Wednesday, June 25, 2008

[Events at the Temple] Origin of Sound

In the beginning there was darkness of pradhāna, the unmanifested material energy .
When agitated by Lord Vishnu’s powerful glance his kāla-śakti was awakened to the stage called mahat (‘the great matter).
Gradually the following elements were generated: ahankāra (false ego), manah (mind) and buddhi (intelligence), tan matras (sense objects) and pañcha bhutas (the five gross material elements).
Together they form kārana-sāgara or Causal ocean.
The Lord then expanded himself and entered into the causal ocean.
From his body came forth the seeds of millions of universe.
The Lord then expanded and lay down within each and every universes.
In his navel lake a small transcendental seed was generated, which grew into a lotus flower that contained all the planetary systems.
Within that lotus the first created being, Lord Brahmā appeared. He was perplexed about his origin and destiny, but suddenly from nearby he heard two syllables ta – pa.
“Practice austerities!” thus initiated by the Supreme Lord , Brahma underwent severe austerities and was rewarded with Vedic wisdom for his great task of secondary creation.
The first living entity that appeared from Lord Brahma was pranava, the transcendental sound omkāra. From om came all the sounds of the alphabet.
Human sound creation
According to traditional phonetics sikśa, the self ātma formulates intentions by means of intelligence buddhi and inspires the mind mana to speak.
The mind impulses the bidy fire kāyāgni it in turn sets in motion breadth māruta that moving in the chest, generates a humming sound (mandra) that again rising to the palate and crown of the head, and rebounding thence, passes to the mouth and produces articulate sounds like vowels and consonants.

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