Being and non-being produce each other. Difficult and easy complement each other. Long and short define each other. High and low oppose each other. Fore and aft follow each other,” says the Chinese enlightened mystic Lao Tzu describing the intrinsic harmony between polar opposites. There is no fight or struggle between them; they support each other.
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Our body and our life form function with an energy which moves like a bioelectric current within us. When everything within functions perfectly, we can hear a hum arise out of us — the sound of health. Energy, electricity, sounds — this is the play of the trinity in our being. A rhythmic hum means that we are in good health. When it’s discordant, we should know that it’s in chaos. The same happens with emotions — sadness and joy, misery and ecstasy create their own vibrations or hum.
What is true of our being is true of the cosmos. Ancient sages, who illuminated us about the universe, meditated first to experience the same within themselves. Says Osho, “Physicists say sound is merely modification of electricity. Yogis say electricity is merely a modification of sound. Both are true. Sound and electricity are two forms of the same phenomenon. Call it electricity or sound, call it fire like Heraclitus or water like Lao Tzu… All these are merely forms of the formless!”
But how can you know the formless? Knowledge is possible only when there is form, when something is known. But form is a modification of the unknown. For a yogi, electricity is irrelevant. Through sound, he can change many phenomena, even inner electricity. He calls it prana — the inner bioenergy.
Through sound, it can be changed. That’s why when you listen to classical music you feel a certain silence — your inner body energy changes. Listen to a madman and you feel you’re going crazy too, because the madman’s body electricity is in chaos, which you imbibe. Sit with an enlightened person and suddenly everything within you falls into a rhythm.
To connect with our inner and outer cosmos, Osho has given a very powerful method of meditation, Nadabrahma. It lasts for an hour and has three stages.
The Article written by Swami Chaitanya Keerti was published in The Asian Age and the Deccan Chronicle in December 2014
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Almost every month I receive the sad news of the death of some friend or of people whom I have known for a long time.
It comes as a definite reminder that we all have to die sooner or later; that we cannot escape death. What I am saying is often said by millions of people around the world.
For some moments, everybody — friends, relatives and all — take note of death and then soon after immerse themselves in their respective routines. A few nice things are said, such as “only the body dies, the soul is immortal”. We console others and ourselves with profound philosophy just to forget the shock and continue with our mind-games. The stark reminder that we are also in the queue is quickly forgotten. The poets also console us. One Urdu poet wrote:
Kaun kehta hai ke maut aayi to mar jaunga
Main to dariya hun samandar mein utar jaunga
(Who says I will die when death comes/I am a river which will merge with the ocean).
There are many more such beautiful poems to make us forget the shock that we get when someone dies. When we see death, we think about it for some moments, avoiding to look at it or into it.
Osho asks: “Have you ever consciously looked at death? Have you ever gone to the cemetery and sat there and thought about the people who are lying in their graves? No… you will go only one time and one way — you will not come back. Why are graveyards and cemeteries and funeral grounds made outside the city, out of the way? — so that you don’t have to come across them. In fact, the graveyards should be made exactly in the middle of the city, so you have to come across them many times every day, knowing perfectly well that the people who are sleeping in those graves were also one day living just like you, and one day you also will be lying in the same kind of grave.”
The other common way of ignoring death is to keep quoting Bhagwad Gita and other holy scriptures.
Dehino’smin yathaa dehe kaumaaram yauvanam jaraa;
Tathaa dehaantara praaptir dheeras tatra na muhyati.
(Just as in this body the embodied (soul) passes into childhood, youth and old age, so also does he pass into another body; the firm man does not grieve). Krishna is trying to explain that he shouldn’t worry about the death of his stepbrothers, cousins, and teachers, because their soul never dies, it’s only their body that changes form.
Just as a man casts off worn out clothes and puts on new ones, the soul does the same. Such beautiful words are uttered to console ourselves so that we forget death. Just by listening to such words we do not become free from the fear of death. The fear haunts us. The shadow of death continues to follow us and needs our attention.
We do need to meditate on it, not just think or contemplate about it.
Death is a mystery and remains a mystery. Osho explains that the religious man, the mystic, tries to explore the mystery of death. In exploring the mystery of death, he inevitably comes to know what life is, what love is. Those are not his goals. His goal is to penetrate death, because there seems to be nothing more mysterious than death. Love has some mystery because of death, and life also has some mystery because of death. If death disappears there will be no mystery in life. That’s why a dead thing has no mystery in it, a corpse has no mystery in it, because it cannot die anymore. You think it has no mystery because life has disappeared? No, it has no mystery because now it cannot die anymore. Death has disappeared, and with death automatically life disappears. Life is only one of the ways of death’s expressions.
