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Sound of the Universe
Return to "Spirals of Time" Return to Homepage from Sound of the Universe ![]() ![]() The 23rd summer of my life was a major transition period. Events made me aware of rare mystical rhythms that had remained hidden from me for a long time. I had recently returned to New Delhi from the USA having graduated from the Cornell Hotel School in Ithaca, New York, USA,
Distant impressions gathered from a far away land rapidly became hazy. Melting and evaporating in my overheated family situation and the blazing summer heat of New Delhi. Moving out of the comfort zone
The situation was worsened because start up of the new business was delayed due to the 1962 Indo-Chinese war. The business depended upon imported equipment and raw material--which was not forthcoming due to the government policies having changed. Even more than a decade after that war, the governmental controls over business enterprises in general had increased, corruption in government was rampant. This contributed to creating restrictions, shortages and black markets. Political unrest was simmering, and Jai Prakash Narain was developing his Bihar movement of civil disobedience. Unknown to us, the next year would bring on the black 'national emergency' on 25th June 1975 that would suspend all civil liberties. The Congress party led government forces would terrorize the populace of the country for two years in an effort to crush political opposition and civil disobedience. In this tumultuous atmosphere, the successful family business had been heroically and bravely financing the loss-making enterprise for years. There was no end to the financial troubles in sight and this put immense pressures on each of us daily. We were already living in a constant state of 'emergency' ahead of the country. A major cleanup and pruning job I learned on the job. Some thing I learned quickly, others not so much and not so well. I had little patience with the snail-like working pace here compared to the business efficiencies of America. I was intolerant of time-wasting and resource-wastage and this brought me into regular confrontation with my seniors and staff. Of course, they frequently reminded me that things were different here and this was not 'back home in the USA.' But by this time nothing felt like home--neither here nor there!
This was specially scary considering that as a family we had a lot of experience and technical expertise. My father and uncle had founded the business in the 1940's and had run it very successfully. My older cousin, Lalit, was my senior and a Cornell graduate working in the business. My younger brother Deepak also graduated from Cornell after me, but he was in America, managing a Thunderbird Inn in Washington, working hard while living the American dream. Successes, lessons learned and other things unlearned The manual dish washing process led to a lot of breakages. I had to regularly demonstrate dish washing procedures for the in-house restaurant and room-service staff. Another small change I made was to have the overhead metal water storage tanks painted over with black instead of the conventional silver color. The heat absorbed by the black metal saved money in water heating charges. Later, I changed the billing procedures by introducing numerical codes for items which then needed only postage stamp size receipts. This saved a lot of time for cutting bills and also saved a lot of paper! Those were the fun things for me to do actually--lots of opportunities! But some of the other situations were more serious. The room-service department had an average of 100-120% cost of food sold due to pilferage and wastage. This meant for every 100 rupees billed, our cost of food raw materials for that sale were between 100 and 120 rupees. After such an expense there was no chance of covering other expense heads--we were giving the food away!
I was in a hurry to make the changes, because there was a nagging thought I would end up overwhelmed like him. In about 5 weeks I had redesigned the restaurant menu, put in stiff internal control systems and got the food cost down to a respectable 40%-45%. This upset a lot of people--and not just the staff members. The politics of success As a result, I was at the receiving end of much criticism. Some of the criticism was certainly justified, but a great many situations I got into trouble for was engineered by clever folks, and I did not play that game well.
Like multiple alien universes, the dual realities of the theoretical and practical of the family dynamics and work situation co-existed in my head. I had a fractured view of what should be and what actually was, with a large inability to reconcile the two. The daily grind had numbed the mind into a state of inactivity in any direction other than coping with the unending fire-fighting nature of the family crisis. 'Blame'—the popular Family Game As for us, we played the blame game quite well. As a result, none of our relationships ever really recovered from this, despite the optimistic and dynamic efforts of my father and uncle. Periods of calm were far and few. There was no inner space of tranquility left to retreat into. Tranquility river One blazing June afternoon I drove back towards Vasant Vihar in my dilapidated Fiat with the windows down. The air conditioning in the car did not work. Passing Talkatora Gardens, pondering the family situation, I came to the realization that there was nothing I could do about it that I was not already doing. I also realized that my educational qualifications and 23 years of life experience were totally inadequate to deal with the crisis. In that moment, I immediately lost the feeling of responsibility for the situation in the sense of holding myself or others responsible for the pain we were collectively going through. This was a big relief. I took a deep breath and exhaled—my mind and emotions emptying out completely. Time out of mind The rhythmic shushing of tires on the hot asphalt silenced and faded out all other sounds around me including that of the occasional car passing by. Into this expanded zone of time and space entered a low humming sound. The air became wintry cool.
The twisted trunks of the acacia-keekar trees moved, the feathery leaves flexed and glowed. The yellow seed pods hanging off the branches radiated a golden aura I had never noticed before. As the pods moved in the breeze they gave off a soft rustling chiming sound. A part of me was caught up in this experience. A part of the mind asked disbelieving questions and then finally gave itself up to the child-like wonderment of the experience. The low humming-thrumming expanded gently, filling my consciousness like a perfume. It was magnificent. A lovely sound of an otherworldly string instrument. A veena perhaps, overlaid with tones of a mellow cello vibrating incredible harmonics. Sound of the Universe
We met again and again, the sound and I—long lost friends overjoyed to meet each other, touch each other and ultimately penetrate and become each other. It was a glorious vibration that connected me to its innermost self, giving me direct perception of my innermost consciousness—the never-ending quality of my eternal self. "The universe sings ... "
Since then, Aauummah, Aauumm, Aum or Om has been that sound friend who has remained a constant guide in my continuing spiritual journey to help me discover, reveal and revel in the mystic. My friend also gave me the wonderful gift of freedom from fear—that fear which arises from living in the impermanent and unpredictable world.
I came across this article a couple of days ago--
Scientists think that the 'God particle' may sound like this... Essentially this particle has no material quality and in the presence of matter it gathers or organizes elemental matter around it. This is also the precise mechanism observed by spiritual scientists about the nature of the non-material spiritual particle, the 'atma' or soul. Click here to read more about the atma/soul or the "I-Consciousness" particle. (Article: 'Physics of the I-Consciousness (I-Con) Universe')
Nalin K. Nirula comes from the well-known restauranteur family in New Delhi of the same name. In 1983, nine years after this experience with the sound of the universe, he left the "Nirula's" family business to explore his true interest in the spiritual and healing arts. He works as a spiritual and karmic healer and counselor, as well as a whole foods plant based nutritionist. Combining these techniques, he is able to help people get relief from disease as well as difficult life situations. Nalin Nirula empowers people with spiritual initiations into life-changing and healing modalities including Reiki and the KQ Force. The KQ Force is an advanced form of spiritual karmic healing energy they have rediscovered. With these empowerments, people are able to get significant relief in any difficult life situation. They also get the capability of changing their condition in radical ways very rapidly, which is not experienced by other self-developmental or self-help techniques. Return to Home Page from Sound of the Universe To Spirals of Time To the Karma Blog |
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