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Godwin, Joscelyn - On Shabda Yoga
Identifier
005893
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Joscelyn Godwin
In Shabda yoga ….. the Hindus have taken the attainment of higher states as the goal and made it into a science of sound. Whereas Mantra-yoga uses the mantrum as the focus of concentration, Shabda-yoga concentrates on looking to find the 'Inner Sound'.
The 'Inner ear' may perceive it at first in multifarious forms, noises as of bells and other instruments, of animal and human voices, of waters and thunders are mentioned, sometimes in systematic sequence and with reference to various energy centres in the body in which they seem to occur as one's practise progresses. Some sounds are not of this world and bring ineffable states with them. Others represent the action of vast cosmic forces into which one's self is absorbed.