Such a realisation of death is possible only through meditation. And only meditation makes us free from the fear of death. He suggests: “Start meditating on death. And whenever you feel death close by, go into it through the door of love, through the door of meditation, through the door of a man dying. And if you can receive death in joy and benediction, you will attain to the greatest peak, because death is the crescendo of life.”
— The Article written by Swami Chaitanya Keerti was published in The Asian Age and the Deccan Chronicle during summer 2014….
For thousands of years, scientists have been trying to solve the mysteries of life, which the Yogis of the East have comprehended through meditation. Scientists have been foolishly employing methods that are not useful to discover the inner realm of consciousness. No scientific tool can fathom the depths of our inner selves.
Yogis have worked hard on their bodies, minds, hearts and souls. They have employed various methods of pranayam, mantra and tantra to attain inner harmony, culminating in super-consciousness. Most of the meditators use the sound of Aum, as some Tibetan yogis used their mool mantra Om Mani Padme Hum. The powerful chants of mantras, if done correctly, such as Aum, can create certain vibrations which help restore inner health, enhance the energy and expand consciousness. This has always been a mystery to the scientific minds of the Western world.
Many may have tried to understand this, but such experiments cannot be performed in scientific laboratories. For such an experiment, the human body itself is a laboratory. The science of the inner being is totally opposite to the science of the outer being.
Scientists have perhaps realised this and are now trying to bridge the gulf between the inner and the outer selves. There has to be a connecting device. What physicists call energy and electricity, the mystics call Naad, the sound within. This whole cosmos responds to that sound.
Recently there was news that some scientists have used sound to “talk” to an artificial atom, demonstrating a curious phenomenon in quantum physics that sees sound waves take on the role of light. Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden have succeeded in making acoustic waves couple to an artificial atom.
This research will certainly bridge the gulf between the inner and the outer selves. The mystics say that the divine resides in the inner and outer selves: Kan Kan Mein Bhagwan there is godliness in each particle of existence. The divine permeates every particle.
Researchers say that an artificial atom is an example of such a quantum electrical circuit. Just like a regular atom, it can be charged with energy which it subsequently emits in the form of a particle.
Osho explains that the sound is the basic element of existence. Just as physicists say that electricity is the basic element, yogis say that sound is the basic element. They agree with each other in a subtle way. Physicists say that sound is nothing but a modification of electricity and yogis say that electricity is nothing but a modification of sound. Then both are true. Sound and electricity are two forms of one phenomenon… For the yogi, electricity is not relevant. He is working in the inner lab of being. There, sound is more relevant, because through sound he can change many phenomena inside and through sound he can change the inner electricity also. Yogis call it prana — the inner bio-energy or bio-electricity. Through sound that can be changed immediately.
That’s why, when listening to classical music, you feel a certain silence surrounding you: your inner body energy is changed. Listen to a madman and you will feel you are also going crazy: because the madman is in a chaos of body electricity and his words and sounds carry that electricity to you. Sit with an enlightened person and suddenly you feel everything within you is falling in a rhythm. Suddenly you feel a different quality of energy arising in you.
Now look at the word atom. It is a very significant word, even more if you divide into two: At Om. Om is intrinsic to all that exists in the universe whether individually or collectively, and its sound waves create the fabric of whole cosmos. The Rig Veda also says, “First the absolute, the brahman, then waak, the sound, the vibrating energy which becomes the universe.” The Bible also says the same thing, but has missed the point in translation. It says: In the beginning there was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word and the God were one.
Osho concludes: Now scientists, physicists particularly, have discovered that existence consists only of vibrations. They call it “vibrations of electricity”. It does not matter what name you give, what jargon you use, but vibration means sound. That is the meaning of Aum. Aum is the unstruck sound; there is no instrument. When you become absolutely silent, suddenly it is there. Zen people have the right expression for it; they call it “the sound of one hand clapping”. If two hands are there, of course, the clapping is easy, but one hand clapping and the sound of one hand clapping seems to be absurd — but they are truly expressing the reality. When you go inside and you are absolutely silent you hear for the first time the inner music.
— The Article written by Swami Chaitanya Keerti was published in The Asian Age and the Deccan Chronicle during summer 2014….