Layers

Sadhana is about getting inside slowly and gradually, piercing through layers after layers. The first layer is the most obvious one, the outer physical layer, which is of the body and the senses. This is where we live most of the time. But as soon as we close our eyes, we lose contact with the outer world, with which we were connected through the senses. Immediately we see our restless thoughts and feelings dancing in front of our close eyes. That's the layer of the mind. We get associated with these and remain with these for long. But once the thoughts and feelings settle down, we start feeling the rhythm of our breath, which is somehow also connected with the prana. We feel the vibration and movement of prana. We see prana moving up and down in the body. But once we are able to move beyond the prana layer, we get into the zone of the naad, the anahat naad or the unstruck sound aum. Naad is the original frequency, which is the way of the being for that which is the substratum. Behind this, there is a deep valley of silence and darkness, the absolute consciousness or pure awareness itself, Shiva himself. The layers of the body and mind are the physical layers, mind being subtler than the body but still physical. The layers of naad and consciousness are the non-physical or metaphysical layers. Breath or prana seems to be the link that bridges physical and metaphysical.