Wheels of Life

by Anodea Judith

  THE SUBTLE WORLD OF VIBRATION

  All things ... are aggregations of atoms that dance and by their movements produce sounds. When the rhythm of the dance changes, the sound it produces also changes ... Each atom perpetually sings its song, and the sound, at every moment, creates dense and subtle forms.

  -Fritjof Capra5

  Ether can be equated with the all-encompassing and unifying field of subtle vibrations found throughout the universe. Any vibration, be it a sound wave or a dancing particle, is in contact with other vibrations, and all vibrations can and do affect each other. To enter the fifth chakra is to tune our consciousness into the subtle vibrational field that is all around us.

  Let's take something we're all familiar with: the automobile. We know that our cars are powered by an engine with numerous parts. We have solid matter in the form of pistons and valves, liquid gas and oil, spark plugs firing, and compressed air (the first four elements). Intricately timed movement allows all these parts to work together in precise relationships. When we open the hood, however, we see only vibration. Because we can't see the small parts inside the motor, we see it only from a kind of macro-perspective. A running engine looks like a vibrating block of metal, emitting a whirring sound. We can tell if our car is running well by listening to the sound it makes. When the sound is different than what we know it should be, that tells us something is wrong.

  In the same way, we experience the overall vibrations of a person or situation, even though we may not know the minute details. We can tell if something is off. The sum total of vibrations includes all the levels within it. In the fifth chakra, as we refine our consciousness, we begin to perceive these subtle vibrational messages. The etheric field is a kind of blueprint for the vibrational patterns of our tissues, organs, emotions, activities, experiences, memories, and thoughts.

  Even the most solid aspects of matter are constantly vibrating at high speeds. In fact, it is only by this constant movement that we perceive the emptiness of matter as a solid field. The movement of atomic particles, bound to a very small space, becomes more like vibration or oscillation, vibrating at the rate of about 1015 Hz.b (Hz = cycles per second) Vibration, even at our most fundamental units, exists throughout all forms of matter, energy, and consciousness.

  Vibration is a manifestation of rhythm. Dion Fortune, in The Cosmic Doctrine, describes vibration as "the impact of the rhythm of one plane upon the substance of another."' As we climb up the chakra column, each plane is said to vibrate at a higher, faster, and more efficient level than the chakra below it. Light is a faster vibration than sound (by about forty octaves), and thought is a subtler vibration than light. Our consciousness vibrates upon the substance of our bodies, energy affecting movement and movement affecting matter.

  In the 1800s, a scientist by the name of Ernst Chladni did some experiments demonstrating how vibration affects matter. Chladni put sand on a fixed steel plate and then rubbed a rosined violin bow along the edge of the plate. He found that the vibration that was "played" onto the disk "danced" the sand into beautiful mandala-like patterns. As the frequency of the vibration varied so did the pattern. (See Figure 6.3, page 245.) A plate of sand over a stereo speaker will also produce similar patterns if the tones are from a simple frequency.

  This is a clear-cut example of the way sound affects matter-an example of the rhythm of one plane impacting the substance of another. It is not, however, a haphazard pattern that is created by these tones, but a mandala-like design, arranged geometrically around a center point-just like a pattern of a chakra. One can't help asking what effect sound has on the minute cellular and atomic structures or on the less visible etheric field.

  FIGURE 6.3

  Subsequent experiments have shown that sound waves, projected into various mediums, such as water, powders, pastes, or oil, produce patterns with remarkable similarity to forms found in nature, such as spiral galaxies, cellular division in an embryo, or the iris and pupil of the human eye. Study of this phenomenon is called Cymatics and was largely developed by a swiss scientist named Hans Jenny.'

  The Hindus believe that vibration, working through various levels of density from Brahma, the creator, to Vaikhari, audible sound, is the basic emanation from which matter was created. In fact, in Hindu scripture it is said, "OM-this whole world is that syllable! ... For this, Brahma is the whole."9 While Hinduism may differ greatly from Christianity in many aspects, one cannot deny the similarity to the statement in I John, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God"0 Both describe how sound, as an emanation of the divine, creates the manifested world.

  All vibrations are characterized by rhythm, a repeated, regular pattern of movement through time and space. These rhythmical patterns are deeply ingrained functions of our consciousness. The turning of the seasons, the diurnal rhythms of day and night, the cycles of the moon, women's menstruation, the movement of breath, and the constant beating of our hearts are a few examples. No living thing escapes these rhythms. Rhythm, like change, is a fundamental aspect of all life and consciousness.

  Operating from the fifth chakra, a person becomes aware of things on a vibrational level. We may respond to the tone of a voice more than the actual words spoken. The effect of the more "abstract" plane upon our consciousness is subtler than that of the grosser actions, yet is no less profound. Unfortunately, most of us are not consciously aware of our actions and reactions on this plane.

  Even our perceptions, through any of the senses, are a function of perceiving rhythm. Hearing sound waves and seeing light waves are only two. The very mechanism through which nerve fibers feed information to our brain is through rhythmic pulsations of energy. From the first contractions of our mother's womb at birth to our last dying gasps we are rhythmic, dancing creatures, dancing in what Ram Dass calls "the only dance there is."

