The Sound of Silence
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
“The sound is the source of all manifestation … The knower of the mystery of sound knows the mystery of the whole universe.”
“Learn to listen to the voice within yourself.”
“In the beginning was OM …”
“For in the beginning of the times so did we all share in the Holy Stream of Sound that gave birth to all creation.”
“The kingdom of heaven is within you.”
“The Tao is the source of all things … existed before heaven and earth … eternal … pervades everywhere…”
“May the force be with you.”
The Greek philosopher/mathematician Pythagoras called it “Music of the Spheres”, another Greek philosopher Heraclitus called it “Logos” (which means both sound and word), the Bible calls it “The Word” and “Voice of Many Waters”, the Upanishads call it “Shabda Brahman” (the cosmic sound of Lord Brahma), the Vedas call it “Anahad” (unlimited tone), the Sufis call it “Saute Surmad” (the tone that fills the cosmos), the Sikhs call it “Nam” or “Naam” (name or spiritual sound), and the Hindus also call it “AUM” and the Buddhists “OM”. Some Native American traditions call it “Song of the Creator”, in reference to the force that created life and sustains the universe.
In addition, it has been called by others as “Voice of Silence”, “Audible Life Stream”, “Soundless Sound”, “Flaming Sound”, “Divine Melody”, the “Sound Principle”, “Ringing Radiance” and “Shabd” (spiritual sound).
It is possible that Muhammad was aware of it when he was enlightened in the cave at Gare-Hira and that Jesus may have taught it to his disciples. Several spiritual Masters teach that this sound of God is in everyone and that we explore this inner space through meditation. A number of ancient Gnostics mystical texts refer to hearing the sound, and seeing the light, of God while in deep meditation states. Many people who experience OBE’s or NDE’s report hearing it. Then of course, the Freemasons still search for their “lost word” (although some feel that is in reference to the Ark of the Covenant and the sacred texts it holds, not what I am discussing).
So, what are we talking about? The inner sound current, that ever-present ringing sound in your head, that inner energy powering your consciousness. The energy that can truly light us up and elevate our awareness.
It appears the inner sound current has been known by quite a few people in several different periods of history by different terms. Yet how many of us in the modern western world have ever heard of it? Not too many it seems. There might be one good reason why. But first I think a little history lesson of the sound current is in order.
Plato wrote that the Creator constructed the cosmos according to musical intervals and proportions. The Sufis believe that God created the world from sound. Virtually every civilization in the world has had some type of creation myth that involved sound, usually sound that was equated with consciousness and that sound was the first creation, so that everything else created came from sound. There are hints the ancient Egyptians and many of the mystery schools knew about the inner sound current, as well as the secret mystic sects of most religions. But even so, it has been kept hidden very well over the centuries.
The Sant Mat (teachings of the saints, or path of the masters) tradition of northern India, which goes back many centuries to the pre-Vedic period in Hindu history and which some think is a close relative of western Gnosticism, is one of the earliest traceable groups to practice Shabd Yoga, a system of meditating on the inner sound. It was the Sant tradition of the living guru who must be followed for one to travel back to God that had been copied by the Theosophists.
Several centuries later in the late 15th, early 16th century, with the founding of Sikhism by Guru Nanak in northern India, we have the beginning of another lineage of gurus teaching the sound current. It seems Nanak was on a mission to unite the Hindus and the Muslims, but wound up fighting them both. So after trying for forty years to do so, and by rejecting their caste system and apparatus of religious ritual and legalism, he basically started a new religion. Taking from the Sant tradition, he wanted to re-establish the integrity of sound current teachings with Sikhism, since he thought all the world religions had strayed from them. There are still Sikh Gurus teaching sound current today, some based on various offshoot lineages, and several teaching in America.
In 1861 Shiv Dayal Singh founded the Radhasoami movement, another embodiment of the Sant Mat tradition. It is not considered an offshoot of Sikhism, but its own separate group of initiated gurus. The Radhasoami (RS) system is unique because of its immense growth, not only worldwide but especially in America over the past 50 years. In fact, it has developed into a significant religious and spiritual movement.
