That Inner Vibration

Swami Muktananda
Swami Muktananda

That Inner Vibration

An excerpt of an invocation to Nityananda by Swami Muktananda

That inner vibration, which is the source of all sound, is called by the scriptures paravani or paravak, supreme speech. The paravani level of speech exists within all of us. Ordinarily, we are aware of only one level of speech. We are aware only of the speech of our inert physical tongue, just as we are aware only of our physical body and senses. yet the physical body is only the body of the waking state. Within the physical body is the subtle body into which we enter when we dream. Beyond that is the causal body, in which we experience deep sleep. And beyond the causal body is the supracausal body, the body of pure light, in which we experience the state of true meditation, the transcendental state called turiya. Just as we have these four bodies, one within the other, we also have four levels of speech, which are linked with the four bodies. The name of the gross level of speech, the speech of the physical tongue, is vaikari. The second level of speech is called madhyama; it corresponds to the subtle body and is located in the throat region. The third level of speech, called pashyanti, corresponds to the causal body and is located in the region of the heart. The fourth and highest level of speech is located in the navel region. That is Paravani. Paravani is the level of sound as pure, unmanifest Consciousness, the level of the Self. It pervades everything, extending from east to west, from south to north, from above to below. It is within all of us; it is spanda, the inner creative pulsation which continually vibrates. The entire universe, with all its forms, was born from that pulsation of paravani. Infinite syllables and words and sentences exist within paravani in the form of vibration. A peacock egg contains all the colors of a peacock’s feathers in a potential form. Similarly, all words and syllables exist in paravani in an undifferentiated seed form. That seed, which contains all words, is the pure aham, the perfect I-consciousness.     All mantras come out of paravani. Paravani is nothing but Parashakti, the supreme energy which creates the universe. Its nature is movement without any underlying support. The Ishwara Pratyabhijna says that the Self is immobile; it is always still, but paravani gives it the appearance of movement. Shiva, the supreme Reality, is completely tranquil. It is only because of his Shakti, his energy, that there is movement. It is because of Shakti that Shiva has awareness of himself. That self-awareness is aham vimarsha, the throb of pure I-consciousness, and it is from that original throb of self-awareness that the creation of the universe begins. The pure aham is paravani. So paravani is the creative pulsation of the Self. It is Kundalini, the inner spiritual energy. It is the Universal Consciousness, the all-pervading supreme principle.