The Human Singing Bowl
In the beginning, the present, the future, and transcending time itself, is the Primordial Mantra OM.
It vibrates in everything: the crashing of waves, the song of birds, the words of poets and lovers, the crying of babies, the pulsation of the heart; even the merest pebble throbs with the sacred sound: otherwise, it would not exist.
OM throbs eternally in our hearts as the ‘unstruck sound’ (anahata).
We are woven out of vibration and that vibration is in essence sound. At its highest level that sound (Nada) is beyond hearing, but it descends to the here below in the sonic vibrations that enter the ear and are transmitted to the brain.
Our physical and psychic structure is designed to receive and to transmit sound, and the summit of this is the articulation of the sound that takes us to the shores of Silence: OM.
The delicate architecture of the human mouth and vocal cords facilitate the spiralling upwards of the Pranava AUM. A: guttural from the throat; U (pronounced O) reverberating at the palate: M: vibrating at the teeth and lips; and then we nasalise the sound so that it vibrates at the cranium with a buzzing ‘Nngg’ sound, akin to the prolongation of the final syllables of words such as ‘song’ or indeed ‘gong’.
This final mechanism ensures the vertical spiralling of sound and thus the Pranava is known as the ‘udgita’ the ‘ascending Song’.
In the final phase we can ‘retroflex’ the tongue curling it backwards against the soft palate, the mobile tongue acting like the mallet of a singing bowl or gong.
We are indeed human ‘singing bowls’.
Bone conduction allows the sound to vortex around the inside of the body, especially when we apply a perineal lock such as ashwini mudra or moola bandha, so that the vibrations echo off the diaphragmatic chambers.
The sound may travel outwards like a sacred pebble tossed into the shoreless lake of the mind; or upwards to the psychic chakras and bindus that shine like a distant constellation above the normal reaches of consciousness.
The singing bowl used in Yoga or Tibetan Buddhism works in a similar manner, playing on our nadis and chakras to bring us to states of meditation or awareness.
The striking stick or mallet call to my mind two sacred symbols of yogic ritual, the female Yoni and the male Lingam.
These symbolise respectively the Divine Creative Energy of Shakti, and the Pure Consciousness of Shiva, which create the endless song of creation.
Invert a bell and its tongue and you have the same archetype. The bell that calls us for sacred ritual or meditation. The yogic scriptures urge us to let go of our ego and to become instruments of the Divine, whether it be the Devi Saraswati whose veena plays upon the strings of the nadis; or Lord Krishna who invites us to become open and empty like the holes in his flute.
There is something about a resting singing bowl that imparts that same sense of receptivity and humility. In turn, it invites us to adopt the same attitude in our lives.
May we all become singing bowls of the Divine and follow the sound that leads to the Silence of the Heart.
Om Tat Sat.
Michael McCann