By the turn of the 20th century the movement had splintered into six major camps, each with their own separate lineage. Actually, its growth can probably be attributed to the multiple guru succession lines. The diversity and spread of its factions has seemed to work quite well in the west.
In 1911 Shiv Brat Lal was the first RS guru to visit America. A few years later Dr. Bhagat Singh Thind, an offshoot guru, settled in America and began teaching a mixture of Sant Mat, RS and Sikhism. He wrote several books, but his most well-known is Radiant Road to Reality.
Actually there seems to have been a fair amount of “cross-pollination” between Sikhism and the Radhasoamis over the years. Dr. Thind had actually been initiated by Sawan Singh of RS, but didn’t acknowledge the connection, choosing to use his Sikh background instead. And Sawan Singh, leader of the RS Satsang Beas branch, one of the most popular branches of RS, initiated Kirpal Singh, who splintered off and founded the Ruhani Satsang branch, which grew into another popular branch. Kirpal Singh, along with a few other RS gurus, were born into Sikhism, but taught as RS initiates.
Anyway, it was more than 35 years after Dr. Thind came to the west before another RS guru visited. In 1955 Kirpal Singh visited several cities in America on his world tour, spreading the shabd yoga teachings around the country. It was on this trip that he initiated Paul Twitchell, who formed Eckankar ten years later, based on the RS teachings. It became one of the most successful new religions in America, with sound current as one of its staples. Kirpal Singh made two other trips to America, in 1963 and in 1972, initiating thousands more into sound current teachings.
In 1964 Charan Sing, another initiate of Sawan Singh (and his grandson), became the first RS Satsang Beas guru to visit America. His trip was even more successful than Kirpal Singh’s. In fact, he is considered the most successful RS teacher of them all, supposedly having initiated over one million people.
Then the floodgates opened up. When the Johnson administration in 1965 reversed the strict immigration laws that had been put in place at the beginning of the century, immigrants began poring in, as well as eastern gurus of all sorts. If you add the turbulence of the 1960’s and the disillusionment of the young, it’s not too difficult to see how the growth of eastern spirituality went through the roof. By the ‘70’s, and then into the ‘80’s and ‘90’s, the number of sound current initiates were not only into the thousands, but the tens of thousands. Today it is estimated there are almost 5,000,000 sound current initiates of some sort worldwide.
Since Kirpal Singh’s death in 1974, a number of former initiates of his have cut ties with the RS movement and started their own organizations. We have already mentioned Eckankar, but there are a host of others (some actually connected through Eckankar); Gary Olsen and the MasterPath, Jerry Mulvin and the Connection, Guru Maharaji and the Divine Light Mission, John-Roger Hinkins and MSIA, Ching Hai and Quan Yin. A number of them have also borrowed from Sikhism, Dr. Julian Johnson’s book (below) and various other occult, metaphysical and new age doctrines. My teacher, Bruce K. Avenell, founder of the Eureka Society, was a student of both Kirpal Singh and Dr. Thind.
Another interesting fellow, Henri Bergson, the late 19th century, early 20th century French philosopher, coined the term elan vital, which means, vital spirit, vital force or life force. He referred to it as the vital essence that causes everything in the universe to be, which is what the sound current is supposed to be. He theorized that this elan vital was directing a spiritual and physical evolutionary process towards creating more complex, conscious beings, “the world’s machine for the making of the gods,” as he put it. For him consciousness was the essence of elan vital, which he deemed the great metaphysical reality of life. Also, he is rumored to have had connections with the Rosicrucians and one of their offshoots, the Golden Dawn.
In 1939 Dr. Julian Johnson wrote the book, The Path of the Masters, the first of its kind aimed exclusively for the western world. It describes in detail the history and practice of Surat Shabd Yoga. Surat means spirit, shabd means sound current and yoga means union. So it means uniting the spirit with the sound current, or the practice of listening to the inner sound current. He spent 1933-1939 in India with his guru Sawan Singh (mentioned above) of the RS system. The book, a result of his study, describes the inner experiences in the higher realms of consciousness by the adepts of this tradition. It is considered a classic in eastern mysticism and instrumental in helping lead people to the RS movement.
