Sound, Speech & Colour 1

It is not often that a whole new approach to spiritual growth is offered to humanity, as we do here on our platform. But is it really that new? All the parts of it have for ages been present in various if not most of the spiritual traditions on our planet. What was missing is the synthesis of it. For whenever any true spiritual teaching is given, it must be whole in itself. And to be whole it must, ofcourse, include all the parts.

The difference between the spiritual traditions of the world is little more than a difference in emphasis on certain parts — and of course differences in what has become lost over time through over-crystallisation and through culturalisation. For Varṇa Yoga, the subject of this course, both the differences and similarities in things are greatly important. It is, we could say, the Yoga of Synthesis.

Through Sound, Speech and Colour, and Yogic work with all three of them, we study wholes vs. groups vs. individual parts. We study sounds, syllables & colours, both in themselves and in relation to each other and to the spectrum they form together. Leading, ultimately, to the — for some perhaps surprising — result of deep insight into the Synthesis behind all Life. This Synthesis is the source of Creativity and at the same time the secret to viewing all of life as being One, in spite of all plurality.

This bold but true statement is the very root of existence of our school. Through working with units, groups and wholes of phenomena, through contemplatively observing things in relation to a certain spectrum they belong to, and through bringing all these things in relation to the ancient spiritual science of Yoga, we learn to meditate — with our eyes open. We learn to see the Divine Diversity that surrounds us daily, at any point in time and wherever we are. To arrive at experiences of Divine Oneness through the medium of all that Diversity.

And such Oneness is purposeful. It allows us to navigate our lives more gracefully. To find out who we ourselves truly are, while also discovering the true nature of all things. Harmonising our inner world and our outer world, both in themselves and with each other.

Learning all this will be a journey where we manoeuvre back and forth from paradoxical differences to gregarious similarities. Becoming skillful in action and greatly appreciative of the facts of both variation and uniformity; both simplicity and complexity; Spirit as well as matter. And the synthesis, the natural ordering, that lies behind these opposites and seemingly different parts and allows them to meaningfully interact.

We can conclude that the motto is: Oneness through Diversity. I invite you to join us on this path, which should ultimately lead to what I like to call creative spirituality: a divine form of constructive playfulness in daily living. Coming forth out of a gradual merging of Varṇa Yoga (the subject of this course) and Rāja Yoga, this spiritual practice goes by the name of Higher Mantra Yoga. It is direct spiritual work with the essential inner vibration of all that is.

This may all sound overwhelming to some. And it would surely be overwhelming, if we would only study the subject from a mental point of view. For this reason, we will be studying this vast and new subject in very practical ways. So that, through exercises, you can directly experience for yourself what is explained. These direct experiences will be what truly forms you — instead of nice and promising words written about them, such as the ones you are reading in this introduction.

Studying Varṇa Yoga will require effort and patience, and ultimately also all the Yogic skills we learn in Rāja Yoga. And we can only arrive there step-by-step… If we persevere and develop ourselves in the directions suggested in this course and its succeeding teachings, it will grow and develop inside us an inextinguishable and childlike zest for Life, a new way of looking at everyday things, while at the same time handing us tools that we can use to share that zest with others through some art form. Or virtually any other type of creative expression, whether artistic in nature or not. In the end, all human acts are essentially creative and they all depend on the same Art of Synthesis.

This course is part 1 of the teachings on Varṇa Yoga and is related to the Foundation Level of the Rainbow Path.