Sunday 20 August 2017

The Sound of Breath.

   The scriptures assert that "The vibrant energy that pervades the universe as 'chit-shakti', 'Consciousness', is the breath of the Lord". It is said, "He, the Lord breathes unto us without Himself breathing"! All that breathes here is the creative energy of the vital airs, 'prana-shakti', the breath of the Lord. It is He who is seated in us as 'antaryamin', the Self' of all, that breathes. As humans or animals, we have absolutely no control over it. If it stops, it stops. Nothing can be done about it!
  Breathing is an action that produces sound 'sa' in in-breath and 'ha' in out-breath. Everything is sustained by the syllables 's', 'h' supported by 'r' and 'i'. The term 'Shri' is the name and function of the creative power Devi Adhya Shakti. She breathes unto us without Herself ever breathing! She is the power and glory of the Lord! It is called in the female gender since it the power of creation. All creations are thus the 'Sound' of Her breath, the creative energy of the Lord. The sound that we hear traverse the space and it has the potential to create anything and everything!
   The English alphabets called the vowels a, e, i, o, and u are the potential sounds and the same akshara (syllables) are the powerful sounds in samskruta bhasha, as well! However, it must be noted that there are no upper case capital letters in the devanagari. In fact, use of capital letters for proper nouns are also prohibited for they will give different sounds with different power of creation. The samskruta vidwan, pundits, give special importance to phonetics in uttering the mantra. The mantra have the power of creation, sustenance, transformation, as well as dissolution. Mantra protects us from dangers! trayate iti matra | The single sound that creates us is 'shreem' and that protects us is 'hreem'. The tarika mantra that protects us is 'hreem' the deity of which is tara. The power of creation is inherent in the sound- 'aim', pronounced as 'eye m'. The syllable 'm' has the power of joining, uniting, merging, anything with anything! We close the lips to pronounce this syllable (sound) 'm'. The jiva (u) is united by 'm' with paramatman (a) when the mantra 'aum' is uttered in dhyan.
  The world comes into existence with the sound of the  'aum'. These  three sounds of a, u, and m have their source in the sound of our breath originating from the navel, heart, and the throat, respectively. The creative potential is in the sound of the syllable 'a' and the creative energy as a dynamic force comes from the heart, almost ending with the sound of 'm' at the throat that tries to escape from the mouth, but prevented to sustain the creation by closing the lips! Hence whatever we speak, opening our mouth lose all their power of creation, the sat and chit aspect of the supreme Creatrix. The great sages always keep quiet, 'mum' for fear of losing their power of askesis, tapas. They are called 'muni'
   The sound of every syllable of the alphabets have thus inherent power of creation without exception! The most powerful of them are, however, so important that the entire universe is created, sustained and dissolved by them These are: ya, ra, la, va, sa, ha, sha, pa, pha, bha, ma, ka, and ksha. Even the space, air, fire, water, land, and life are created by the sound of these syllables! All that we breathe is producing these sounds by the circulation of the in-breath and the out-breaths. The jiva stops functioning with the departing out-breath never to come back, and it is not in our hands to get it back once it leaves! Now, the secret of creation is revealed by none other than the deities called by different names like lakshmi, parvati, durga, kali,sharada, saraswati, Ila, bhu, etc.   

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