The unstruck sound, the Anahata Naad

Oct 15, 2009, 12.00am IST
ANUP TANEJA.

The initial creative impulses arose as spandan or thought-vibration of the Pure Being. The sound that emanated from the vibration was AUM. In its transcendental aspect, it is difficult to establish contact with the Supreme Being. However, the nearest approach is Sound, also referred to as Aparam Brahmn .


Supercharged with transcendent soul-force, sound is, in all Creation, the one, powerful principle that widely influences and effectively brings under control all other manifestations.

Self-realised beings, the siddhas , discovered that there exists a definite relationship between sound and mind. The mind, in the process of being attracted towards sound, loses awareness of the external world altogether.

Through meditation, seekers following the path of Siddha Yoga endeavour to establish contact with the divine sound, the Anahata Naad that helps in subduing the turbulent mind – that keeps roving in the pleasure garden of sensual objects – and giving it a new, inward direction.

As the seeker delves deep within, he realises that his physical and astral bodies, his senses and the mind, all have sound as their basis. An analysis of one’s individual existence takes one to sound before one reaches the Eternal Self.

Anahata Naad also forms the basis in all the six chakras or plexuses located within the sushumna that extends from the base of the spine to the crown of the head – the brahmarandhra or the tenth door. Since the lower three chakras – muladhara , swadhishthana and manipura – are dominated by the tattvas earth, water and fire respectively, Naad is not clearly heard in these.


Anahata chakra , which corresponds to the cardiac plexus in the physical body, is the centre of Vayu Tattva . Anahata Sound, called the sound of the Shabda Brahmn , emanates from this centre. Significantly, Anahata Naad is the unstruck, mystic sound that occurs spontaneously and is not the result of striking or beating certain things. Depending upon the intensity of a seeker’s concentration and the level of his mental purity, Anahata Naad can be distinctly heard in deep meditation, paving the way for the seeker’s evolution to the highest level of consciousness.


Anahata Naad manifests itself in different ways ranging from the sound that is similar to the beating of the waves of the sea to the deafening peals of huge bells and the holy sound of the conch. When the seeker hears the sound of the flute, his entire being is permeated with Divine bliss and he loses body-consciousness; the sound of the kettledrum bestows the seeker with powers of clairvoyance and the ability to see distant objects. But the naad that leads the seeker to the ultimate goal of yoga, Nirvikalpa Samadhi , is the meghanaad , the sound of thunder.

Siddha Yoga masters say that constant hearing of meghanaad for some days in deep meditation enables the seeker to enter the abode of Chiti, Pure Consciousness, where he experiences the tranquility of the supra-causal state of consciousness.

The seeker then begins to understand that there are two dimensions to Chiti : one is the supremely pure transcendent aspect, which transcends the world, and the other is the immanent aspect, in which by free will, there is differentiation, attribution and the projection of the wondrous universe on the canvas of the Supreme Being.

Despite appearing as the universe with myriad diversities and impurities, Chiti retains her immaculate purity and remains absolutely untainted.

The writer is an editor with the Indian Council of Historical Research.