  George Leonard, in his wonderful book, The Silent Pulse, defines rhythm as "the play of patterned frequencies against the matrix of time."" He states that the primary role of rhythm is to integrate various parts of a system. We are like a symphony orchestra. The various aspects of the system are the strings, the horns, the woodwinds, and the percussion, yet only through the uniting power of rhythm can we make music. The rhythm is the heartbeat of the system!

  What many of us lack in our lives is this resonant rhythm, the integrating aspect that connects us from the very core of our being to the heartbeat of the universe. Consequently, we are at odds with the world and with ourselves. We lack coordination, cohesiveness, and grace.

  Furthermore, rhythms, like chakra patterns, tend to perpetuate themselves. The person who starts each day from a calm, centered state of mind will find his interactions more calm and centered. On the other hand, the person who drives to work every morning during rush hour and works a high-pressure, fast-paced job is involved with different kinds of vibrations each day. This rhythm affects one down to the cellular level of his or her being, and necessarily affects one's thoughts, actions, and emotions. After working all day, then driving home in rush hour traffic, one can't help manifesting this rhythm in his or her home life, eating patterns and interactions with others. Spouse and children are subject to the bombardment of these rhythms and may be stimulated or irritated by it, either consciously or unconsciously. They may (and probably will) react on the same vibrational level, adding further aggravation. If the heartbeat is a conductor of our internal rhythms, no wonder so many executives suffer from heart failure!

  We all affect each other, as well as everything around us, by the vibrations we carry within our minds and bodies. We don't pay much attention to them-for the level is subtle, difficult to pinpoint or describe-but they affect us profoundly, nonetheless. Few people use conscious effort to temper these vibrations. There are many relatively simple techniques and principles that make this possible for anyone. Their use can be a great help to the development of our own consciousness, as well as the enhancement of the evolutionary well-being of everyone around us.
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  RESONANCE

  At the heart of each of us, whatever our imperfections, there exists a silent pulse of perfect rhythm, a complex of wave forms and resonances, which is absolutely individual and unique and yet which connects us to everything in the universe. The act of getting in touch with this pulse can transform our personal experience and in some way alter the world around US. 12

  -George Leonard

  All sounds can be described as wave-forms, vibrating at a particular frequency. Rhythm entrainment, also known as sympathetic vibration, or simply resonance, is where two wave-forms of similar frequency "lock into phase" with each other, meaning that the waves oscillate together at exactly the same rate. The resulting wave is a combination of the two original waves: it has the same frequency but increased amplitude (See Figure 6.4, page 249). Amplitude is the distance a wave travels from crest to trough. In sound waves increased amplitude means increased energy and volume, as in amplified music. In other words, power and depth are increased when the wave-forms are in resonance.

  We can understand this by paying a visit to a shop that sells grandfather clocks. Suppose we walk in and none of the clocks have been wound. The shopkeeper, assuring us that the clocks do indeed work, goes around and winds each clock, setting the pendulums in motion. At first, these one-second tick-tock swings of the pendulum are not coordinated with each other, but may be off by a half or quarter second. As time passes, we notice that there are fewer ticks and tocks. Soon all the pendulums are swinging back and forth in unison. Their rhythms have become entrained.

  Two oscillating vibrations, if they are near enough to each other in frequency, will eventually entrain. Musical choirs, for example, will hold their last note until the voices reach resonance. If you have a trained ear, you can perceive these pulsations as subtle beats. It's what gives that clean, clear ring that echoes through the auditorium when the note is cut off. The sound waves have locked into phase with each other, creating a resonance that is pleasant to experience.

  FIGURE 6.4

  Constructive interference of sound waves.

  This principle of rhythm entrainment also occurs with just one wave triggering a vibration in a resting source. If, for example, we both have violins tuned to concert pitch, I can set the D string on your violin vibrating merely by playing my own D string nearby. This is how tuning forks are used in remote control television units. When we push the button, it strikes a tone that is remotely activated in the TV set several feet away.

  While similar waves will lock into phase with each other, creating resonance, waves of differing frequency may instead create dissonance. A pure tone of a flute, for example, is a coherent sine wave, which will tune to other flutes. The noise of a bus is many complex sound waves that are dissonant.

  People who live in the same household become rhythm entrained to each other's subtle vibrations. It has been long known that women who live together long enough will tend to menstruate at the same time of the month. Couples married for a long time often come to look alike, and their speech exhibits similar rhythms. As a culture, we become rhythm entrained to our neighbors, friends and peers. We are influenced by our environment, not only in visual, psychological, and physiological factors (e.g. billboards, social pressure, air pollution) but on a deep, subconscious level of inner vibrations.

