In Search of Naad; The Vibratory Quality of Silence, by Silvia Nakkach, M.A.MMT

The primordial and transcendent sound is considered the seed from which all of creation evolved. This is the Nada Brahma. Nada, or vibration, is the first audible sound, the primordial roaring, the resounding flow that heralds the beginning of the evolutionary process from which energy and matter radiate. Brahma, the creator God, is the creative power that animates one’s divine consciousness with the power to move the heart.

The original, eternal Nada vibrates at the highest rate of frequency. In physics, when an object vibrates at an inconceivable speed, it appears to the eye that it’s not moving. It’s beguiling that the highest point of vibration is stillness; in the dimension of sound, this is experienced as silence. Above a certain level of high frequency, sound becomes inaudible, and can only be perceived subjectively. The ears cannot perceive sounds that are vibrating at such a high rate __It is generally accepted that humans can generally sense sounds at frequencies between 20 and 20,000 cycles per second, or hertz (Hz). Thus, Nada is both the beginning of all sounds and manifestations, and, in the realm of consciousness, Nada is the vibratory rate of silence.

As part of a meditation or contemplative practice, an experience of Nada—savored in the intimate and spacious union of sound and silence—creates and opening to the therapeutic process. As a practitioner of sound as yoga and transpersonal music psychotherapy, the author ponders that the intuitive or guided shared experience of Nada during a session signals the healing power of sound and silence. The journey to wholeness starts with awareness, clarity, and a moment of suspension.

It is interesting to see that creation and sound have enjoyed a cosmic relationship in most religions and civilizations. In the Indian philosophy, sound, vibration, or nada is the basic substance from which the universe of music, expressive utterance, and indeed the entire universe has emerged, the Nada-Brahman. The nada is linked to the source of creation, to space and time, to the senses, to symbols, melodies and structures in music, and to sonic design in terms if resonance and acoustics.

The Hatha-yoga-pradipika 3.64 states that the mind absorbed in nada does not crave for sense objects. The unstruck sound, anahata nada, is heard in the anahata-chakra, the psycho-energetic centre located at the heart, the seat of transcendental consciousness. In this seat of the divine can be heard the immortal sound not produced by anything. It is the divinity inherent in music and poetic discourse that connotes this sound of the soundless, and endows the yogis with super sensuous sound, from the audible to the inaudible, transcendental sound. They stir the depth of the ocean.

“ The original unmanifested sound rests in a state of involution against the background of the fundamental silence, i.e., mahamuna, from this primordial transcendental state or original vibration as mahanada, it descends to the subtle, less subtle, and the gross level wherein it becomes a physical audible phenomenon. This sound holds within itself the potential for becoming an expressive utterance…Synonimized with para-vak, nada is the sakti or vital energy of Brahman, and as such is inseparably close to Brahman. The transcendental para-vak descends to levels of subtleties through pasyanti and madhyama, the levels of differences felt but still not manifested, and finally to the gross physical level of vaikhari, externalized by clearly articulated syllables along with their expressive arrangements” – Sumati Mutatkar, What Silence Means to Music.

The practices of Nada are comprised in Nada Yoga as the path of those who through worshipful devotion and practice travel these four steps of the experience of sound, through states of consciousness and silence. Like moving up and down the musical scale, the practitioner is ascending and descending, from gross to subtle and from dimensions of subtle to gross in the scale of auditory and spiritual discernment. The perception of these levels of sound becomes sensation, and affects the emotional connection to others and the self. This evolving quality of appreciation and detachment is essential to the function of the many styles of yoga, and is also the ultimate goal of most of the advanced therapeutic modalities, as well as wisdom-based technologies of self-transformation that aim to liberation from the mundane mind formations at a higher level

Outer, Inner, and Secret Sound

Not one sound fears the silence that extinguishes it. And no silence exists that is not pregnant with sound. – John Cage, Lecture on Something

Another ancient tradition of yoga and sound that offers centuries of in-depth wisdom on the field of the subtle in sound and sound as a seed of transformation is the Ati Yoga or Dzogchen, considered one of the highest teachings of Tibetan Buddhism. According to Ati Yoga, sound comes from emptiness and dissolves into emptiness (space). This wisdom tradition, describes three ways to experience sound:

1. Outer sound is physical; we hear it with our ears and we produce it with our bodies.
2. Inner sound is energetic; we feel it on the energetic plane as an opening in the chakras or as inward expansiveness.
3. Secret sound just is; we perceive it with a mind that’s clear. It arises as a result of states of meditation. It’s like a light or a revelation that comes from a non-conceptual state, and when it engages our intellectual faculties, it becomes what we know as an “insight”.

The experience with sound in these three dimensions offers us a way of harmonizing our energy disposition at a deep level. This threefold appreciation of sound and discourse, introduces the practice of deep listening to therapist, particularly those who are informed by transpersonal psychology and Integral Yoga. The author finds a great transformative value in this tri-dimensional shared experience of sound between the therapist and the client.

The Sound of Chanting

If sound is the seed for transformation, when sound is expressed by a chanting voice as a fabric of breath, the body, and expression, we might begin to perceive the luminous nature of the mind and the radiance of the spirit. When we hear chanting, or sing in this conscious way, we become sensitive to the outer sound, the inner sound, and the secret sound. Chanting effortlessly reveals the healing energy within the voice, like the original soothing voice of the newborn’s mother. Instantly, a kind of archetypal longing is appeased. This aligns with Rudolf Steiner’s concept of tone as a spiritual reality and his fascination with what he described as inner, outer, and universal tone.

Universally and from times immemorial, the devotional art of communal singing is able to reach the place of joy and inner serenity in few minutes. At the end of every phrase or long breath, there is a potential taste of Nada, in the form of a fertile silence. In the conscious dance of the spiritually inspired word and silence, there is always a landing in the subtle field of Nada. This sympathetic resonance happens after each therapeutic spark, as well.

Thus, what the yoga of sound (Nada Yoga) and psychotherapies are able to have in common is what the author refers as the practice of deep listening, assessed by the silence that follows the transformation that follows.