What is the Sound Current?

Excerpts from a lecture given on March 25, 1971 at the Hargobind Sadan Ashram in San Rafael, California

Mantras which you have chanted are not made by me or by special somebody; they are made according to the sound vibration.

If you are in any dire emergency and you want to dial a friend, better dial, Guru Guru Wahe Guru, Guru Ram Das Guru. See how it manifests. We did it in India, we were in trouble all the time. We manifest things like nothing.

If you want the time to be very smooth and the power of your consciousness should rise, then you chant:

Gobinday, Mukanday, Udharay, Apaaray, Haring Karing Nirnamay, Akamay.

These are the eight aspects of Wahe Guru. It cleans you out.

If you want to be very absolute and perfect and your growth to be very projective, and you should be universal, then you chant:

Ek Ong Kar, Sat Nam Siri Wahe Guru. 

When we seek that absolute love, if you want to love and you want to be learned, then chant:

God and me, me and God are one.

If you want holiness then chant:

Nam Khumaari Nanka Chari Rahey Dinn Raat.

“Nanak, I should be intoxicated in Nam all the time.” It’s a very pure vibration. It’s a very good sound current and it really lifts you high and high. It’s a high which has no fall.

We don’t chant anything which is emotional.

It is a dialog between you and your mind. It is within yourself. So these are the all chants we chant and they have specific meanings and specific smoothness and specific sound vibration. I have not manufactured them. All I know is, they did good for me and I gave them to everybody.

With my own chant, I can sail over any harsh time. Nothing can hold me. Whenever I called, Guru Guru Wahe Guru, Guru Ram Das Guru, I would get out of everything. When we were in India we had a very rough time and there was no hotel provided. In that tightness of the time I have gave them my mantra. I said, “Come on here we are. Let us chant it and nothing will touch us.” And nothing touched them. We came through with everything.

If I am chanting Ek Ong Kar, Sat Nam, Siri Wahe Guru, I must particularly impress my ears to hear what I am saying. As long as I do that, I have the best result.

Do you hear this mantra and do you relate to it in words of the sound current? I relate to it like this:

Ek – there is absolute one.

Ong – I feel everything sprouting up.

Kar – the entire beautiful creation revolves around me.

Sat – I become real to myself.

Nam – I lift myself to Infinity that I am the true identity of that truth.

Siri – all meanness leaves me.

Wahe – it gives me all the humility.

Guru – I just unite with it.

When I meditate like this on the mantra, it is known as resounding the sound current. Try to do it exactly like this.

So what is the sound current?

If you master the sound current, you master the sound, that is, you master the God. You have the mantra and you have to relate to it in such a perfection that out of this atmosphere, nature then creates that sound for you. That is sound current. If you have mastered your mantra, the final stage of that will be whether you are sitting, walking, talking, you are hearing. All the time you hear your own mantra in the atmosphere.

You can chant Ram Ram, you can chant Radhe Sham, you can chant Sat Nam, it doesn’t matter to that. But whatever you are chanting, it should be chanted to that perfection that everywhere—doing work, eating, sleeping, you are hearing it constantly. Then you have perfectly perfected your own mantra and then there is nothing you have to follow. Everything follows you.

We have all the mantras and they are all Ashtapadi mantras—they are all eight step mantras. You have one sound current and you want to hear another one, you want to change. But their effect is one.

Every sound current has its cause and effect. And our sound current is relating to all with the infinite God. So those who chant a finite mantra may have their own knowledge behind it. But we feel that with the Aquarian Age, one has to know to believe, not believe to know. So it is not love of a finite personality in order to reach infinite God; it is direct growth.

You can go on a bullock cart from New York to Los Angeles, if you can afford the time and the trouble. But if jet service is available and you have the money, it may be better to get the service and be there. Remember, the Infinite God is the ultimate goal of the finite man—the earlier the better.