The Inner and the Outer Sounds

Dear Sound Enthusiast,

In the Sanskrit language, there is a differentiation between inner and outer sounds. There is an audible sound or struck sound which is the result of vibration on the physical plane. There is also the inaudible inner sound which is not the result of some physical vibration, it is "unstruck," and can ride to other planes of existence in our spiritual exercises.

If a single guitar string is strummed it produces a fundamental note followed by vibrations called overtones or harmonics that are in perfect harmony with the initial note. It is thought that harmonics may somehow be the bridge between the struck and the unstruck sound.

The fundamental note is the struck sound, but because the harmonics which are created do not occur themselves from having been physically struck, they can be looked as the bridge between the physical and the metaphysical. Some spiritual teachers have indicated that there is truth in this; that overtones are the link between that which is created on the physical plane and that which is created on higher planes.

Pir Vilayat Khan (1916-2004), head of the Sufi Order of the West, said that the overtones can be followed with the conscious mind and used as a "Jacob's Ladder" to climb to other planes of existence. Similarly, other teachers have indicated that harmonics are the sounds connecting the levels of existence below Soul: physical, astral, causal, mental, etheric, as well as the higher spiritual planes. So harmonics can be utilized to raise our vibration in this world while also amplifying our connection and awareness to the Sound Current within our being. This is a key to this month's class.