Читать книгу Ashtanga Yoga - The Intermediate Series - Gregor Maehle - Страница 47

According to Vedic science, there are four phases or states of sound: para, pashyanti, madhyama, and vaikhari. I know that’s a lot of strange words in one sentence, but if you can wrap your mind around these four terms you will have understood the basis of much of advanced yoga. Only the last of the four, the vaikhari phase, is audible to the ear, because only vaikhari is a gross, physically manifested sound (included in this category are sounds that can be perceived only by an ear more sensitive than the human ear, such as that of a cat, dog, or bat). In other words, everything that Western science classifies as sound falls into this lowest category.

The unfolding of the four phases of sound is parallel to the unfoldment of the gunas, or qualities of nature, and is most easily understood in that context. So let’s look at the gunas first. To get a quick handle on the gunas, liken them to the three elementary atomic particles of physics. Just as the electron, neutron, and proton form in varying combinations all atoms, elements, and compounds, the three gunas — sattva, rajas, and tamas — make up, in ever-varying combinations, all objects. With this analogy in mind, the late Sanskrit scholar Surendranath Dasgupta (1887–1952) labeled tamas as the mass particle, rajas as the energy particle, and sattva as the intelligence particle. Just as in Western elementary physics, these particles appear sometimes as particles and at other times as waves of energy.

The three gunas have four phases, called unmanifest, manifest, subtle, and gross. You might have guessed already that these phases are related to the four states of sound. These states and their results have been seen by the ancient rishis, and even yogis today can still see and verify them in samadhi.