Para Shakti, primordial sound energy
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The concept
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Sep 25, 2022: The Times of India
Adi Shankara was once passing through a street in Varanasi. He saw a corpse lying on the wayside and a woman weeping by its side. He took pity on the woman and said to the people nearby to remove the dead body. “Why don’t you ask the body itself to move away?” the weeping woman asked. Shankara stood stunned for a minute, before he managed to ask her, “What dead body has the power to move on its own?” The woman smiled amidst her tears and said, “If it is not possible for a tiny body like that of my husband’s to move without power, what makes you hold the view that this whole universe moves without a power behind it?”
Realisation dawned upon Shankara and he understood for the first time that there is such a thing called Shakti, the Divine Power, and the world is Her sport. This incident prompted Shankarato sing: “If Shiv is joined with Shakti, he is able to create. If not, God is incapable of any movement”, which forms the first verse of his famous Saundarya Lahari.
Ramakrishna Paramhans explains this verse in his following lines: “The Brahmn is actionless. When it is engaged in creation, preservation and dissolution, it is called Adyashakti, the Primal Power. This power must be propitiated. ” No wonder that Sri Ramakrishna’s disciple, Swami Vivekananda, said: “No nation can rise without the worship of Shakti. ” It was not only saints but also heroes like Chhatrapati Shiva ji Maharaj and Guru Gobind Singh, poets and writers like Subramania Bharati and Bankim Chandra, and saint philosophers like Sri Aurobindo worshipped Shakti.
The worshippers of Shakti invariably believe that Shiv is the changing Consciousness and Shakti is its changing power appearing as mind and matter. Shiv-Shakti is, therefore, consciousness and its power. The former is God as He is, and the latter is God as he appears to us. And this doctrine of the dualaspects of Brahmn acting through its threefold powers of will, knowledge and action. To say that Shakti is simply a goddess with several names attributed to her by different people of our country would be pointless, for she is the very essence of all the gods put together. She is Sharada, the giver of the essence, the juice. She has two sets of forms — a set of gentle forms in which she is beautiful beyond the catch of words and another set of terrible forms in which she is very fearful, a sight only to dream of and not to tell. A siddha or a yogi should be able to see her in both. If bhakta is one who tries to see God, siddha is one who has already realised God.
Shakti is both Maya and Mahamaya. As Maya she binds and as Mahamaya she liberates when pleaded. As Avidya Shakti, ignorance, she spreads a net to trap us and as Vidya Shakti, knowledge, she frees us from such traps. She is in all manifestations, but she is more manifested in female forms. She is famous as ten Mahavidyas — Kali, Tara, Tripura sundari, Bhuvaneshvari, Bhairavi, Chinnamasta, Dhumavati, Bagalamukhi, Matangi and Kamala — and is said to reside in fifty-one peethas, holy places, scattered all over present day countries of India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan and Pakistan, in different forms.
Like Krishn in the Bhagwad Gita, Mother also promises to incarnate when vices prevail. ‘Whenever there is trouble of this kind caused by demons, I shall incarnate myself and destroy the enemies,’ she says as Chandi, the fiery, destructive power of Shakti. The whole concept of Nava Shakti, the nine manifestations of the Goddess is based on this very idea of incarnation.
Words and sounds
Shri Shri Anandamurti, Mysteries Of Sound, Song And Sweetness Sep 14 2016 : The Times of India
According to the science of acoustics, the origin or the seed of a word remains in latent form in para Shakti, primordial sound energy. The latent or dormant condition of a word is called `para'. At the first stage of expression, one visualises that word with one's inner eye. Then it takes the name of pashyanti the feminine gender of pashyat with the suffix shatr.
Thereafter, the stage of continuous effort that goes on from the navel to the vocal chord regions to transform the visualised word from mental image into an expressible state or language is called madhyama. The stage that follows this madhyama, when it goes on pushing, stirring the uvula continuously , is known as dyotamana. Afterwards, when, with the help of the uvula, it is transformed into an audible sound, it is called vaekhari. At last, when borne by the uvula, it comes out between the parted lips, it is shrutigocara.
When human beings attain proficiency in controlling vaekhari power by dint of spiritual sadhana, it is called vaekhari siddhi. Even without following systematic spiritual practice, through continuous normal practice also one can gain control over this vaekhari shakti, though only to some extent.
The power required to issue commands or to give orders is called galavaekhari. With the help of which human beings can augment the depth of the sound, and according to their sweet will can add a quiver to the voice.Adding sweetness to a quivering voice nonetheless warrants concentration of mind in the kurma nadi or energy channels re kurma nadi or energy channels related to vocal chord which is close to the centre of vaekhari power.
Even if the measure of sweetness in the vaekhari shakti is little, this will not be so in the kurma nadi. Simply by playing on words and thereby confusing people, a section of so-called learned pundits may derive intellectual pleasure, their intellectual thirst may be quenched, but the human heart remains unsatisfied. These intellectuals, steeped in intellectual vanity , may get temporary satisfaction, but they can never attain salvation.
Songs and poems that have preponderance of soft and soothing sounds are called komalagiti. Generally in poetry and lyrics, letters belonging to ca varga and ta varga are considered to be komala, soft, those of ka varga and pa varga are regarded as medium, and those of ta varga are considered hard. Lyrics sound sweet if letters belonging to the komala vargas are used properly within the various lines.The sweetness is enhanced and becomes more pronounced if kathor dhvani (hard sounds) are scattered through the lines, followed immediately by komala dhvani.
The high frequency part of a song is called khandaparshu ... While singing, one should hold before one's eyes the bhava, ideation of the raga or ragini in which the song is being sung and should also sing meticulously and systematically within the notes prescribed for that particular raga or ragini.
The mind has to be led to the mahabhava (ecstatic samadhi) or cosmic ideation embodied in the different ragas and raginis through anubhava or unit ideation. Of these, bhava, anubhava and especially the mahabhava are called khandaparshu.
In ancient times, the impetus that was given to the unit bhava or mahabhava for the sake of rudrikarana, poignancy , stambhikarana, stilling the mind and spastikarna, clarity was called khambaj. (14 Sept 2016 was the 34th anniversary of Prabhat Samgita Divas.)
