The Dhuni of the Navel and Naad
In yoga and Eastern mysticism, Naad is the universal sound current, a continuous stream of divine vibration, creative energy, and consciousness from which the universe arose and by which it is sustained. This current moves through all of creation, giving form and life to everything within it and holding the energetic structure of the human being in balance. “Na” means no, nothing, or finite. “Ad” means primal.
Mantra is one way we connect to this universal current. Man-tra. “Man” refers to the mind, while “tra” refers to a wave. Mantra allows the finite mind to create a mental wave that connects it with the Infinite, bringing the mind and its faculties into harmony and balance.
Mantra changes the practitioner. In yogic teaching, each mantra carries a particular vibratory pattern that produces a corresponding effect. The mantra does what it says: its sound, rhythm, meaning, and repetition organize consciousness toward the quality it expresses. Its effects are not only conceptual. Repeated mantra can change patterns of brain activity and, through sustained practice, produce neuroplastic change.
Mantra practice involves the physical body, the subtle system, and consciousness. Its vibrations affect the mind, body, and flow of pranic energy. Thought, pranic flow, breath, vibration, and the physical production of sound work together to expand awareness. At the center of this process is the dhuni of the navel, where sound begins as a subtle vibration before it is spoken by the tongue.
In English, dhun is most commonly translated as a tune, melody, or air when referring to music. Dhuni refers to a sacred fire or the place where it is kept. The dhuni of the navel refers to that place at the navel from which sound, or dhun, emerges.
The tongue may be repeating a mantra, but the thought of uttering the mantra first arises in the mind. When this thought arises, pranic movement begins at the dhuni of the navel. This is the subtle movement of life force connected to the breath.
The navel can be compared to a flute, which cannot produce sound unless air moves through it. In the same way, the dhuni requires the movement of prana for its vibration to arise and take form.
The process begins in consciousness. A thought or intention arises in the mind and activates the pranic flow at the dhuni of the navel. The vibration begins there and moves upward through the subtle system to the heart, where it receives intention and feeling.
From the heart, the vibration continues to the throat, where words and sentences take shape. Finally, the tongue articulates it as speech or mantra. The spoken mantra is the final expression of a process that began as a subtle movement within us.
The mind produces the intention, the pranic flow activates the dhuni, and the subtle vibration begins its movement toward expression. The navel generates the vibration, the heart gives it intention and feeling, the throat gives it verbal structure, and the tongue brings it into sound.
Mantra moves from consciousness into subtle vibration, from subtle vibration into structure, and from structure into expressed sound. In this way, mantra is not separate from consciousness. It is consciousness taking the form of vibration and sound.
This movement within the human being reflects the larger creative movement of Naad. On the universal scale, creative vibration gives form to the universe. Within the human being, the sound current gives rise to speech, sound, and mantra. In both, vibration moves into form.
Big Mantra is a workshop platform for exploring the relationship between Naad, consciousness, and sound, and an opportunity to learn and practice longer, more complex mantras.
The first Big Mantra workshop focuses on Wah Yantee, a mantra of intuition, creativity, and renewal. By spending time with one mantra, we can explore how the impulse to produce sound begins in consciousness, how vibration arises at the dhuni of the navel, and how it moves through us before being expressed by the tongue.