Here at Asturias Yoga we offer different forms of guided meditation, including a so called sound bath. Bob writes about his unique experience participating in a sound bath with sound bowls, an Indian flute, a guitar and a Persian santur.
The consciousness: so crucial to the definition of the self. Some would go further and say the consciousness is the self, for without it what more is there to the entity you call yourself? Being so integral to who we are, one’s consciousness is naturally an elusive, subjective quantity, difficult if not impossible to assess in a detached way.
Enter transcendental meditation and the consciousness-exploring tool of the sound bath that accompanies a meditation session. Meditation does not make the subjective nature of the consciousness any less so. What it does is allow the consciousness to go into suspension while under its spell. Thoughts such as they are take a second position to sensory impression. A well-attained meditative state of mind is freed up of the rigid structure of thinking. It is random, undirected working of the mind without specific purpose or direction. In a proper state of meditation your mind is a computer with all its capacity in place but no program running, only the operating system alive in the background watching over the vast processing capacity.
The sound bath at Asturias Yoga with its accompanying aromas is the crowning touch to this out-of-mind experience. What is the sound I sense? It is all vaguely familiar but still unidentified. A gong? Cymbals? A harp? Where is the sound originating? How does it enter my awareness? Is it vibrational, seeping in through my spine and up into my brain? Or is it entering my sound processor as usual, through my ears? Can I associate this unusual stimulation with one side of my head or the other? Are my ears really necessary to experience what it is I feel from these waves of energy? Is there a purpose for all this?
After a minute of immersion in the sound bath, I realize this inquiry does not matter. Instead I simply allow the delight of the moment to let my mind wander unbridled, effortlessly. You float around in your awareness, acquainting yourself with new feelings. Thought is irrelevant. Liken the pleasure of the sound bath to the freedom the body has when floating on an air mattress on gently-rocking water. It is a gravity-free environment for the mind.
Suddenly I am brought back into present-tense consciousness. Was I just asleep? Was I awake? What just happened? How much time elapsed? Again, the inquiry becomes irrelevant. No, it was not sleep. It was not wakefulness. It was not a drug-induced fantasy. Rather, the sound bath meditation experience is the mind placed on pause. The meditation session assisted by the sound bath allows a brief respite from the incessant and largely useless background dialogue that crowds the mind. You emerge rested, with a feeling of getting your second wind.
A little bit of surrender is called for to maximize the experience of the sound bath meditation . Don’t fight against it. Immerse yourself in the otherworldliness of the trance-like euphoria being generated. Your revitalized mind will thank you for it.
