Tinnitus versus Spiritual Sounds

One of the most common spiritual debates on the internet

Sep 23, 2022

Is it Tinnitus or a Spiritual Sound?

One of the most frequent questions that sceptics and new seekers ask me is “What is that sound that I’m hearing in my head? Is it Tinnitus, or is it some kind of spiritual sound?

This is also a popular question on social media sites, like Facebook, Quora and YouTube. Likewise, you will often hear this question at spiritual gatherings, ashrams, Kirtan concerts and meditation webinars.

When this question comes up, it usually results in a healthy and sometimes argumentative, or heated, debate.

On large public, social media sites about 33% of the respondents will start by gladly describing the inner sounds that they’re hearing as some type of spiritual, or celestial, sound. The minute that happens, the skeptics jump right in to debunk the spiritual aspirants with immediate, and often terse statements like: “That’s total gibberish! You probably just have tinnitus, and don’t even know it.”

The simple truth is that it’s usually exceedingly difficult for both casual observers and for new spiritual seekers to recognize and distinguish the subtle differences between Tinnitus sounds and spiritual sounds.
The even deeper truth is that the “spiritual sound currents” that most “new disciples” hear are common physical plane frequencies that either come from the human body or the outer world environment – which are then processed by the mind to trigger and then display any one of a wide variety of labels, memories, thoughts, emotions and even visions.

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This is an important topic for new seekers. So, let’s dive a little deeper into this mystery.

What is Tinnitus?

Tinnitus is often experienced as a prolonged ringing, hissing, buzzing, or humming sound in one or both ears. For some people, the tinnitus sound will come and go throughout the day. Many other people, however, suffer from tinnitus for the entire day.

The tinnitus noise can vary in pitch from a soft hum to a louder roar, and even to a very high-pitched squeal. For some people, tinnitus noise is so loud that it interferes with their ability to concentrate or hear other external sounds.

This medical condition is not caused by external sounds. Moreover, the specific tinnitus sounds that a person with tinnitus hears are not heard by anyone else.

According to the Mayo Clinic, Tinnitus is a common medical condition that affects about 15% to 20% of the population. It can begin to happen at any age, but it is especially common among older adults.

There are a wide range of underlying conditions, such as age-related hearing loss, ear injuries, certain heart problems or circulatory system problems.

Sometimes the tinnitus symptom can be cured, or reduced, by medical treatments on the underlying physical problems. For most people, however, this is a condition that often lasts for many years.

What are spiritual sounds?

Over the last 2,000 years there has been a tremendous controversy among spiritual paths over what is, and what is not a “spiritual sound.”

In most spiritually minded religions, the “word of God” is either taken literally, or it describes the audible (“heard by human ears”) sound currents/waves that religious disciples sometimes hear while they are meditating.

There are numerous Mid-East, Indian and Far-East religions that promote the belief that spiritual seekers can go to heaven, or reach the heavenly regions, by lovingly listening to specific celestial sounds that they hear while they’re meditating.

These are sounds that you can hear through your physical ears, while you’re meditating. When your eyes are closed, when you hear these “celestial” sounds, it will appear to many new religious seekers that these sounds are coming into your awareness, from “higher heavenly regions.”

However, anything that you hear is always heard, followed by the mind, labelled by the mind, and then stored as a mental memory. While you initially hear or listen to these sounds you are having a mental, and not a spiritual, experience.

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You might initially hear a buzzing or humming sound – like electrical currents going through an overhead cable. If you can patiently listen at a much deeper level many disciples can sometimes hear a “bell” sound that is more magnetically attractive. According to the Saints and Gurus of these spiritually minded religions, the deeper sounds are proof that you have reached the higher heavenly regions. Some of these deeper sound currents often sound like roaring thunder, sitar, flutes, or violins.

In the most heated discussions of Tinnitus versus spiritual sounds, spiritual seekers are often referring to these types of celestial sounds.

On rare occasions these spiritual sounds can trigger memories of previous spiritual experiences which then lead to new spiritual experiences – beyond the mind. These are, of course, precious experiences. But, listening to a spiritual sound, or watching a “light show” during meditation is a mental experience.

The Subtle Differences Between Tinnitus Noise versus Spiritual Sounds

Besides reading the occasional social media arguments between people with Tinnitus versus spiritual seekers who hear “spiritual sounds,” I have also suffered from Tinnitus for more than 50 years.