Today there are several different groups and organizations that utilize sound current teachings as a part of their programs or system. Some put the estimates of over 25 different groups operating in the USA with RS connections. However, there are obvious variances in what they teach and how they operate, which has also entangled some of them in numerous controversies, something we don’t intend on covering in this blog posting.
There is actually one more area we need to mention that has some bearing on our discussion of the inner sound current. It has to do with a medical condition called tinnitus.
Webster’s dictionary defines tinnitus as, “any ringing or buzzing in the ear not resulting from an external stimulus.” The medical community reports that approximately 20% of the people in the USA suffer from it, which means over 60 million of us. Mentioned as things that bring it on are allergies, head injuries, loud noises, medications, infections, tumors and diseases. Treatments are offered to treat the symptoms, but they are not completely sure what causes it. Four main treatments are currently available; prescription drugs, maskers (devices one wears that produce soft sounds to drown out the inner sounds), behavioral modification training (learning not to listen to the inner sounds) and surgery in the most chronic cases.
The whole medical treatment view of dealing with this issue seems quite curious indeed. Even though it is recognized as a medical condition, it is one that doesn’t seem to do much harm, other than being a nuisance for the people affected. In fact, most patients report that their doctors usually tell them to just learn to deal with it. Mainly because there is no long-lasting cure, only the above-mentioned ways to temporarily relieve the perceived annoyance are available. But even with treatments, some polls reveal that from 60-90% of the time these treatments don’t work. So, learning to live with it is basically the solution most people accept.
Besides, if someone really came up with a permanent cure, that should actually make us all somewhat uneasy. That means the “cure” would eliminate someone’s inner sound current, or the ability to hear it. That is essentially impossible, because this energy source is always there and it keeps us alive. Logically it would seem if we don’t hear it we would be dead, but that’s not correct either. Because you can also hear it on the other side. It is essentially a non-problem problem. In order to deal with it, you should learn to accept it, meditate on it and use it to your own personal advantage.
However, I also want to add that since I am not a medical doctor of any kind, I am willing to concede that it’s possible there is a real medical problem here that people may need to deal with. Maybe the way we are talking about the inner sound current is different than what they are talking about with tinnitus. And I certainly want to make the point that any discussion about the sound current here is not to be construed as medical advice of any kind. For sure we are not advocating or claiming any type of cure for a recognized medical condition. Go consult a doctor if you feel you need to.
Having said that, it is also possible that this is a misdiagnosed problem because the medical community does not truly understand what they are dealing with here. If you are one of the 60 million with this diagnosed medical problem, then you might have some decisions to make concerning this.
Here is one last tidbit of information about this. According to the medical community, our chances for getting tinnitus increase as we grow older. That is certainly more food for thought. Is it possible that as we get older and nearing our time to cross over to the other side, that a way opens up for us there? Or maybe our physical hearing just deteriorates so much by then that it makes the inner sound that much easier to hear?
So now, a possible good reason why many of us in the modern western world have never heard of the sound current, that inner ringing sound:
The sound current is believed to be very powerful energy, which can actually drive you in the direction (mentally, emotionally, spiritually) you are focused. Until you have mastered control of your focus in life, increasing or using this energy could potentially be a dangerous thing to do. In other words, if you are focused on the disasters or negative things in your life, the sound current will drive you there with more force that you are normally used to. But if you are focused on the positive, brighter things of life and can stay away from, or above, the emotional dramas of life, the sound current can enrich your life. It’s possible that because this is a powerful spiritual tool that lies within the grasp of every human being, that many spiritual systems throughout history have kept the knowledge of sound current teachings very secret. Historically, these hidden techniques were only made available to initiates who were willing to accept complete responsibility for their attitudes and actions. That is still true today, but are things changing? Or are there other reasons so few people worldwide are aware of these teachings and traditions?
It does seems there is much more to all this than most of us have a clue to. And possibly why some of us choose to become spiritual explorers, and hopefully add to the future narrative of sound current practice, writings, and history. Onward & Upward!
“You must be of the warrior class, for the greatest battle you will ever fight is for possession of your own soul.” — Guru Nanak
TMC