In the search for silence, we come across another intriguing phenomena, accountability. When working with sound as meditation we can begin to take control of aspects of our lives where we may not feel control for aspects of ourselves. Our trauma and other subconscious residue seeps into our daily lives in various forms, insomuch each individual has indoctrinated themselves into a deep journey of personal transformation. As sound works to clear the subconscious, we are able to view our lives subjectively and the aspects of our lives which created trauma are no longer a hindering facet of our being but rather fuel for transformation. For without pain, there is nothing to transform and without discomfort we cannot find comfort.
Yet, the compelling aspect is that out traumas and less than desirable happenings in our lives have not been done to you, but rather for you. This requires shifting the narrative out of a state of victimization. There are tragic things in life no one should have to go through. It isn’t fair that many people have to work much harder to find their center and peace due to their past. Yet, life isn’t fair. Life is neutral, yet how we engage with our trauma is how we engage with our lives. If we feel that our trauma defines who we are, then we become the trauma. But if we witness trauma moving through us like wind through a tree, we can see it move us but never break the core of who we are. This is the birth of responsibility. This is where we take great control of what has happened and move forward with courage to move beyond that which has seemingly held us back. Your trauma is your responsibility, no one can take it away from you. It is yours until you choose to let it go.
One may ask, what does this have to do with sound. For many, the idea of a sound bath is intriguing. But for many the experience is not what one may expect. You are to sit or lay with your own thoughts, which for many may be uncomfortable. Typically, when sitting in meditation, that which filters into the conscious mind is that which currently is being challenged in one’s life. We have dream analysis, but we often forget about thorough analysis and deep thinking regarding what we hear in our mind or see in our mind’s eye. For language and words are symbols, just like the images of a dream, yet we take words as truth but in reality, they are attempting to point us to truth. The word of God is not God. Alan Watts once spoke of something similar. Imagine tossing a toy to a dog and the dog cannot find it, so you point in the direction to assist them. The dog begins to look at your finger, and cannot understand you are pointing in the direction. This is dream and thought analysis. We become obsessed with the potting finger, but cannot bear witness to the truth of that which is being pointed at. OM, or AUM, is not a sound, it’s a reference to the space beyond sound. We are not trying to convey words, but rather meaning. Sound works with deep meaning rather than sensory communication.
Sound is work, it requires diligent subjective inquiries into the self where we can witness our life as a culmination of the now. We can see how every decision we have made has brought us to this point. Ultimately, the path we choose is our responsibility regardless of what may have happened to us in our past, this is the path to sovereignty. When we give ourselves the ability to heal then we give ourselves the greatest tool in the world, self-reliance. This self-reliance allows us to help others find the same. It leaks into every aspect of our lives and gives us great resilience in the world. When we claim our trauma, we claim back our lives from the trauma.
Sovereignty is not unconditional independence. We do not act solely but interact with the world in a manner which dictates rational expertise in fields outside one’s discipline of knowledge. But rather sovereignty is about being responsible for one’s own joy. This permeates through taking one’s health (physical, mental, and spiritual) as a paramount act of human advocacy. We must be responsible for what both comes into our body and out of it. It is an act of what we wish to take from the world and put back into it. Sound builds the nervous system so we can handle the stressors of life, and continue to act with the greater good in mind. Through the human experience, we can be swayed when we are tested and possibly resort to old patterns or behaviors. But with sound and other meditations, those aspects of our lives become nothing more than an offering to do things a new way, free of the burden of indifference.
Sound meditation is what one makes of it. It can act as a powerful ally to transformation for it is a form of consciousness if one allows it into their being and can subjectively see their mind as if it were a TV in the background. As we go deeper into ourselves through sound, we begin to see life differently. Sound is a way of life, a state of being and way of interacting with the world. We are no longer swayed, we stay centered within the world without being pulled into games of life which divide humans. We begin to learn something very simple that each one of us in the world must come to terms with.
All of this is real.
None of this is real.
We all die.
With that knowledge, how do we wish to treat each other? How do we wish to treat the world? How do we want to treat ourselves? This is true accountability.
To be concluded.