I feel sorry for anyone who has tinnitus. It’s a miserable and sometimes unbearable medical condition. I also tried the “Sant Mat” sound current path for several years – which does not help one to go beyond tinnitus. Fortunately, during most of my adult life, I have also been meditating so deeply in clear awareness that I have been able to go totally beyond the tinnitus sounds – that still ring in my ears when I’m not meditating.

So, I understand both sides of the arguments between people suffering from tinnitus noise versus spiritual seekers who experience uplifting inner sounds. I also understand how to reach the heavenly regions without listening to any sound at all.
The Tinnitus sound is MUCH DIFFERENT than spiritual/body/celestial sounds that one hears in deep “sound current” meditation states.

Tinnitus noise is often composed of high pitch buzzing or ringing frequencies that continue with little or no variation for long stretches of time. Tinnitus sounds quite often also have a "hissing" undertone. Some of the patients who suffer from Tinnitus only hear the hissing sound.

Except for some rare cases, Tinnitus sounds are constant with little modulation or changes. Moreover, there's no echo.

From firsthand experiences and from discussions with hundreds of spiritual minded seekers, the spiritual sounds always have an echo when the seekers concentration is strong. At deeper stages of sound current meditation, advanced disciples will often hear a beautiful, soothing melody as the inner sound waves flow into their lives and massage their worries away. At even deeper levels of sound current meditation, spiritually enlightened souls will often be swept away by short, beautiful symphonies containing the sounds of dozens of instruments.

No………. That’s not tinnitus!

The other noticeably significant difference between wrestling with tinnitus noise and listening to the subtle sound currents is that the inner concentration that enables meditators to hear these spiritual sounds also creates an initial stage of harmonic resonance resulting in undeniable, but subtle, feelings of joy, peace, unity, and love.

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Misery versus Joy – it’s not a difficult choice at all!

To go even deeper into the highest heavenly regions, however, you need to learn to ignore both tinnitus and the sound currents – by effortlessly floating within the currents of clear awareness.

Meditating Beyond Sounds

Most celestial mystics describe God as a formless, soundless, divine, consciousness that creates everything in existence and eternally loves, nurtures, and sustains every other aspect of consciousness in the Cosmos. They also teach that the secret way back to Heavenly Consciousness is already within you. Use your God-given human-awareness to become aware of the divine consciousness within your own awareness; and then follow this river of divine awareness back to your original nature of celestially divine awareness.

This has been the core teaching of most celestial mystics including: the ancient Taoists, Zoroaster, Buddha, Bodhidharma, Yeshua, Kabir, Hafiz, Rumi, Guru Nanak, Tulsi Das, Maharishi Mehi, Soami Ji, Ramana, Nisargadatta and myself.

Saint Kabir said that “The (divine) word keeps ringing in the body. It is pervading within and without; and this alone can destroy all confusion. There are many spiritual sounds, or words, each sounding different from the other, but the quintessential (aka, source or divine) word is the crown of it all. These words/spiritual sounds reveal new sounds, but the divine word is your inner Guru that creates all these other sounds. The nature/value of spiritual sounds are much different from each other. Focus yourself ONLY ON THE QUINTESSENTIAL SOUND/WORD.”

Kabir also said: “Grasp that word that will take you to the Supreme Lord. Though everyone talks of the words (spiritual sounds) the Divine Word is without a body, a form, or a sound. The Tongue can’t pronounce it (and thus the ears cannot hear it); so, it must be perceived by your inner awareness. This Divine Word has been there before we came into being. Meditate on it constantly.”

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Maharshi Mehi said” This is an absolute truth, an irrefutable fact that this Primeval, Quintessential Sound keeps ringing in an uninterrupted and unrestrained manner through the core of the entire creation. It is a natural characteristic of this soundless sound to attract the perceiving soul towards its Center (in a bubble of consciousness) and its Celestial Source (“heavenly consciousness”).

This soundless sound, this unstruck melody cannot be heard with the ears, but once experienced by the soul it will purify the mind and lead you to Sach Kand (God Consciousness).” Mehi also wrote in one of his poems that: “God is non-manifest, beginning-less, endless, invincible, unborn, the First One, the Root or Cause of everything. God is also the first soundless sound, the current of consciousness that emanates from Divine Consciousness (throughout the cosmos).”

