VBT – Meditation 44.0
CENTER ON THE SOUND “AUM” WITHOUT ANY “A” OR “M.”
A Sensitive Ear
CENTER ON THE SOUND “AUM” – A-U-M, AUM – WITHOUT ANY “A” OR “M.” Just the “U” remains. This is a difficult technique, but for some it may be suitable, particularly for those who work with sound: musicians, poets, those who have a very sensitive ear, for them this technique can be helpful. For others, those who have no sensitive ear, this is very difficult because it is very delicate.
You have to intone Aum, and you have to feel in this Aum three sounds separately: A-U-M. Intone Aum, and in the sound you have to feel three sounds – A-U-M. They are there, infused together. A very delicate ear can be aware, can hear A-U-M separately while intoning. They are separate – very close, but separate. If you cannot hear them separately, then this technique cannot be done. Your ears will have to be trained for it.
In Japan, particularly in Zen, they train the ears first. They have a method of training the ears.
The wind is blowing outside – it has a sound. The master will say, “Concentrate on it. Feel all the nuances, the changes: when the sound is angry, when the sound is furious, when the sound is compassionate, when the sound is loving, when the sound is strong, when the sound is delicate.
Feel the nuances of the sound. The wind is blowing through the trees – feel it. The river is running – feel the nuances.”
For months together the seeker, the meditator, will be sitting by the side of the bank of the river, listening to it. It has different sounds. Everything is changing. In the rain it will be flooded; it will be very much alive, overflowing. The sounds will be different. In the summer it will be reduced to nothingness, sounds will cease. But there will be inaudible sounds if one is listening, if you listen.
All the year round the river will be changing, and one has to be aware.
In Hermann Hesse’s book SIDDHARTHA, Siddhartha lives with a boatman. And there is no one, just the river, the boatman and Siddhartha. And the boatman is a very silent man. He has lived all his life with the river. He has become silent, he rarely speaks. Whenever Siddhartha feels lonely, he tells Siddhartha to go to the river, to listen to the river. It is better than listening to human words.
And then by and by, Siddhartha is attuned to the river. Then he begins to feel its moods – the river changes moods. Sometimes it is friendly and sometimes it is not, and sometimes it is singing and sometimes it is weeping and crying, and sometimes there is laughter and sometimes there is sadness. And then he begins to feel the slight, delicate differences. His ear becomes attuned.
So in the beginning you may feel it to be difficult, but try. Intone Aum, go on intoning it, feeling A-U-M. Three sounds are combined together in it: Aum is a synthesis of three sounds. Once you start feeling them differently, then drop “A” and “M”. Then you cannot say Aum: “A” will be dropped, “M” will be dropped. Then “U” will remain. Why? What will happen? The real thing is not the mantra.
It is not A-U-M or the dropping. The real thing is your sensitivity.
Tags: A Sensitive Ear
