Naad Reliance Check ~ Gautam Buddha

Gautam Buddha recommended that those who are using the inSelf Yoga process, should not become complacent with the use of naad sound resonance, whereby the student relies on naad but does not note whether that reliance results in increased strength when dealing with the unruly mind.

A student should note how naad helps to challenge the unruly adjuncts and their unwanted behaviors, otherwise if the student merely enjoys the reliance on naad, it may be that he or she does not develop the power to resist mental influence and will continue to be bullied by the mind. This would be like when a cowardly weak boy is bullied by a stronger person at school. The weak one may run to the teacher to escape harassment. In the teacher’s presence, the bully cannot exert an influence, but as soon as the teacher is absent, the weak boy will be subjected to injury by the bigger one.

In this example naad is like the teacher. Gautam Buddha feels that in time if the reliance on naad is done in the proper way, the student will stand his ground against the mind’s machinations even when naad is not present or when naad is not heard during meditation, where the student develops the power to stand against the mind, to stop its unwanted habits.

Listening to naad on and on, day after day, year after year, and not developing the mental and emotional strength to challenge the mind is a sign of meditating on naad with the wrong attitude and with an unwillingness to develop the willpower so that it can challenge the mind.

A definite way to check this is to use the diagraming which Michael Beloved provided about how the adjuncts are situated in the mental place in the head of the subtle body, where naad is usually in the back or back-side of the subtle head. The undesirable mental actions take place usually in the front part of the subtle head.

By retreating to the back of the subtle head, the student can avoid the harassment which is experienced in meditation in the frontal part. This is like leaving the area of city where criminal elements prevail and going to a well-to-do area where criminal elements do not abound. By going to the back and listening to naad there for the meditation session, the student takes advantage of the good environment provided by naad.

However that is not enough. The student should from time to time venture back into the frontal part to see if the unwanted features of the mind are still in operation there or if they come into operation as soon as the core-self goes there. In other words, the person should leave the well-to-do area of the city and return to the territory of the criminal elements, just to see if they will again exert dominance.

In time, after sufficient reliance on naad with the proper attitude and motive, the student should find that there is less and less harassment in the frontal part of the subtle head and that even without taking shelter of naad, the harassment decreases more and more as the meditation continues. If this does not happen, the student should revise the attitude and motive for taking shelter of naad.

A simple question suffices:

What good is the grace of God if one cannot defeat the adversary after having so much of God’s assistance?