S p i r i t ua l i t y S t u d i e s 8 - 2 Fa l l 2 0 2 2 5 9 Sundernath 1. Ārambha avasthā, the first stage in which one gains control over the mental and physical faculties called cittā. 2. Ghatha avasthā, the stage of awakening in which the prānic impulse enters the central channel (susumnā nādī). This endows the yogin with the wisdom of the knowledge of past, present, and future. Attachment to this gift arises easily, creates great suffering, and can lead to a falling away from the path. 3. Parichaya avasthā is modification of the sound of thought into a single atom. The yogin thus gains control over manas, “the organ of mind”, and freed from desire, anger and suffering achieves mental bliss and peace. The obstacle here is excessive joy and a fall from here leads to the pains of mental delusions. 4. Nispatti avasthā is the entry beyond the noose of the mind into profound meditation. Mastery of disintegration and reintegration of matter is gained so that one can evolve and destroy forms at will. This is nad-bind-yogin where source point, sound and yogin are united and identical. This is the door to śambhavi mudrā. The first verse of the Goraksamrityunjaya Mantram, Goraksa’s great song about the victory over death, hints at the tools required in this process and also about the time and place of their application. Śiva’s crescent moon, which carries the power of renewal, obscures both the energies of the sun and the moon and releases its rhythmic dictate at the time of twilight each day at sunrise and at sunset. Lord Śiva, the cosmic dancer, and bearer of the drum, beats out the rhythm of the moon’s sacred song of renewal and preservation from the clutches of death, time, with the aid of his secret instrument the śula-dinda whose residence is the fifth seat of the second cakra – svadisthāna. The seed of power here is RAM and is referred to as kālā-agnī-rudra, the Howling Lord of the black fire that eats time. This fire must be raised by the yogin from the blue-black terrestrial waters of the navel for the correction of the ills of his/her past. Śula-dinda is the soothing and restorative instrument of the kandāsthāna, the bulb that is the source of all the nādīs. It has the power to level and equalize the awakening fiery energies. The song to be sung by the singer yogin is AUM HAMSA. AUM, the greatest two syllable mantra of imperishable might, is the hidden form of Śiva and rises in the form of the Great swan, Paramahamsa, amid the sounding of the prayer. It is during the hours of twilight that this cosmic sound reverberates. It imparts the message of the coming day to the sun before it rises, and the sun then carries it through the day and passes it on to the moon at sunset. The moon then imparts its secret to those singer yogin’s awake at midnight who make the prayer of AUM HAMSA. At this time the skillful singer yogin is rewarded with “the un-struck sound of the heart” (anāhata nādā) due to the benevolence of the protector of the tongue and the herder of thoughts, the deity of Khecarī. She thus grants entry into the void of susumnā, the eater of time. By raising the sound of AUM and so bringing and shaping the sound of thought to a single point (bindu) the yogin achieves the goal of nad-bind-yogin. Bind is the end of suffering where the four powers of life at the mūlācakra freely unite and rise as a single power of light, the coiled power of the Kundalinī śakti. The yogin that knows how to pierce the one point through this sound accomplishes this alone but then enters the twilight of Śiva’s eternal dwelling and becomes one with him. Without the mantra the three worlds of the body will remain devoid of sound. The wisdom of mantra is thus complete and knowing this much of sound. I bow to Srī Goraksanath Ji.
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