The four kinds of sounds

There are four kinds of sounds. The first type of sound is called “Vaikari.” This is the physical sound that you hear, for example when somebody speaks.

The second form of sound is called “Madhyama,” which means, the middle one. Suppose I were to say “Chocolate,” or if I were to show you something that looks like a chocolate, your mind will think, “Oh, chocolate!” It is not just an abstraction or a vibration of thought. “Hot chocolate” is a voice, a sound that comes from a dimension of your mind.

This is the middle sound. The third dimension of sound is referred to as “Pashyanthi.” This is your mind’s ability to think it up. Without any input from outside – I did not show you anything nor did I shout “Chocolate,” but just like that, from within, from some deep recess in your mind – “Chocolate!” It is not a reflection or a rebound of what I said; your mind can create it from somewhere within. This is the Pashyanthi dimension of sound.

The fourth dimension of sound is referred to as “Para Vak.” “Vak” means voice, “Para” means the divine or the source of creation. Para Vak means the voice of the Creator. For ages, every scatter-brain in the world has been hearing God speak. I am not talking about that kind of nonsense. Hearing this sound does not mean losing control over your faculties and hearing things that you want to hear. Para Vak is about hearing the reverberation that is the basis of creation and Creator.

When Shiva was teaching yoga to the Saptarishis, his seven disciples, he taught them all kinds of intricate things continuously for many years, but he never spoke. The seven disciples each received seven different types of teaching – seven dimensions of yoga. All Shiva did was sit there, seemingly disinterested in these people. When Parvati asked him, “Seven great sages are sitting there.

Why don’t you say something? It will be appropriate.” Shiva said, “Ah! they hear me.” What he is telling her is, “You do not hear me because of your intimacy, so I have to speak to you. They hear me.” He does not mean to say, “They hear what is happening in my mind” He is saying, “The basis of my consciousness, they hear that and that's all. The rest is all made up for the sake of transmission. That's all they need to hear and they hear that.”

Para Vak is that sound which is the core of the soundless, utterly still consciousness. If we try and educate somebody about the different dimensions of life, creation, existence, perception, experience and expression, it will be an endless story because it is an endless universe.

It is not that the tale is tall but the creation is such. But if you hear the sound, if you hear this one sound which is “beginning-less,” then it is all here, it is no longer stretching into an endless scape.