Sound and Light

 

In the world there are two things that serve as guides to a weary traveler on a longsome journey in a pitch dark night; to wit, Sound and Light (Kalam and Nur).  These are the two aids also on the Path of Spirituality.  Each of them has Its own purpose.  We have the divine Light in us and from within It emanates Sound, and the two together have been described as Flaming Sound or Sounding Flame.

The mind when attuned with the Sound becomes detached and getsengrossed,

In the heart of the Light within is a delectabld Sound, that makes one fully absorbed in God.  *52

                                                                                                     GURU ARJAN

Incomprehensible is the real thing.  *53

                                                                                                     GURU ARJAN

Without the Light of Shabd, darkness prevails within,

Nor do we get to the Reality, nor end with the gyres.  *54

                                                                                   GURU AMAR DAS

Without Shabd it is all darkness,

With Shabd manifested, the world came into being.  *55

                                                                                   GURU RAM DAS

All life and al power come from It.  From the sun to the candle flame.  All light comes from this grand powerhouse.

The energy of the scientist and the pranas of the yogins are but manifestations of this life-stream which, like else tricity in the air, is all-pervading and all-powerful.

In Him was life; and the life was the light of man.

And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehendeth it not…

That was the true Light, which ligheth every man that cometh into the world.  He was in the world and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not.  *56

                                                                                                               ST.JOHN

St. Augustine tells us of the manifestation in him of the Light in this way:

I entered even into my inward self.  Thou being my Guide and able as I was: for Thou were become my helper.  And I enterd and beheld with the eye of my soul (such as it was), above the same eye of my soul above my mind, the Light Unchangeable.  Not this ordinary light which all flesh may look upon, nor as it were a greater of the same kind, as though the brightness of this should be manifold brighter, and with its greatness take up all space. Not such was the light but other, yea, far other from all these… He that knows the Truth, knows what that Light is and he that knows It, knows Eternity.

Sant Kabir tells us that the soul without Shabd is blind and does not know the Path:

Without the Word one is blind and knows not the Way,

With no way out, on endlessly wanders in the gyres.

Thousands of years, Zoroaster taught the worship of the cult of Vital Fire and eventoday we see its traces in the symbolic fire that the Parsis keep burning in their homesteads.  Gautama, when he became Buddha or the Enlightened Once, taught the Path of Life to his followers.

All the Prophets of the East or the West, who practiced the process of inversion and recession or withdrawal of the Sound Current at will, speak of both the experiences of Light and Sound.  As soul proceeds on the spiritual path, the gazing faculty precedes that of the hearing, for light is faster than sound.

Soul, though imprisoned by mind and matter, is yet endowed with the gift of subtle facultiesof seeing and hearing independent of the sense organs; and whenone deveops them both, one can withdraw the life-current from the body and then can move freely on to higher spiritual realms, thereby escaping forever from the bondage of the world.

With the guidance of the gauzing faculty, I shall reach Sat Lok.

In the beginning Light appears first and Sound comes afterwards.  In practice, we do Simran and Dhyan in the beginning, the reason being that these prepare the ground for further development.  Though each has Its own individual purpose, yet both of them are practiced for the advent of Sound or Shabd, from where the real help comes.  Shabd then is the control keystonein the archway of Simran and Dhyan, the two sides of the arch.  Again, in the spiritual journey, there come stages wher the soul gets bewildered in the blinding Light that descends around it from all sides, and there nothing but the Sound helps to pull it through.

And thine ears shall hear a Word behind thee,

Saying this is the Way, walk ye in it.  *57

                                                                                                               ISAIAH

Again, there are stages on the Way where utter darkness prevails and there are regions of deep silence and solemnity where one is struck with awe and dismay, and there too, the glorious Voice of God comes to the rescue as an unerring guide and a never failing friend, saying,

Everyma, I will go with thee, and be thy guide,

In thy most need to go by thy side.

                                                                                                     EVERYMAN

The importance of sounds as a guiding factor is recognized on all hands.  A traveler on a desolate plain in a dark night with no habitation in sight, anxiously and wistfully tries to catch some sound, maybe the bark of some distant dog, wherewith to guide his weary footsteps in the right direction; for the bark announces to him the proximity of some wayside hutments and encourages him on till he reaches them.  So do benighted stragglers try to catch the claptrap of a horse's hoof or the tinkling of a bell round an animal's neck.  This is the power of sound; unfailing and deadly sure as it is, it acquires even more significance in the inner journey of the soul.