Listen to a stringed instrument

What the Method Is

The core instruction for this meditation method is: “While listening to stringed instruments, hear their composite central sound; thus omnipresence”. This technique involves focusing one’s awareness on the underlying, unifying sound within complex music to attain a state of all-pervading awareness.

How It Is Done

This meditation is practiced by:

  • Choosing a Stringed Instrument: Select a stringed instrument, such as a sitar or any other, for the practice.
  • Active and Alert Listening: As you listen to the music, be alert and penetrate the music to find its “backbone” or “central core”. This means discerning the deepest current that holds all the individual notes together, allowing the notes to come and go while the central core flows on.
  • Inner and Outer Awareness: While the music flows outwardly, the practitioner’s intense awareness should move inwards to perceive the innermost core of the sound.
  • Maintaining Alertness: It is crucial to maintain constant alertness throughout the practice. This prevents the mind from drifting into sleep or an auto-hypnotic state, which can happen with repetitive or harmonious sounds. The more subtle the sound becomes inwardly, the more intense the awareness needed.
Commentaries and Insights
  • Music as a Meditative Tool: Osho explains that originally, music and dance in traditions like Indian music were developed as methods of meditation, serving as a profound spiritual practice for both the performer and the audience. The “soul” of music emerges only when the musician is a deep meditator, bringing an inner alertness to their playing.
  • Beyond the Surface of Sound: The technique encourages moving beyond the individual notes or outward expressions of music to find its underlying unity. Just as the spine holds the whole body together, there is a central core in music that binds all its notes. By penetrating to this core, the practitioner moves towards soundlessness or “soundfulness”.
  • The Goal: Omnipresence: The ultimate outcome of this practice is omnipresence. By becoming aware of the composite central sound, the practitioner can become “awake,” leading to the realization of being “everywhere”. This signifies a dissolution of the finite ego, allowing one to become “the all,” “the ocean,” or “the infinite”. Finiteness is associated with the mind, while infiniteness enters with meditation.
  • Sound, Silence, and No-Mind: Tantra posits that sound can only exist because of silence; silence is the “anti-sound”. The mind is seen as a process of sounds, and “no-mind” is the state of soundlessness or soundfulness existing just beyond it. The technique uses sound as a “jumping board” to plunge into the no-mind state, by weakening the mind’s usual patterns.
  • Avoiding Misuse and Hypnosis: A significant warning is issued against using music for relaxation or self-forgetfulness, akin to using alcohol, rather than for cultivating awareness. Such passive listening can lead to sleep or an auto-hypnotic state (referred to as yoga tandra in Yoga or hypnos by the Greeks), which, while potentially refreshing, does not lead to spiritual awakening. True meditation requires an “alert inner ear”.
  • Transformation and Inner Music: Osho notes that a truly accomplished musician or meditator may eventually discard their external instrument because the inner music becomes paramount, making the outer music a “disturbance”. This highlights a deeper inner transformation where external aids are transcended once the inner experience is found.
  • Tantra’s Positive Approach: While other traditions like Buddhism (e.g., Buddha’s concept of shunya or nothingness) may describe the absolute in negative terms, Tantra often uses positive terms like “soundfulness” to describe this ultimate state. This aligns with Tantra’s general “yea-saying” philosophy of affirmation and acceptance.
  • Simplicity vs. Effort: Although the instruction for this technique appears simple, Osho emphasizes that true awareness is very difficult to achieve. The mind often dismisses simple methods, seeking complex ones to fulfill the ego’s desire for arduous challenges. However, simple methods are potent because they directly address fundamental realities.
  • Physiological and Psychological Link: Tantra fundamentally believes in the body as the starting point for spiritual exploration, recognizing the deep connection between physiological and psychological processes. Techniques often leverage this connection to facilitate inner change.