THE EARS: THE ART OF ALERTNESS

The sounds our ears pick up are often discordant, but there are various hums and harmonies that carry a profound healing energy. By tuning into the primal vibration of the cosmos, we refresh body, mind and spirit.

Both sound and silence have their place in the vocabulary of spirit. Sound as music can be spiritually transforming, while in meditation a mantra – aural equivalent of a mandala – can take us deep into the truths of the self and the universe.

Within the ear is a mini-labyrinth of passageways, symbolizing the possibility that we will hear truth by a roundabout route – perhaps with false turnings. Even direct wisdom will need to be processed, through experience, before its core meaning becomes apparent. We need to filter reality from a bombardment of illusions. The ear is not selective: it is up to us, by intellectual, moral and spiritual winnowing, to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Speech, or the Word (vak) in ancient India, brought creation into being, using vibrations of primal sound (nada). Whatever we apprehend as sound is Shakti, or divine power; whatever is soundless is the First Cause. This takes us to the idea of the “primal vibration”, for which the ear is a symbolic portal. Practitioners of Taoism have written of the “light of the ear”. We know from experience that silence has its own hum, which derives from the body’s physiology, but then that natural process is derived, like all life, from the life force. It is not so far-fetched, therefore, to contend that we can hear the primal hum of the cosmos, just by sitting in a quiet place and tuning in. Beyond this hum is the true silence, of deep space, which exists because there is no ear there to perceive it.

The mandala meditation here explores all these dimensions of sound and hearing, weaving into them the sacred Shakti symbol, which reproduces the manifestation of creation. The symbols of conches (blown as wind instruments) and bells also play a part. The practice is designed to encourage inner peace and deep perception, and to strengthen the spirit to withstand threats to well-being.

“Listen or thy tongue will keep thee deaf.”

Native American proverb

Focus on your breathing / Enter a relaxed awareness / Contemplate the central Shakti symbol and the spirals of the inner ear / See the symbol as an antenna picking up the sound of the universe / Interpret the spirals as a template for deep thought / Imagine the conches and bells calling you / Meditate on the central dot to find healing awareness

EARS MEDITATION

HEARING SUBTLE HARMONIES

This meditation centres on the symbol for Shakti, the primordial cosmic energy. The spiral design of the inner ear is used as a template for deep thought. You imagine the conches and bells calling you to meditate deeply and then tune into the dot at the centre of the Shakti symbol, to find the peace of pure awareness.

Sit comfortably with the Ears Mandala (shown on the previous page) in front of you.

Empty your mind of preoccupations and anxieties. Focus gently on your breathing. Inhale and exhale slowly, becoming more relaxed with each in-breath and going deeper into awareness with each out-breath.

Look at the features of the mandala. The central design is the symbol of Shakti, primordial energy of the cosmos, moving through all creation like sound waves. At either side are images of the inner ear, with its labyrinth of channels – in simple terms, two ears at either side of the Shakti “nose”. Gaze, too, at the conches and bells – both may be used as a call to deep communion.

Gaze at the Shakti symbol and imagine it as an antenna within a sounding box, picking up the deep music of the cosmos, which cannot be heard by the human ear. Your own ears may detect, in silence, a faint echo of this.

Close your eyes and listen: if you can hear a hum, the sound comes from your own bloodstream, but that blood flow is indebted, as all life is, to the life force. So meditate on that hum for a few minutes.

Open your eyes and trace the coils of the inner ear, at either side of the Shakti symbol. Think of these organs spiralling within your own body, at the appropriate place in your head. Consider the spiral as a way of travelling healingly into truth, by narrowing the point of focus to exclude all inessentials. You do this when you listen to silence, and also you do it when you meditate on a dot.

Contemplate the conches and bells in the mandala and imagine them all making sounds of their own accord. The conches are being blown by the breath of pure being, the bells are being shaken by the vibrations of the life force. These sounds are calling you to meditate deeply.

Answer that call by concentrating again on the Shakti symbol. This time you focus on the dot in the centre of the circle – the bindu, as it is called. The circle represents infinity, the dot represents the profoundest reality of being – in the moment, outside clock time. Meditate on the dot. Pass beyond sound and vision into pure awareness. Feel the healing energy of peace and love permeating mind and body, between which is no longer any separation.

Once you have completed your meditation, look in a relaxed way at the mandala, using it as a bridge to return to the everyday.

“Silence is as deep as eternity; speech, shallow as time.”

Thomas Carlyle