Aum
I don’t know about you, but the ringing in my ears is getting louder and it isn’t tinnitus or anything bad or wrong.
It’s actually a sign of spiritual progress on our journey of awakening.
It’s the sound of Aum, the cosmic motor, the Word of God. The Word of God is another name for the Divine Mother. The Mother creates, preserves and transforms through sound and this sound is what we hear in our ears.
I asked Archangel Michael about the matter in a reading I had with him on my birthday, Oct. 11, 2013. I was asking the question on behalf of a colleague.
He did not discuss it as a sign of progress. We’ll look at the case for that later. But what he did say is interesting.
Steve: Is a loud, high-pitched ringing the sign of an overlighting presence?
Archangel Michael: Yes.
S: Oh, I thought that was the sound of the cosmic motor [Aum, the Divine Mother, the Word of God].
AAM: It is the cosmic motor but it is the cosmic motor tapping you on the shoulder and saying “We’re here.”
S: Oh, because I get that all the time.
AAM: Yes, you do.
S: So it is the same thing for me – a tapping on the shoulder.
AAM: Yes, it is.
S: Are there other signs?
AAM: A very deep thrumming, not the same as hearing the heartbeat of Gaia. That is a very unique sort of a whoosh, whoosh, as a very large heart sound. But a thrumming, almost a vibratory sound of a very deep tone, as if the Tibetan monks have taken up residence in your ear drum. (1)
I had forgotten that I had asked this question of him two years earlier.
Steve: How do I know when you are whispering in my ear?
Archangel Michael: Often it is prefaced by a high pitched ring.
S: Oh, I hear that all the time.
AAM: Yes, I know.
S: [laughing] Are you here all the time?
AAM: Yes, I am.
S: [laughing] I’m so glad to know that, Lord. (2)
Paramahansa Yogananda extensively wrote about the identity of the Word of God, the benefits of listening to it in meditation, etc. Let’s recreate the case he makes here.
“God is the Word or Om or Holy Ghost or Cosmic Vibration or Cosmic Energy. God is Cosmic Sound resulting from the Cosmic Energy and Cosmic Vibration. God’s first manifestation is the Word or Intelligent Cosmic Vibrating Sound.” (3)
“This Amen is the faithful witness in the beginning of creation — that is, all vibrating creation is accompanied by the Cosmic Sound of Amen or Om or the Word or Holy Ghost, which is the first vibrating manifestation of God.” (4)
The sound of Aum is what holds all vibratory matter together. When discussing its basic particles, sages use words that are unfamiliar to us. The Buddha speaks of “kalapas” and Yoganada speaks of “lifetrons.”
“The Holy Ghost, or Cosmic Vibration … appears as the Cosmic Sound of all lifetrons and Cosmic Energy.” (5)
When Yogananda tells us that “Aum is the Creative Word, the whir of the Vibratory Motor, the witness of Divine Presence,” (6) surely that’s not much different than Archangel Michael saying that the ringing in our ears betokens the presence of our divine helpers.
It isn’t just Yogananda who holds these views. Many sages do. For instance, Theosophists like Annie Besant say much the same thing.
“The source from which a universe proceeds is a manifested Divine Being, to whom in the modern form of the Ancient Wisdom the name of Logos, or Word, has been given. The name is drawn from Greek philosophy, but perfectly expresses the ancient ideas, the Word which emerges from the Silence, the Voice, the Sound, by which the worlds come into being.” (7)
The Master Hilarion does as well. Here he describes the spiritual benefits that come from listening to the inner sound of Aum.
“Look for it and listen to it first in your own heart. At first you may say: ‘It is not there; when I search I find only discord.’
“Look deeper. If again you are disappointed, pause and look deeper again. There is a natural melody, an obscure fount in every human heart. It may be hidden over and utterly concealed and silenced — but it is there. At the very base of your nature you will find faith, hope, and love.” (8)
When the meditator reaches sixth-chakra enlightenment, Paramahansa Yogananda tells us, the Aum sound accompanies the opening of the Third Eye.
“Through the divine eye in the forehead (east), the yogi sails his consciousness into omnipresence, hearing the Word or Aum, divine sound of ‘many waters’: the vibrations of light that constitute the sole reality of creation.” (9)
Sri Ramakrishna taught Rakhal, later Swami Brahmananda, to tap into the sound of Aum in meditation.
