Sacred Sound Vibration Dictionary

nada: (Sanskrit) "Sound; tone, vibration."

Metaphysically, the mystic sounds of the Eternal, of which the highest is the transcendent or Soundless Sound, Paranada, the first vibration from which creation emanates. Paranada is so pure and subtle that it cannot be identified to the denser regions of the mind. From Paranada comes Pranava, Aum, and further evolutes of nada. These are experienced by the meditator as the nadanadi shakti, "the energy current of sound," heard pulsing through the nerve system as a constant high-pitched hum, much like a tambura, an electrical transformer, a swarm of bees or a shruti box.

Listening to the inner sounds is a contemplative practice, called nada upasana, "worship through sound," nada anusandhana, "cultivation of inner sound," or nada yoga. The subtle variations of the nadanadi shakti represent the psychic wavelengths of established guru lineages of many Indian religions. Nada also refers to other psychic sounds heard during deep meditation, including those resembling various musical instruments. Most commonly, nada refers to ordinary sound.

See: Aum, nadi, pranava, sound, healing sound, vibrational healing

(See also: Nada , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

Aum: (Sanskrit) or (Sanskrit) Often spelled Om. The mystic syllable of Hinduism, placed at the beginning of most sacred writings. As a mantra, it is pronounced aw (as in law), oo (as in zoo), mm.

á      Aum represents the Divine, and is associated with Lord Ganesha, for its initial sound "aa," vibrates within the muladhara, the chakra at the base of the spine upon which this God sits.

á      The second sound of this mantra, "oo," vibrates within the throat and chest chakras, the realm of Lord Murugan, or Kumara, known by the Hawaiian people as the God Ku.

á      The third sound, "mm," vibrates within the cranial chakras, ajna and sahasrara, where the Supreme God reigns.

The dot above, called anusvara, represents the Soundless Sound, Paranada. Aum is explained in the Upanishads as standing for the whole world and its parts, including past, present and future. It is from this primal vibration that all manifestation issues forth. Aum is the primary, or mula mantra, and often precedes other mantras. It may be safely used for chanting and japa by anyone of any religion. Its three letters represent the three worlds and the powers of creation, preservation and destruction. In common usage in several Indian languages, aum means "yes, verily" or "hail." See: nada, Pranava, sound, Healing sound.

(See also: Aum , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

DIVINE SOUND - (shabd, Sanskrit) eternal vibration within all beings that is realized by chanting or focusing the breath activating the inner ear. (NAD)

(See also: DIVINE SOUND , Wiccan Pagan, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

Sound In physics, a name for a group of phenomena, and in common speech auditory sensations; but in theosophic philosophy, sound is an attribute of one of the fundamental cosmic elements, akasa.

Being such, sound becomes more than a mere name describing an attribute: it is an actual efflux or production of the universal working of the akasic fluid. Hence, in a sense, it may be said to be an entity, a real force in nature, and the said phenomena and sensations only some of its effects.

Like the terms light, heat, air -- all of which are entities in occultism -- sound will have different shades of meaning according to the particular manifestation or plane concerned. In its most fundamental meaning, sound is the characteristic effect or spiritual efflux of the Third Logos, the upper end of that septenary ladder of being which constitutes the one manifested Life. In this sense akasa, considered as one of the tattvas (elementary substances), may be said to be the third cosmic Logos; although in a more universal sense akasa is the universal substantial space from which emanates the first cosmic Logos of an individual cosmic hierarchy, such as our solar system. As such, this akasic Third Logos, whose characteristic production is sound, occupies the apex of a triangle, combining both the active and passive potencies of creative energy. Logos is Greek for Word, what the Latins called Verbum, including both forms and vibratory force. Sound is therefore a tremendous occult creative power: it called worlds into being out of chaos, as is said in every cosmogony. This power descends to man, through his divine ancestry, as well as from the higher parts of his constitution, and the power of sound is known to adepts and used by them, being called mantrika-sakti.

Always and everywhere the power of mantras and incantations has been recognized. Orators use mantras -- they call them slogans -- with instinctive knowledge of their efficacy, and set afloat phrases that stir the public mind and strongly influence events. Often in daily conversation we instinctively forbear to speak a name or a word, though we would make no objection to writing it.

Sound is a property of akasa, the primary of aether, sometimes called space. In the list of the five commonly accepted tattvas, senses, and organs, akasa-tattva is at the top, corresponding to sound and hearing. The aether of space has seven principles and is the vibratory soundboard of nature in all its seven differentiations. Sound is directed in its operations by fohat, being one of seven radicals.

The power of sound is connected with rhythmic vibration and sympathetic vibration; a powerful voice, sounding the right tone, may shatter a wineglass; and the imagination suggests dangerous applications of this principle. To dabble experimentally in it, or to follow the teachings of pseudo-occultists, would be like an ignorant person meddling with the switches in a powerhouse.