  The Transcendental Meditation Society, more commonly known as TM, has a meditational philosophy based on this principle. They believe that the brain-wave rhythms created by mantra meditation can positively influence the world of non-meditators. The more meditators there are, the more likely this rhythm entrainment is to occur. They have even put this assumption to a test in Atlanta, Georgia, where every night at a certain hour, meditators agreed to meditate. It was shown that there was a remarkable reduction in crime during that hour. 'I

  All speech has rhythm. This means that conversation is also subject to the principles of rhythm entrainment, with some fascinating implications, as demonstrated by the work of Dr. William S. Condon, of Boston University School of Medicine, described below.

  In order to more accurately see the subtler aspects of communication, Dr. Condon filmed numerous conversations, and then analyzed the films at very slow speeds (1/48 second). By breaking simple words into fundamental units of sound (such as the word "sound" being s- ah-oo-nnn-d), each lasting a fraction of a second, he found that the body movements of both the listener and the speaker were in precise synchrony with the voice at all times that communication was occurring. These movements might be a raising of the eyebrows, a tilt of the head, or a flexing of a finger. With each new set of sounds, a new set of movements would occur. What's most amazing about this is that the listener's movements were entrained to the speaker, rather than occurring as a delayed response. Dr. Condon makes this comment:

  Listeners were observed to move in precise shared synchrony with the speaker's speech. This appears to be a form of entrainment since there is no discernible lag even at 1/48 second ... It also appears to be a universal characteristic of human communication, and perhaps characterizes much of animal behavior in general. Communication is thus like a dance, with everyone engaged in intricate and shared movements across many dimensions, yet all strangely oblivious that they are doing so. Even total strangers will display this synchronization .... 14

  He further describes how the content of the message only seems to come across once entrainment occurs. Before that point, there is often misunderstanding. During the sixties, George Leonard and Dr. Price Cobbs, a black psychiatrist, conducted weekend interracial encounter groups, where black and white participants had marked variations in their speech rhythms. Participants were encouraged to pour out their resentments, fears, and anger. The beginnings of the marathon would be discouraging and painful, but at a certain point in the weekend they would find the rhythms approaching fever pitch, with everyone talking and shouting and stamping their feet, reaching a fevered crescendo. They descibe:

  Near the end of the section, some of the shouts and curses began turning to laughter. Then a strange thing happens: the entire group suddenly stops, then begins again, then stops, then begins and more quietly-all in perfect rhythm. After this the encounter resumes with a new tone of tenderness and ease. It's as if the pendulums of understanding are swinging together, the heart cells beating as one.15

  It was not until the group entered resonance that communication really began to occur. Perhaps communication is really a rhythmic dance rather than a stimulus-response phenomenon, as we usually think of it. For we see that the listener is not reacting to the speaker but is instead resonating with the speaker when communication is truly occurring.

  Further studies by Dr. Condon examined the behavior of disturbed and autistic children in regard to this auditory rhythm entrainment. The children showed a time-lag response between the listener and the speaker, and acted as if they were responding to an echo of the original sounds. Their micromovements put them out of harmony with the world around them, hence the feeling of alienation and confusion that characterizes their condition. George Leonard, in his analysis of this data, concludes that "Our ability to have a world depends on our ability to entrain with it." 16

  This is a very important concept for understanding the fifth chakra. If we are unable to entrain with the vibratory frequencies around us, we cannot experience our connection with the world. If we cannot entrain, we cannot communicate. Without communication we are isolated, separate, and cut off from the nourishing energy so vital to health. Just as the Hindus believe that sound creates all matter, communication-be it oral, chemical, mental, or electrical-creates and maintains life. Without it we die, both spiritually and physically.

  FIGURE 6.5

  Resonant Rings.

  Perhaps our concept of verbal interchange as comprising the most significant aspects of communication is merely another manifestation of the great Maya, which veils the nature of its underlying reality. Perhaps communication is nothing but rhythmic interchange. Yet, language is t
he tip of the iceberg of communication, and our prime indication of just what and where that iceberg is.

  If simple vibration can move matter into coherent, harmonic patterns, resonant vibrations can only deepen that effect. When we truly resonate with something, it affects us deeply. We can play our own part in the evolution of our environment by being aware of this principle of sympathetic vibration. Our own vibrations may trigger a new thought or vibration in a resting source, awakening consciousness in another. We can choose to contribute "good" vibrations or "bad": those in harmony with the vibrations around us, or those out of phase, in disharmony.

  Chakras also exhibit vibrational patterns, spanning from the slower, grosser vibrations of solid matter in the first chakra to the highest and fastest vibrations of pure consciousness. An active chakra in one person can, through its vibrations, trigger the opening of an inactive chakra in another.

  In San Francisco there is a place called "Exploratorium" which is filled with scientific exhibits that teach by involving the observer. There is one exhibit there, created by Tom Tompkin, called "Resonant Rings," that illustrates sympathetic vibration. The exhibit is a beautiful example of how chakras vibrate in the body."

  Fastened to a rubber plate over a speaker chamber are several circular bands of metal, each describing a circle varying in size from approximately two inches to six inches. (See Figure 6.5, page 254.) The observer can then turn a knob that emits sound through the speaker and vibrates the plate at a particular frequency. Adjusting the knob adjusts the frequency.