“One day, in the course of his teaching, Sri Ramakrishna spoke about the manifestation of Brahman as sound — the Logos. later, when I sat for meditation I took this as my subject, and it was not long before the sound Brahman was revealed to me.” (10)
Yogananda describes how the yogi can deepen his state by listening to this sound.
“[One] hears the sound of Holy Ghost when all bodily and astral sounds cease. Then, by deeper meditation on this sound, by higher processes learned from the Guru, he can be one with the sound and ‘touch’ it.
“Then, after touching or feeling it, by still higher methods, the spiritual aspirant will find his consciousness vibrating simultaneously in his body and in several continents. As he progresses further by deeper and longer meditation, he will find his consciousness vibrating simultaneously in his body, in the earth, the planets, the universes, and in every particle of matter.” (11)
He tells us that the meditator can reach a Christ-like state of consciousness by listening to Aum.
“When the Yogi … listens to cosmic vibration, his mind is diverted from the physical sounds of matter outside his body to the circulatory sounds of the vibrating flesh. Then his consciousness is diverted from the vibrations of the body to the musical vibrations of the astral body. Then his consciousness wanders from the vibrations of the astral body to the vibrations of consciousness in all atoms.
“Then the consciousness of the Yogi listens to the Holy Ghost or Cosmic Sound emanating from all atoms. This is the way the ordinary consciousness should be baptized or expanded into Christ consciousness through the expanding power of the Holy Ghost, or the all-spreading ‘Aum-vibrating-sound’ heard in meditation.” (12)
“After listening to and feeling the cosmic sound in all the Physical, Astral, and Ideational cosmos, or in the Physical, Astral, and Ideational Holy Ghost, his consciousness will vibrate in all creation. Then when his expanded consciousness becomes stable in all creation, it feels the presence of Christ consciousness in all vibration.
“Then the [Yogi] becomes Christ-like; his consciousness experiences the Second Coming of Christ; he feels in his vehicle the presence of Christ-consciousness as Jesus felt Christ expressed in His body.” (13)
Eventually, listening to the Mother’s sound of Aum makes the meditator aware of the Father’s absolute consciousness. In this way, the Mother brings the spiritual Child of God beyond herself to the Father, he says.
“All human beings find their consciousness hidebound by the body, but by listening to and feeling the ‘Aum’ vibration and intuitive Christ consciousness the Yogi realizes that God the Father’s cosmic consciousness exists inactively in regions where there is no motion or presence of the Holy-Ghost vibration.” (14)
The sage transcends the realm of the Mother, mater, matter and enters the stillness of the Father’s transcendent realm.
So, no, hearing that incessant ringing in your ears is not a sign that they’re acting up. It’s a sign that the angels are attending you. It’s a sign that your spiritual perceptions and acuity are deepening. It’s a sign of real progress on the spiritual path. Relax, sit back and listen to the music of the spheres, the sounds of the universe.
Never mind wanting to see the light of the original big bang with a bigger and bigger telescope. You’re listening to the music within that calls all creation into being.
Footnotes
(1) Personal Reading with Archangel Michael through Linda Dillon, Oct. 11, 2013.
(2) Personal Reading with Archangel Michael through Linda Dillon, Feb. 18, 2011.
(3) Paramahansa Yogananda, The Second Coming of Christ. Dallas: Amrita Foundation, 1981, 2, 22. [Hereafter SCC.] Thanks to Mark also, who, when I sent him a pre-post version of this article, sent back an example of a Canadian monk using listening to Aum as a meditation. See p. 26 of this newsletter: https://www.fsnewsletter.amaravati.org/pdf/FSN_92_lowres.pdf.
(4) Loc. cit.
(5) Paramahansa Yogananda, SCC, 1, 89-90.
(6) Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi. Bombay: Jaico, 1975, 237. [Hereafter AY.]
(7) Annie Besant, The Ancient Wisdom. Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972; c1897, 44.
(8) Ascended Master Hilarion, channelling through Mabel Collins, channel. Light on the Path and an Essay on Karma. Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1974, 24-5.
(9) Paramahansa Yogananda, AY, 267-8.
(10) Swami Brahmananda in Swami Prabhavananda, The Eternal Companion. Brahmananda. Hollywood: Vedanta Press, 1970; c1944, 189.
(11) Paramahansa Yogananda, SCC, 1, 17.
(12) Ibid., 20-1.
(13) Loc. cit.
(14) Ibid., 29.