(See also: Sound , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Mantrika-sakti (Sanskrit) The power or occult potency of mystic words, sounds, numbers, or letters -- the power of the mantras. The vibrational, formative, or creative power inherent in sound -- every sound being a vibration, and every vibration having its own numerical keynote.

"The whole of the ancient Mantra Shastra has this force or power in all its manifestation for its subject-matter. The power of The Word which Jesus Christ speaks of is a manifestation of this Sakti. The influence of its music is one of its ordinary manifestations. The power of the mirific ineffable name is the crown of this Sakti" (Five Years of Theosophy 111).

(See also: Mantrika-sakti , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Sound Energetics: Invention of Helena Reilly, M.A. It involves analysis of the voice and the application of sound at frequencies that release psychological and emotional energies.

The principle of sound energetics is that one's voice is a reflection and map of one's energetic vibration overall. sounding: Repeatedly vocalizing therapeutic sounds, such as AUM. Aum (Om) isa manifestation of spiritual power and the most sacred syllable of Hinduism. sound therapy: Modality promoted by psychologist Lisa M. Baker, M.A., of New York City. It includes Toning.

(See also: Sound Energetics , Body Mind and Soul, Alternative Health, Alternative Health Dictionary)

Music and Sound Therapy

Since vibration is the essence of sound and music and since energy, and thus vibration, is the essence of all things, then it follows that music and sound should be a common element among most, if not all, healing traditions.

Examples of the use of sound include: chanting in yoga and meditation, plainsong, drumming, music played during a bodywork or healing session, and hi-tech meditation soundtracks which employ subliminal pulses and/or affirmations.

(See also: Music and Sound Therapy , Alternative Health, Body Mind and Soul)

Om

The primal sound; the sound or vibration from which the entire universe emanates.

(See also: Om , Alternative Health, Healing, Body Mind and Soul)

laws of vibration

Thought, sound, impression, visualization may all be carried through space on waves of power. This power appears to have infinite extension of range. Whatever the vibration is it is believed to be carrier of inter-space contacts and seems to be all-pervasive

(See also: Laws of vibration , Body Mind and Soul)

Nada

(Sanskrit) The Universal Sound. Vibration

(See also: Nada , New Age Spirituality, Body Mind and Soul)

Name The Word or Logos may be considered in a twofold aspect as Voice and Name, reminiscent of the Sanskrit nama-rupa (name and form), technical terms inasmuch as nama is not merely a human utterance but contains the idea of creative sound, and rupa (form) signifying not so much mere vehicle, but the conscious production of the creative akasa or sound.

In Simon Magus' Gnostic system, the first three pairs of emanations from divine fire are mind and thought, voice and name, reason and reflection; the first in each case is masculine, the second feminine. A name evokes a thought, which is a creative power, but in itself is the production of a creative thought.

People have concealed their names; others refrain from speaking theirs. The name becomes much more potent when spoken, for then is added the power of vibration. Most names of things are counters, for they differ in different languages; yet even these names acquire power by familiarity. But there are real natural vibrational names for things; to know the real name of a power gives one mastery over it and enables one thus to evoke that power. For this reason great secrecy throughout all past time among initiates has been preserved as to the real names of powers, deities, etc. The four-letter name of Jehovah is popularly described as ineffable and incommunicable, although the four letters are merely human makeshift for the vibrational energy of which the Tetragrammaton is a mere symbol. These epithets may mean that it cannot be spoken and communicated, or that it must not. If it cannot be spoken, then it has to be discovered by each one for himself.

Says the Christian Apocalypse: "To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it." The name thus denotes the essential character of the being.

(See also: Name , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Mantra:

subtle sound vibration, which through repetition aims at expanding one's awareness or consciousness.

(See also: Mantra ,Yoga, Yoga Dictionary)

Sphota:

Sphota. Sound; vibration from which the phenomenal world emanated.

(See also: Sphota , Tantra, Tantra Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Nada: Sound; mystic inner sound; the primal sound or first vibration from which all creation has emanated; the first manifestation of the unmanifested Absolute; Omkara or Shabda Brahman. The continuous sound of Om experienced in bhavanam.

(See also: Nada , Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Disease Broadly stated, disease is a disordered or inharmonious vital state of the organism, with more of less excess, defect, or perversion of functional activity. The condition may be some chemical or mechanical wrong which renders the body unable to respond naturally to the psychoelectric and other forces which play through and sustain the physical person.

