and developed mostly in small cults, finding its first strength in the Alvars, musician saints in the seventh century A.D. who hailed from my native state of Tamil Nadu. The Bhakti movement, a focused stream of devotional yoga that started around 700 A.D., gathered strength around 1300 A.D. and spread throughout India well into the seventeenth century, influencing Islam through the Sufis and inspiring the Sikhs, an Indian religious sect that developed in the sixteenth century. Musician saints began singing of the liberating power of devotional chanting and encouraged the average citizen to take up the repetition of the holy name of God. These musician and poet saints — such as Kabir, Mirabai, Tukaram, and Maanickavaachakar — sang beautiful songs that opened the heart and engendered a flowering of spiritual consciousness in the devotees. And the sounds that poured forth from these extremely accessible musician saints captured many hearts. Here, at last, was a way to find spiritual ecstasy, readily available to all without barriers of caste (another requirement of the Vedic tradition for the study of sacred sound) or the practice of austerities and countercultural behavior expected of the Tantric schools.
The bhaktas, both men and women yogis, saw themselves as feminine in relation to the Deity. Just as the Vedic mantras brought about the desired result through their precision, the bhaktas believed that the love they offered to the Divine attracted, in return, the love they sought. The bhakta also believed that one could find liberation through Divine grace, by which means the karmic process — negative energy implicit in negative actions — could be modified. In other words, devotional mantras reestablish one’s relationship with the Divine, transforming past transgressions into a positive force and preventing future misdeeds.
As mentioned in the footnote on page 28, although the Tantric tradition is the oldest stream within Hinduism, it did not truly develop into a formal path until around 500 A.D.; the Vedic tradition was formalized and institutionalized first, which is why it is placed first in our learning sequence. There is also a functional purpose for this sequence, which will become clear in part three, “Tradition.” But from an evolutionary perspective, we can now perceive the development of sacred sound in Hinduism, from the primal sounds of sexuality and magical incantations developed in ancient Tantra, to the sculpted, refined language of Sanskrit mantras during the Vedic age, to the breakthrough in freedom from technique and the liberty of musical expression within the Bhakti movement of the Middle Ages. Here, sound touches the depths of the heart and reaches to the bottom of the soul.
These three streams also form an inward progression. Vedic mantras, which establish the expansive connections between individual consciousness and the rest of the universe, are brought home to the locus of the physical body through Tantric mantras. Both macrocosm (Shabda) and microcosm (Shakti) are then transformed in the crucible of the heart through the practice of devotion (Bhava and Bhakti). All three streams of sonic mysticism are necessary for this complete and wholesome transformation of self and the world. I often tell my students that if the world were a place of heart, devotional mantras alone would be more than sufficient to nourish our souls. But we all know that the world is not such a place, and we need to be well equipped on the soul level to take on the challenge of living with and through the powerful changes that we experience on all levels of consciousness daily.
SHABDA, SHAKTI, and Bhava are like three sides of an equilateral triangle that symbolize the three levels of consciousness: physical, psychic/psychological, and spiritual. All three, like the three dynamic forces of Ayurveda known as doshas,* must be kept in balance in order to maintain optimal health and equilibrium. Nada Yoga is like a circle that passes through the three apexes of this triangle, encircling them all in its scope of sound, music, and meditation.
To derive maximum benefit from the other three streams of Sound Yoga, knowledge of Nada Yoga is essential. “Nada” means “sound, stream, and rushing.” It is the classical term for the Yoga of Sound, and it developed alongside Hatha Yoga. Nada Yoga involves many of the postures and techniques of Hatha Yoga, but it uses them to listen deeply to the body and, through the body, to perceive hidden structures of the universe in their sonic shapes and forms.
Nada Yoga does not truly specialize in mantra, but it addresses the intervals of sound that are utilized both in music and mantra recitation. The sophistication of Nada Yoga is evident from the amazing traditions of Indian music that derive their cosmology, spirituality, and musicology from yogic consciousness. There are two such traditions: the ancient Carnatic music of the south (the tradition I was schooled in) and the Persian-influenced Hindustani music of the north. Nada Yoga provides the mantra user with both musical knowledge and meditation tools. Its rich understanding of ragas (musical modes that are used at specific times of the day and night to facilitate healing, harmony, and yoga), as well as its methods of deep listening to specific sounds and to silence itself, contribute significantly to the application of mantras in yoga practice. Conversely, the mantras add power and texture to both music and meditation.
In our approach to the Yoga of Sound, we will treat Nada Yoga as a fourth stream of sacred sound — one that deals with meditation, music, and deep listening. In actuality, Nada Yoga is like a great river that merges the streams of Vedic, Tantric, and devotional sound, and carries them toward the vast ocean of consciousness.
* The great Indian epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, are comparable to the Iliad and the Odyssey. The Bhagavad Gita appears in the Mahabharata. The Ramayana tells the story of Rama.
* Vedic brahminism was the formal institution of the Vedic world. Brahmins were the priestly caste who oversaw the procedures of rituals and mantras, similar to the Levites of the Hebrew world.
* Although the Tantric tradition is older than the Vedic, formal Tantric texts only started to appear around 500 A.D. Tantric influence is evident in many aspects of the Vedic tradition, especially in South India.
* The five codes of the niyamas are Saucha (internal and external purity), Santosha (contentment), Tapas (austerity), Svadhyaya (study of religious literature and the repetition of mantras), and Isvarapranidhana (self-surrender to God and worship of the Divine presence).
* Dosha means “that which changes.” In Ayurvedic philosophy, the five elements — earth, water, fire, air, and space — combine in pairs to form three dynamic forces called doshas, which interact with each other.