Soami Ji was the founder of the Radha Soami path. In his poems he often said things like: “There is an ocean of Divine Nectar within you - which you can drink just by withdrawing your consciousness inward. Keep listening (through your inner consciousness) to the never ending, melody of the soundless, unstruck word. Your home, dear soul, is in the inner regions. Quick, rise to these higher planes of (divine) consciousness.”

These mystic avatars don’t say these things simply because of something they read or heard from another person. They say these types of things because of the experiences that they have in the highest regions of celestial consciousness. The experiences that they describe are either identical, or nearly identical, to the inner experiences of other celestial mystics.

How the Mystic Teachings become distorted

The celestial mystic teachings are usually misinterpreted by followers who have not had the same experiences. They will often fall in love with the teachings of their beloved saints, but without firsthand experiences in the higher planes of consciousness they resort to their imagination and eventually create incorrect theories about what their mystical teachers are talking about.

Over time the original mystic teachings become even more distorted by new generations of seekers who begin their path by listening to countless “new distorted translations” of the original mystic doctrine.

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For example, the ancient Taoists in 3000-to-1000 BCE very clearly defined Tao both as a state of consciousness that creates everything in the cosmos and as the true “Way back to Heaven” for seekers who are internally endowed with a small copy of this same celestial consciousness. Sometime after 1000 BCE it was also often referred to as the “vital essence.” Even later, during the time of Lao Tzu and Confucius, Tao become more widely defined as the “vital breath.” The ancient mystic path of Taoism had almost disappeared by the time the Tao Te Ching was written.

Just after the passing of Yeshua (aka, Jesus Christ) Saint John aptly described the “Word of God” as the creator of the universe, the created image/copy of the Word of God as new souls and as the “Spirit/Soul of every human. However, most modern mystics immediately understood the same thing when they read these passages in the Bible of Saint John. When an advanced mystic learns how to abide in the heavenly region referred to as “God the Creator” by early Christians (aka, Sat Lok in Sant Mat, or the creative vortex in my teachings), they have first-hand experiences of the actual creation of new souls, planets, and solar systems - by and through the very same celestial consciousness that they are.

Throughout the Christian world, the “Word” of God is primarily defined as the literate text of the Bible. I know this very well. My dad was a lay priest in the Catholic Church, and he tried to raise me as a potential priest as well. I spent many years in Christian schools, I taught occasional Bible classes, I was the head altar boy at a large Catholic Church, and I spent time in a Catholic seminary. But I was also, at the same time, deeply immersed within the true “Word of God” – the clear awareness of inner enlightenment.

My dad and I got into a lot of arguments that caused him to get angry. I just smiled and lovingly tried to stay of his way. Over the years, I went even deeper into mystic consciousness, and my dear father became a fundamentalist Christian.

I understood the mystic teachings of the ancient saints because of my similar experiences. But without these same types of experiences my father could not understand this ancient wisdom at all.

Some things have changed. Some things never change.

After deep inner experiences of divine consciousness, celestial mystics begin to describe these experiences in words they hope most of their disciples will understand. Without direct experiences, however, most of the deepest mystic wisdom they teach falls on “deaf ears” because of the lack of direct experiences among most of their disciples.

Historically, over the past 2,000 years or so, most disciples of Celestial Avatars would still make some initial progress. They would become more spiritually driven and more spiritually minded. But the deepest mystic spiritually enlightened and divinely enlightened secrets require direct experience. In ancient and pre-modern times, only a small handful of disciples were able to reach the first stage of true mystic consciousness – at the eye center. Likewise, at the most, one or two disciples would eventually reach the final stage of divine enlightenment.

It will be different in the Golden Age

That was then. This is now.

We are all living, now, in the beginning stages of a new Golden Age of Spiritual Enlightenment.

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Across the globe, ordinary people who may or may not have ever meditated, are experiencing flashes of spiritual enlightenment. Hundreds of millions of people are having Near Death Experiences (“NDEs”), and a small percentage of them are having these inner experiences in heavenly realms (beyond planets, people, and mind-body awareness). Likewise, hundreds of millions of people are experiencing dozens of amazing synchronicities and small miracles – every single month.

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