The Inner Soundscape of Nada-Yoga: Sonic Path of Union
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school essay
date published 04/11/2007
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SummaryThe Himalayan religious traditions (Saivite Hinduism, Mahayana Buddhism, Tibetan Bon-po) are related by a common heritage of esoteric practices intended to unify the religious aspirant with the ultimate reality (as defined by the particular tradition). This gnosis is defined variously as dzogchen (“great perfection”), samadhi (contemplative absorption), and yoga (union) by the Himalayan religions. According to the mythological history of the Bon-po (the indigenous shamanic religion of Tibet), the meditation master Lord Tonpa Shenrab existed in the hidden realm of Shambhala 18,000 years ago. During his lifetime he is said to have taught the techniques of Dzogchen Meditation, the first such teacher to exist in this world-age. In this mythic history, the Bon-po seek soteriological superiority over the Hindu and Buddhist traditions which practice similar trance-states, by ascribing to Lord Shenrab two students whose later incarnations became Lord Siva and Shakyamuni Buddha, the progenitors of Hindu Yoga and the Buddha Dharma, respectively. One specific practice of Shenrab’s Dzogchen that is found within the later esoteric paths of Hindu Yoga and tantric Buddhism is the cultivation of, and entrainment with, inner sound. In these sonic practices called by different names in each tradition, the goal is the same: the yogi aims to direct awareness inward so that all external phenomena and sense-objects are blocked out, and in their stead comes the awareness of that sound of the universal energy current, nada.
Table of Contents
- Nada is understood by these esoteric schools as the union of prana, essential life-breath, with agni, fire.
- For the non-practicing scholar, Nada-yoga is most clearly enumerated by the texts of the Hindu yoga tradition Hatha-Yoga-Pradipika and Nada-Bindu-Upanisad.
- The nature of mystical paths is to reveal an otherwise hidden aspect of life.
- The soundscape project was created to explicate the soundmarks as described by the Hathayogapradipika.
- This text is of the type criticized by Sterne in Audible Past for its assumption of an interior, atemporal nature of sound.
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