​How can material sound vibrations be used to access spirit?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you. It is said that nothing material can reach the spiritual level. And our world is also made of matter.
We produce material sound vibrations when we speak. So, how can these vibrations be spiritual? Yes, it is a very important question. And the answer can be quite technical.
I will try to keep it as simple as possible here. There are different kinds of sounds that we can produce. So, sometimes a child cries, or sometimes if we have a radio, the radio just we want to tune it to a particular station, but there is some sort of resonance and just it is a screech.
That we say is noise. So, noise means it is sound, but sound which has no semantic value to it. It has no meaning to it.
Then if there is a particular person speaking over there, or we come to a particular channel, then that has meaning. So, there is meaningless sound, there is meaningful sound. This is in our experience.
When we talk about meaningful sound, what is it that makes sound meaningful? Is meaning is the speech that we make, is it simply like a container for meaning? So, for example, right now I am speaking and you are hearing. So, is it something like I am sending a pipe to all of you and I am investing the meaning in it and then that meaning is going So, is speech simply the conveyor of meaning? You will say yes, speech is the conveyor of meaning, but actually speech is not just the conveyor of meaning. Speech is also the shaper of meaning.
Words have meanings in dictionaries, but the meaning is not fully understood only through dictionaries. We need to see the context in which something is spoken. If somebody is very angry, if a wife tells the husband, you do not love me at all, I love you.
Now I will speak the words I love you, but they are spoken in such a way that basically I am angry with you, that is what is happening. Or somebody may be very mischievous and then somebody will just say, hey, you rascal, what are you doing? Now, you rascal might seem to be like an angry word, but here it is spoken with affection. So, where is the meaning of words? There was an experiment done in the history of translations that can machines literally translate everything, that was the experiment.
So, there is a biblical saying, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. What that means is, we are determined, we want to do some things, but then our lower desires, our fleshly desires pull us down. So, an automated computer program was designed to convert this into Russian and from Russian back to English.
So, the translation that they got was, the vodka is good, but the meat is rotten. The spirit is willing, so spirit was translated as vodka. So, the spirit is willing, vodka is good, but the flesh is weak and became the meat is rotten.
So, what I mean by this is that the meaning of words is not contained in the text or the speech itself. The meaning of words is also there in the context, in the how it is spoken, where it is spoken, to whom it is spoken. So, when we talk about spiritual sounds, spiritual sounds, there is, these are not just ordinary sound vibrations.
Say for example, I can have any set of letters which is scattered on the road. That is just a set of letters, but if I have E is equal to MC squared, that becomes a formula and that formula can enable me to solve equations, to make calculations and to do variety of things. Now, if I just change E is equal to MC squared to F is equal to ND squared, when I just move one letter ahead, the whole formula collapses over there.
Whether E, M and C, they mean particular things, I have to use that particular formula for that particular purpose. So, like that, now when I am saying E is equal to MC squared, what am I doing? E, M and C, all of these have been assigned particular meanings by authorities before me. You see, these words can mean many, the letters can mean many things.
E can mean anything in different interpretive systems. E could mean one thing, C could mean one thing, but in a particular way in physics, these have been assigned particular meanings. And when I sign into that frame of reference, that inter system of interpretation, then E is equal to MC squared becomes a very powerful tool for information processing.
So, like that, when we chant the Hare Krishna Mahamantra. Now, E is equal to MC squared is written with the same hands as say, if I write F is equal to ND squared, but F is equal to ND squared may have no meaning. E is equal to MC squared has a meaning.
Why? Because when I am writing this, both I am writing with the same hand, but one is connecting with or replicating a set of letters which has been already assigned to me before. Like that, when we chant the Hare Krishna Mahamantra, it is not that we access, it is not that we are just concocting this mantra. This mantra correlates with higher spiritual reality.
And when we chant the Hare Krishna Mahamantra, at that time, that higher reality is invoked by chanting this mantra. Now, when this higher reality is invoked, it is not that by the repetition of the sound, the spiritual is accessed. It is not that way.
By the repetition of sound, my intention to access the spiritual is conduited to the supreme spiritual reality, Krishna. So, it is not that by chanting Hare Krishna Mahamantra, suddenly my throat develops some magical capacity to access the spiritual. No, it is the same throat which might say abracadabra, whatever I want to say, I might say.
I have the same throat which says Hare Krishna Mahamantra. But if that uttering of the Hare Krishna Mahamantra is done in a mood of devotion, then that mood of devotion when expressed through a particular channel, which indicates the sound with spiritual sound vibration, with spiritual potency, with spiritual vibrancy to it. So, it is a matter of reciprocation.
That’s why we will see that we may chant Hare Krishna some days and we feel empowered, we feel inspired. Other days when we chant Hare Krishna, we take out the bead and we say, somebody change this from 108 to 1000 beads. We don’t feel it.
We chant it. What is happening? Why? Because it is not that the potency of the Hare Krishna Mahamantra is simply residing only in the letters. It is, then it is Krishna who is manifesting and Krishna chooses to reveal himself depending on the mood of devotion with which we utter those things.
Of course, as you become purified more and more, then our intention becomes more and more strong to access Krishna and Krishna’s revelation becomes greater. So, through matter, we cannot access spirit. No kind of material sound vibration can give us access to spirit.
But through the sound vibration produced with our material throat, we can act, we can show Krishna our desire to access spirit and then Krishna by his grace manifests. And when he manifests, then we experience the purification, the transformation, the elevation that comes through the chanting of the holy beads. So, our throat is the means by which we invoke Krishna’s presence.
It is not that we access the spiritual directly. Rather, we show Krishna our desire to access spiritual and he