An essay written by Maria-Lisa Höcker.

In this essay Maria-Lisa explores the link between Nada Yoga and the work of Dr. Peter Levine. Maria-Lisa took part in The Spirit of Sound Online Training in fall 2022. This text is her final essay of the training.

I believe I have always felt the effects of sound on our states of being and consciousness, subconsciously in earlier years of my life and more and more consciously when I started picking up practices around consciousness such as Yoga and meditation or even studying Psychology in University.

One of my teachers in my teachers’ lineage of Yoga, Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati, was a Sanskrit scholar and has written beautifully on many topics, one of them being Nāda Yoga. When I was at his ashram a few years back, I brought home quite a few of his books and got very interested in the science and practice around nāda (translates to sound in Sanskrit).

Another space that I am exploring is the work of Dr. Peter Levine around a method that he has developed (mainly to treat and release trauma), called Somatic Experiencing (SE). In the following text I would like to give an outline of how the teachings around Nāda Yoga and Somatic Experiencing for me come together. This has become more clear to me in Soneiro’s The Spirit of Sound Online Training, that I am blessed to be a part of. I will refer to Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati and Dr. Peter Levine as my main resources because they are the teachers in whose work I have been immersing myself in the most, personally. I also want to make clear that both their work is quite large and what I am about to write in this essay is merely a tiny outline of description and findings of both their work. I will do my best to make it as concise and clear and essential as possible.

Nada Yoga

One way that Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati describes what nāda really is, is the “sound of silence”

Through refining our capacity of listening we refine our capacity of hearing and through that, begin to perceive sounds that are subtler and subtler. These sounds may at first occur in the outer world, but then, with practice or grace (or maybe both), we begin to tune into the inner sounds. “Then we can follow the current of nāda from the ear to our whole head, to our entire body, then through the atmosphere to all of space, ...”

These inner sounds could be perceived as chirping, a flute, rumbling, a drum, bees, church bells (and others). Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati says that is our direct connection to primal energy. We actually hear life force then.

Since I have got into his work around Nāda Yoga, I have always been fascinated by his expression “the sound of silence”

What I feel with that expression, is that we are never alone. And that we can never be separate. When we begin to hear both (or all three), sound and no sound (/inner sound), the distinction between no sound and sound dissolves.

So essentially, what we want to do, to get in touch with nāda, is to tune into our sense of listening and hearing and follow the experience we have. Not naming it, not analysing it, not explaining it, only following and experiencing it.

Somatic Experiencing by Dr. Peter Levine

Now this is where the work of Dr. Peter Levine around Somatic Experiencing comes in. His studies and experience with trauma patients has shown the tremendous effects it has, when we can follow and observe sensations in our bodies in order to release blockages and resolve trauma responses stuck in the system. In his work he mainly focuses on the sensations that physically occur in the body, the tissue, the muscles, movements or frozenness, etc. (to say it in a very simplified way).

In a model he explains the different channels through which humans process experiences. To name a few there are:

visceral receptors
external senses
gesture
posture
emotion
cardiovascular
respiratory signals

In that model he mentions, that the auditory impression and the sense of hearing can be one of those channels to tune in to, when beginning to follow our physical (somatic) experiences. Many of his clients, after having worked with him, report ‘spiritual experiences’. As he explains it (and there is a whole scientific field evolving) it is because we literally touch into that primal energy moving through us, when we follow and experience sensations in our bodies. The regions in the brain that are activated in moments that put us into very primal modes of acting and speaking (fight/flight/freeze, the responses that get stuck in a traumatic event and are released and resolved through SE) are the same that are activated in so called ‘spiritual experiences’.

So (again putting it in a very simplified way) by coming in touch with our sensations, we allow that very primal energy to flow again where it got stuck and by that we activate the same regions in the brain that are activated, when we touch into spiritual experiences (“held in warm tingling waves, aliveness, warmth, joy, wholeness” as his clients describe).

To me this is mind-blowing on one side and so clear and actually logic and simple on the other side. A whole chapter of Dr. Peter Levine’s book ‘In an Unspoken Voice’ is dedicated to “Trauma and Spirituality” (Chapter 14, p. 347 - 356).

So his work is following and experiencing what he calls sensations in the body. In a way this is very similar to what I have just described one paragraph up for Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati’s work.

To me, what it comes down to is:
Sound (and a practice of hearing sound) has the capacity to tune us into essence and allow the (sound) current to flow unobstructed again, in wholeness.

The experience of sound is the experience of life force. Everything has a vibration and therefore a sound. Could we call, what we perceive as that vibration or as that sound, maybe simply our teacher, teaching us: you are me and I am you?

If you notice that there is no difference between sound and no sound, then there is also no difference between your sound and my sound. It’s coming from the same thing. This is vibration and that is vibration.
And in sound it all comes together.

I guess our perception of things shifts when we begin to listen (to their sound).

Maria-Lisa Höcker.

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About The Author

Maria-Lisa Höcker

I love exploring the space of what we call 'normal' (this is what I see, this is what I hear, this is what I think) and the realm that opens up when we stay a little longer to see and hear what arises behind a thought, behind a sound, behind a sensation in the body. Maybe that is why I decided to become a yoga teacher. What initially got me into yoga (besides the physical) was the chanting in yoga classes. Practicing yoga and my practice of chanting have allowed me so much to really FEEL that, in essence, all we want is to feel connected. And loved. And to love. And that everything is pulling us towards that. Uncovering that in a truthful way, that is what I am dedicated to.

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