Beyond Meaning

Read in Telugu: అర్థానికి అతీతంగా…

E very reverberation, whether of great consequence or otherwise, has an existential root, but meanings have no existential root. Meanings only mean something within the framework of your mind. Only when you live in human society are meanings important because human beings have lost traction with Creation. The only place where meanings have some relevance is in the ridiculous creation of their own, which is their psychological space. It is a new world that people have created for themselves. You see the world clashing because everybody is living in their own world. This is a psychological structure. It is an illusion that you create for yourself.

Within this illusion you can create all kinds of meanings. The terminology employed when someone comes to his senses is, “He was disillusioned.” Disillusioned is not a positive term in the social context. But if you are looking for a spiritual context, the sooner you are disillusioned, the better it is. If all your illusions fall apart today, isn’t it wonderful? Or do you want to take your illusions to your deathbed? Of course, death will destroy all the illusions.

When we utter a mantra, we are not looking at the meaning. But most human beings have made themselves incapable of getting involved with something that doesn’t mean anything to them. Why do you think some of the most glorious things that are happening on the planet are ignored by most people? A sunrise, sunset, full moon. How many people on this planet are even conscious of it? How many people will sit through the spring watching the flowers blossom? Instead they are arguing about whose words are more meaningful! They have no attention for all the meaningless, phenomenal things that are happening in the universe because they are looking for meaningful things.

Sound is the substance of Creation. Meanings are made up in human minds. Sounds are of various kinds. There are sounds that are very refined, and there are some that are gross depending upon the nature of its reverberation. Everything is a certain kind of sound – the tree, air, body, rock. There could be the same rock as the Dhyanalinga, but it would have a completely different kind of reverberation. The same sound can be taken and refined to a certain level. Today, science is entering this space, but in the yogic systems this is something that we have always worked with. Modern science is now saying both sound and light are reverberations. If you multiply sound to a certain decibel, you would arrive at a place where mathematically it has become light. In theory, sound can become light. Once something is theoretically possible, practicality is only a question of capability. But this is something that we have always done within ourselves.

If you take a sound and incubate it within you, you can incubate the sound with a refined reverberation of your consciousness and turn it into light.  The body is one kind of reverberation, thought is another kind of reverberation, emotion is another kind of reverberation, consciousness is a completely different kind of reverberation. What we refer to as consciousness is the most refined reverberation. What is beyond is, “Shiva” or “that which is not” because its reverberation is such that you cannot even know it is there. It is utter stillness, but there is a reverberation in that also. If you take a sound into you and incubate it in your consciousness, this sound can slowly be transformed into light.

Reverberations do different things to different individuals, but if you transform a reverberation from one dimension to another by incubating it within yourself consciously, one can know light from within, and nobody around will miss it either.

In the Spot "Becoming a Mantra," Sadhguru offers "Vairagya" - a collection of five mantras that can be used towards one's spiritual growth.