Along with the awareness of tripura, one comes to a point of following either sound or light, depending on his or her personal predisposition. Your intuition will tell you which is more resonant for you. If you have difficulty discerning which is right for you, it will probably help to have a conversation with someone who has already tread this later stage of the path. In either case, both (sound or light) lead to the same place out of which they both emerged. It is somewhat like choosing which door to use to enter a ballroom; both doors lead into the ballroom.
With predisposition for sound, the sadhaka listens into the sound of silence, as if the source of all sound will emerge. It has a feeling somewhat like stretching onto silence after mantra, as was described above. With predisposition for light, the sadhaka watches into the darkness, as if the source of all light will emerge. Here, there is also a stretching of awareness into the formless darkness, as was described with body, breath, mantra, and sound. Eventually, the sadhaka experiences the formless source that is common to both sound and light, regardless of which was followed in the practice (like finally being
in the ballroom that has two entrance doors).
If a mantra has been used as a focal point for meditation, this will have already been followed into its silent, felt sense of awareness, with the syllables having fallen away. The sound or light that is eventually experienced is an aspect of the mantra, only at a very subtle level. Sound and light are then experienced as inseparably mingled. In a higher state, the common source of sound
and light are experienced.
Advancing in meditation
A time comes when meditation stirs the unconscious mind and brings forward hidden impressions. It quickens the method of analyzing, understanding, and surveying the unconscious.
If you are emotional, use anahata chakra, the center between the two breasts. If you are intellectual, or think much, use ajna chakra, the breath chakra, between the two eyebrows. In no way, at this point, should you meditate on the crown chakra, or any lower chakra. If you meditate on the crown, on sahasrara chakra, you might hallucinate. There is a tiny circle on the space between the two eyebrows. In the center of the circle, there is an unflinching, milky white flame steadily burning. Sound and light come from within. Either you should strengthen visualization or you should engage your mind in listening to the sound coming from within. Those who listen to the sound within begin to hear the anahata nada, the inner sound. When an aspirant is able to make his whole being into an ear, he hears the sound of anahata nada. Finally, you’ll hear the sound like OM; your whole being vibrates from within, though your body is still. Your mind is being led by the mantra, toward the silence. When your mind is not following the subtle sound of the mantra, then it becomes aware of the illumination of ajna chakra.
Suddenly your mind enters into something like a tunnel, that leads you to the gateway of sahasrara chakra, the thousand-petaled lotus.
Constant awareness of mantra
When the consciousness of the mantra is deepened, the mantra is able to guide the mind in the inner world.
The student is then taught to be aware of the inner light that already burns without flickering. The light which is within us is the finest and best form upon which to meditate.
The mind then begins to see clearly; it is no longer clouded.
Then the light of consciousness and mantra become one, because at that stage the mantra is not actually remembered, but its meaning and feeling are revealed.
When one develops the feeling of constant awareness of the mantra, it unites with the mainstream of consciousness where light and sound are inseparably mingled.
In a higher stage sound and light are united, and in the highest state pure Consciousness alone exists
Grace and shaktipata
From here on it is only grace of guru, Self, god, or whatever else you might like to call it, which can take us the rest of the way. I liken it to the space probes sent to Mars. As with sadhana (practices) it took a great deal of energy to break away from the Earth’s atmosphere and gravitational pull (like us breaking away from our false identities, attractions, aversions, and fears). Finally, when coming close to its destination, it took very little power to go the rest of the way, as it was the gravitational pull of Mars that pulled the probe to its final destination.
That which pulls us the rest of the way is similarly a naturally existing energy (analogous to the gravitation pull of Mars), which for convenience sake is called grace . Different people have lots of different opinions about the name and nature of that grace, but such a gravitational energy is definitely there to pull us the rest of the way, once we have put in all of the exertion we are capable of putting out. Our job is to do the work we are capable of doing so as to get within reach of that grace or shakti. It is also called shaktipata , or the bestowing of grace.
Piercing the bindu
At some point of meditation the mind enters into something that is experienced as a tunnel (called brahma nadi, which is the energy channel of manifestation itself, as consciousness has come outward to become who we are as a person). The tunnel entrance is near the end of the mind and what it can do for us as a tool on the inner journey. Everything collapses , so to speak, into the point from which all of our being has originally emerged.
That point is called bindu , which is a Sanskrit word that literally translates as point or dot. Consciousness recedes into and through that point or bindu in what can only be described as being like an intense explosion. On the other side (for lack of a better word to describe the indescribable) of the explosion of the bindu is the direct experience of the absolute reality, Brahman in Vedantic terms, or the preexisting union of Shakti with Shiva, in Tantric terms. It is called Mahatripurasundari in the samaya sri vidya tantra of the Himalayan tradition.
Mahatripurasundari is the great (maha), beautiful (sundari) one who dwells in, and is the substratum of the three cities known as waking, dreaming, and sleeping, or the gross world, subtle plane, and causal realm, or simply Tripura , the one in the three cities. This is the real Self, which is the Self of all, which is spoken of as the goal of life called Self-realization.
The Ringing Sound (Anhad Shabad; Sound Current)
in Meditation | Simran | Bhakti | Jap
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