All of us are aware of the importance of sound. We communicate with each other by sound and sound has various effects on us. Good musical sounds or sweet words please us and harsh words or jarring noises annoy us. The world of communication is built significantly on sound, and speech plays a significant role in our learning, interaction and working world.

Yet there is another aspect of sound that merits special mention namely spiritual sound. Material sounds describe, name or indicate an object or person but such sound is not the person or object itself. But the special significance of spiritual sound is that spiritual sound is the real substance itself. The reality is full of love and bliss. We can thus contact reality by meditation by spiritual sound and experience love and bliss. In this book the author describes the practice of meditation by spiritual sound that can help us attain peace, love and bliss.

Every one of us wants peace, love, happiness and pleasure. We want to live permanently without birth, disease, old age and death. And we want to live in bliss, ecstasy and love. Why is it so? Because actually we are spiritual persons. As spiritual persons it is our nature to live eternally and in bliss. We are seeking our normal natural healthy life of permanence and bliss. Presently we are covered by a material body due to our impure consciousness because of which we are subject to birth, disease, old age, death and misery. Our present conditional life is an abnormal diseased condition of life.

The aim of meditation is to purify our minds and consciousness and thus reinstate us in our normal natural healthy life of permanence and bliss. Meditation purifies our mind thus bringing us peace and happiness. As the mode of goodness increases in our mind our consciousness becomes clear. Meditation increases our memory, mental strength and stamina. Thus we become more efficient in our daily tasks as our mind is the chief agent with which we function. A healthy mind is also conducive to a healthy body.

One may learn all about the nature and qualities of honey but the pleasure of honey is in tasting it. So it is with meditation. Unless we practice meditation its benefits will elude us. As we practice meditation daily we will experience peace and happiness. Hence we should adopt a genuine process of meditation which is authorized by the scriptures and practiced by genuine spiritual personalities. God has given us air, water and sunlight free for our bodily sustenance. And God has given us his holy name free for our spiritual sustenance.

All scriptures and saints attest the fact that the holy name of God is supreme. The simple process of chanting the holy name and hearing it is the best meditation. The important thing is to remember to keep our mind on hearing the sound of God’s name. The mind is fickle by nature. We have to practice chanting God’s holy names and to keep our mind on hearing the sound of the holy name. As we hear the holy name we are contacting God and we will experience peace and happiness because all peace, love, pleasure and ecstasy reside in God’s name. Our hearts will then be satiated and we will lose our thirst for meagre and flickering sensual pleasures once we contact the reservoir of all pleasure – God.

In the Bhagwad Gita, Arjun says to Krishna, “O Krishna the mind is very fickle.” ( “chanchalam hi manah Krishna” ) Then how to purify it? Krishna replies, “By practice of meditation and by detachment from sensual pleasures.” (“abhyas cha vairagya”).

Meera bai, the great devotee of Krishna, also says that her guru has given her this most precious invaluable substance – the holy name Raam, Krishna. (“ payo ji mane Raam rattan dhan payo, vastu amolak di moray sat guru..”). The holy name is the real substance God himself. It is not an empty material sound or name.

Love is divine and Divinity is love personified known as Krishna. Krishna means the all attractive supreme person full of bliss. He has many other names also in his various pastimes and avatars (descents of God) such as Raam, Govind, Gopal, Keshav, Shyamsunder, Giridhar, Yashoda-nandan, Narayan, Vishnu… All of God’s names are holy.

Topics included are:
Introduction
Get started
The mind – theory
Meditation by spiritual sound
– practice of bhakti yoga
The liberation of Ajamil
– a tale from Purana