Moreover, the material and immaterial elements of the human constitution react upon each other for health or disease, because the mind and emotions on the one hand, and the organs and their functions on the other, are interrelated parts of the same entity. As a rule, this interplay between the material and the conscious person becomes a vicious circle in disease. Mental or emotional shock or strain can so affect function as to result in organic disease. Long continued selfish emotions cause a distorted and inharmonious interaction of the pranic or vital currents of the body, resulting in one or another disorder, according to the type of the emotions and the individual karma.

In view of the electric nature of matter, physical disorder may be regarded as an electrical disharmony or wrong, since disease always changes the polarity of the body, more or less. The vital currents of human electricity connect the conscious person with his body by the living wires of nerves. The rhythmic motion or natural harmony vibrating in each cell and organ at its own rate, is responsive to the universal vibration or Great Breath which in other modes of motion manifests as heat, light, sound, density, etc. But beyond the electrical and vibrational states of the body, and above the mental influence, is the essential self, the source of all harmony or rhythmic procedures in all below it, keyed to harmony and striving to raise the lower nature to act in unison with its finer and greater powers. When the instinct of the animal body, the mental reasoning faculties, and the reimbodying ego's intuition are functioning together, the person is keyed to health, sanity, and wisdom. Otherwise, the real inner conflict manifests in some form of disorder.

As the human being, then, is a dynamo of balanced forces, some disorder in their operation is the basic wrong in human diseases. Moreover, as all matter is alive, conscious in some degree, and vibrationally responsive to the laws of nature, the same general principle applies also to disease in the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms. In mankind, the organic vital fluid of the reimbodying ego is the cohering factor for the entire constitution, dominating over all minor vital expressions of the life-atoms. The intense and ceaseless activity of these life-atoms builds and composes the body, and as age comes on, and the physical vehicle naturally and normally weakens, the uninterrupted activity of the vital power becomes too strong to be held in check by the gripping influence of the vital-electrical field. Thus the atomic forces, really the vital energies, continuing unabated within the body structure, slowly weaken it and finally destroy it, and this is death.

"It is likewise these internal vital activities of the life-atoms held in insufficient check by the organic vitality which bring about many if perhaps not all of the various forms of disease of a lasting character. Cases of malignant disease are due to the same general cause but on account of specific and unusual circumstances are localized in some portion of the body where the power or control of the organic vitality becomes greatly weakened" (ET 813n).

(See also: Disease , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

HEALING SOUNDS

The use of sound to create balance and alignment in the physical body, the energy centers (chakras), and/or the etheric fields. It is a vibration applied by an instrument or the human voice, and can be understood as a field of energy medicine.

The primary question in this field is: What are the correct resonant frequencies of the body?

(See also: HEALING SOUNDS , Alternative Health, Massage, Bodywork, Body Mind and Soul)

CHANTING - rhythmic repetition of sound, such as a mantra, in which vibration energy is received and discharged. (NAD)

(See also: CHANTING , Wiccan Pagan, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

A Theosophical definition of Om - Aum :

Om - Aum

A word considered very holy in the Brahmanical literature.

It is a syllable of invocation, as well as of benediction and of affirmation, and its general usage (as elucidated in the literature treating of it, which is rather voluminous, for this word Om has attained almost divine reverence on the part of vast numbers of Hindus) is that it should never be uttered aloud, or in the presence of an outsider, a foreigner, or a non-initiate, and it should be uttered in the silence of one's mind, in peace of heart, and in the intimacy of one's "inner closet."

There is strong reason to believe, however, that this syllable of invocation was uttered, and uttered aloud in a monotone, by the disciples in the presence of their teacher. This word is always placed at the beginning of any scripture or prayer that is considered of unusual sanctity.

It is said that by prolonging the uttering of this word, both of the o and the m, with the mouth closed, the sound re-echoes in and arouses vibration in the skull, and affects, if the aspirations be pure, the different nervous centers of the body for good.

The Brahmanas say that it is an unholy thing to utter this word in any place which is unholy. It is sometimes written Aum.

See also: Om - Aum , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

Om: also written as 'AUM' according the Yogi's and Rishi's OM (AUM) is considered to be the sound that represents the Ultimate Reality, the primordial vibration, which is prefixed to many mantras. Om shares many of the same meanings with its Semitic counterparts: the Hebrew "Amen" and the Arabic "Amin."  All three are used to open or close prayers.

(See also: Om ,Yoga, Yoga Dictionary)

Mantra Yoga: Music with Mantras - A Divine Experience

A feast of heavenly music awaits those who can tune in. If you don't know how, you can learn the art from the science of Mantra Yoga. The world around us is full of vibrations. Tyagaraja created a raga upon hearing the hum of a bee. But only a pure mind can receive the finer vibrations. Mantra Yoga helps us purify our minds.

Read more here: » Mantra Yoga: Music with Mantras - A Divine Experience