What is more import­ant in a man­tra: the mean­ing or the sound vibra­tion? Can we speak of a more import­ant aspect at all where sac­red texts are con­cerned? Every facet is equally import­ant, per­haps each from its own point of view, and the high­er syn­thes­is of these facets leads to a fuller under­stand­ing, to know­ledge of the secrets of the man­tras, and to their goal, the lib­er­a­tion of human con­scious­ness.

Wheth­er we are speak­ing of a mys­tic­al work of lit­er­at­ure or of man­tras, sound vibra­tion pro­duces dif­fer­ent effects on the vari­ous planes where human con­scious­ness is at work. The four aspects of sound are bound up with the four states of con­scious­ness.

In the wak­ing state the intel­lect is turned out­ward and the senses go about their work of per­ceiv­ing, a func­tion com­mon to every human being, and so this is called the uni­ver­sal state of con­scious­ness. To it belongs the spoken sound, the out­ward sound-form tied to the vocal organs, flu­ency, artic­u­la­tion, and speech in gen­er­al.

In dream­ing the intel­lect is turned inward, and only the inner sense, the mind, is at work, while the other senses rest. This phase is called the radi­ant. To this plane of con­scious­ness belongs the inter­me­di­ate sound, or dream sound. It is no longer a vibra­tion of the air but thought, a men­tal activ­ity con­nec­ted with the intel­lect.

In the state of deep, dream­less sleep the sleep­er feels no desire and sees no dream, yet his con­scious­ness may even be cap­able of mys­tic­al com­mu­nic­a­tion, and so this phase is called the know­ing. To this level belongs a still subtler aspect of sound, namely con­cep­tu­al mean­ing. The word and the concept it denotes are insep­ar­able from each other, and this cre­ates a state of poten­tial. On the third level the ‘know­ing’ soul may gain high­er cog­nit­ive fac­ulties and receive divine vis­ion.

Finally, the fourth state of con­scious­ness is the tran­scend­ent plane, when the intel­lect is turned neither inward nor out­ward, but, accord­ing to its spir­itu­al insight, man’s soul per­ceives the Supreme. This is samadhi, the state of trance. To it belongs the high­er state of sound, the ulti­mate plane of speech, pure tran­scend­ent sound vibra­tion, the aud­ible mani­fest­a­tion of God. Tran­scend­ent man­tras spring from this plane, yet their effect is felt on every plane. Vari­ous ways of sound­ing the man­tras are prac­tised, from mute med­it­a­tion to soft chant­ing, from the recit­at­ive-like inton­ing of sac­red texts to med­it­at­ive song accom­pan­ied by instru­ments, or to spir­ited pro­ces­sions with singing and dan­cing.

The mys­tic­al text – be it a man­tra or a finely wrought work of lit­er­at­ure – acts on sev­er­al planes. The first impres­sion is the bio­lo­gic­al, physiolo­gic­al effect, the stim­u­la­tion of the aud­it­ory centre. Exper­i­en­tially, the effects at work here – dynam­ics, rhythm, hum, music­al accom­pani­ment or song, etc. – can be grasped dir­ectly by any­one. The second impres­sion is the men­tal effect, a change in the emo­tions and the mood, which can be sensed even without intel­lec­tu­al com­pre­hen­sion. This may be a kind of self-relax­a­tion, or even stim­u­la­tion, which in turn affects the physiolo­gic­al level and can be meas­ured, for instance, in changes of blood pres­sure, brain waves or heart rhythm. The third phase is cog­nit­ive per­cep­tion, when one also grasps and inter­prets the mean­ing of the text. In some cases under­stand­ing aids the exper­i­ence, while in oth­ers, quite the con­trary, con­scious activ­ity hinders emo­tion­al exper­i­ence. Finally, the fourth is the spir­itu­al mech­an­ism of action, which, res­on­at­ing with man’s feel­ings, takes shape accord­ing to the text’s ideas and mys­tic­al mean­ing, and either strengthens the prac­tice of med­it­a­tion with the mater­i­al of exper­i­ence, or makes tan­gible what the exper­i­ence of God con­tains, as con­ceived on the abso­lute plane.

On this side of the lit­er­al mean­ing of a man­tra or any sac­red text lies the phys­ic­al sound wave, bey­ond it the meta­phys­ic­al vibra­tion that con­veys the high­er real­ity. So bey­ond the mean­ing of the sound, what mat­ters is its spir­itu­al tone, its qual­ity. With the right attun­e­ment man opens to the high­er real­ity, and the high­er real­ity opens to man.