The Aum Method
The Aum Method
When first learned the Aum Method as taught by Paramahansa Yogananda in his correspondence courses, frustration set in when the sounds of tinnitus were louder than those of the Cosmic Ocean. Could it be, that a lifetime spent around loud music had finally caught up with this body? Researching the causes of tinnitus, it was decided the causes of tinnitus were most likely mental and not physical or physiological. The same energy that allows one to think in the first place was now causing this ringing sound. Everything was tried for relief, so God could be heard with greater clarity, and without distraction. Not trusting that tinnitus was somehow caused by the brainwaves themselves, some herbal supplements were ordered off the internet, taking twice per day as directed. Others reported good relief using the supplements, but suspicion still lingered that they would not work in this particular case. Still no diminution in the tinnitus over a couple months, to great dismay. Finally while practicing the Aum method one morning at approximately 5:45 am, a breakthrough was had. It started with the realization that the more one focused on the ringing, the louder it became. The more one focused on the sounds of the Universe, the louder those similarly became. The mind told itself that it could barely hear the ringing and had to listen very closely if any ringing was to be perceived, and lo and behold, the ringing eventually became barely audible under the sound of the internal Aum chant. The reality followed whatever the mind thought about it, or pretended to think about it (at first), and not the other way around. Eventually, God was asked to remove the tinnitus completely, which disappeared under the roar of the Ocean and other much more audible sounds, perceived for the first time. The problem of tinnitus, it was then understood, was actually deliberately placed as a crucial spiritual lesson. Mind creates reality, as opposed to reality dictating to the Mind, and the Mind being forced to react. The tinnitus unfortunately returned after the meditation was complete, but when kriya yoga and jyoti mudra were first learned, the Aum method was revisited, and the original lesson further synthesized. Tinnitus has been progressively decreasing with each and every practice.
In this lifetime, there has not been a commission to teach or preach, which is why this is kept to live blogging for posterity, and anything which can be gleaned through shared experience. The commission to sing and make music was granted as an outgrowth of bhakti yoga, one of the more efficient paths during this Kali Yuga, but not yet to preach or teach. Obviously, when one has these sorts of breakthroughs, the temptation is to shout the solutions from the rooftops so that everyone can experience the same happiness felt by the individual. But there are many dangers associated with following that temptation, one of the greatest being that everyone finds their own path up to the Mountain Peak and sometimes the paths converge, and sometimes they are separate. The danger is that someone else's set of spiritual lessons will not in any way resemble that of this individual, and one becomes entangled in spiritual argument over what is right and wrong. Then ego sets in over doctrinal position, and attachment to one's position and "being right" becomes more important than the lessons themselves. Better to just refer seekers to Yogananda's written lessons, and take the self out of it entirely. This has already been learned, the hard way, a few times now. One feels like one is actually getting it this time around.
Stephen Smiley Sparks experience of July 3 - 4, 1863. The family would not listen that slavery was morally wrong and going to war would end in disaster.
Trigunatitananda's experience of December 27, 1914. Losing the watch had no effect to temper attachment to the illusion of time, not having enough time for everybody and everyone, and so many equally important actions needing to be made, and previously gleaned principles regarding teaching and preaching were ignored.