The effortless mental repetition of a meaningless, but carefully chosen combination of sounds may be one of the most effective vehicles for meditation.
An Acem Meditation sound is a tool for meditation - a vehicle used by the meditator to go within. It is a meaningless but effective combination of vowels and consonants that is repeated in the mind without effort, with a free mental attitude.
From a practical point of view, the important question is how the meditator uses the sound, the mental attitude with which the sound is repeated. Only the results of the meditation practice can prove the value of the sound.
Here, however, we shall try to clarify some basic concepts concerning the meditation sound itself.
Most meditation techniques use a vehicle for meditation.
The vehicles may be connected to breathing (as in pranayama and zen), body movements (as in hatha yoga and walking meditations) or the senses (for example, the sense of sight is commonly used for meditation, as in different variants of tratak and visualisation).
In Acem Meditation, we use the sense of hearing. The core of the practice is to effortlessly listen to a meditation sound that is mentally repeated. The emphasis on listening makes it easier to understand the meditation tool as pure sound.
To meditate the Acem way is not to speculate or to feel, it is to produce a sound mentally and listen to it at the same time. The technique involves both inner action (repeating the sound) and inner awareness (perceiving the sound).
Acem Meditation sounds resemble words in their combinations of vowels and consonants. But the most significant element of a word is its meaning, and this element is of no relevance in the meditation sound. An Acem Meditation sound simply has no meaning, either obvious or hidden. Its significance lies in the combination of sounds and in the rhythm.
In Acem Meditation, the neutrality of the meditation sound is crucial; its purpose is to help the mind to set its own agenda. If the meditator attaches intellectual or emotional meaning to the meditation tool, the result will be a technique poles apart from Acem Meditation, and the effects and processes will also be different.
The need for neutrality is the reason why you should avoid saying the meditation sound aloud or writing it down.
This will create associative links to the world around you and reduce the effects of a neutral sound.
An Acem Meditation sound is without meaning, but it is not just a random combination of vowels and consonants.
The construction of meditation sounds is based on intuition and experience with meditative processes. When used by the meditator according to the principle of a free mental attitude, it has profound benefits for both body and mind.
There are sounds in nature that have a positive value for most of us, even if they do not carry a meaning: the murmur of the waves at the seashore, the whispering of the wind in the leaves, water trickling in a stream, the sound of thunder at a distance. These sounds have a totally different effect on us from the noise of an air-conditioner or a fan, construction works on a flyover or buses churning out pollution.
Music is probably the best example of sound purely with effect.
A sound itself does not have a meaning. Meaning is something given to the sound. This even goes for the sounds of language. Words have effects beyond their semantic meaning.
If you listen to poetry read out in a language you do not understand, it may fascinate you and capture your imagination simply by virtue of the rhythm and the sounds. This effect is often used in rituals, such as the chanting of the ancient Vedas in India, the recitation of the Heart Sutra in Buddhism, or the parts read in Latin in Catholic mass. Few people present understand the words, but they experience an effect from just listening.
Some people might attribute this effect to the hidden meaning of the words they hear. But the effect of an Acem Meditation sound is solely connected with its sound and rhythm - and the way it is used.
The fact that different speech sounds have different effects on our minds is demonstrated in scientific studies. In one study using Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI, a kind of brain scan), the repetition of meditation sounds was compared to the repetition of other sound combinations made at random, such as [ liskebrøk ]. While the meditation sounds produced typical meditative responses in the brain, the other sound combinations did not.
Traditional explanations for the meditative effect of sounds are based on cosmic vibrations or the correlation between certain sounds and given metaphysical principles. But explaining the meditative effect of sounds is just as difficult as giving a theoretical explanation of the effect of sound in music and poetry.
In human language, sounds often have expressive uses. For instance, most languages use sounds like [i] to express smallness, such as in English teeny-weeny and itsy-bitsy. When asked to use the meaningless words maluma and takete to name the two figures below, speakers of widely different languages agree that maluma is the most suitable name for the left-hand figure and takete for the one on the right: This does not mean that speech sounds have given meanings, only that they sometimes elicit certain associations or mental responses. Some of these responses may be related to the use of sound in music, poetry - and meditation.
Historically, the use of sound combinations as vehicles for meditation often has its origin in Indian mantras. But sound meditation is also found in some forms of Christian prayer and in the dhikr practised by Muslims of the Sufi tradition.
Indian mantras are used in many different ways and for different goals: prayer and devotion, philosophical speculation, rituals, group chanting, keeping thoughts out of the mind, and so on.
The purpose of the Acem Meditation sound is different.
It is a tool for creating an open, relaxed mind. The meditation sound, when repeated with a free mental attitude, creates a kind of blank screen in the mind, in order that whatever is in the consciousness can express itself during meditation, and be resolved and worked through. The practice gives deep stress release and clears up residues from the past. Over time, regular meditation makes the meditator more alert to the undercurrents in life.
If we want to watch slides, we need a projector and a screen. If the screen is not blank and colourless, what we see will be distorted, since the patterns on the screen itself will overshadow the projected images. In Acem Meditation, the projector is our consciousness as it is expressed in the spontaneous activities of the mind, and the blank screen is the free mental attitude that the meditator creates by repeating and listening to the given meditation sound without meaning.
Traditionally, mantras may be recited aloud, mumbled, whispered, subvocalised or just repeated mentally. In Acem Meditation, the sound is always repeated as a thought.
While the articulation of a physical sound tends to keep the mind on the surface, mental repetition has a more profound effect. This is recognised by several meditative traditions.
In daily meditations, some of us repeat the meditation sound in the same rhythm as the breath or the heartbeat.
For others, the production of the sound is inadvertently accompanied by a slight muscular tension in the speech organs. All of this is fine as long as it is the most effortless way of repeating the sound. But the focus of our awareness should be on the sound itself, not on the breath, heartbeat or speech organs.
During deepening retreats in Acem Meditation, when we meditate for more than six hours every day for a week or more, we may practise exercises that help us refine the mental repetition of the sound even further.
To sum up, both experience and scientific studies indicate that sound is an effective tool for meditation, maybe more effective than other meditation vehicles. And certain sound combinations turn out to be more suitable for meditation than others.
Furthermore, if the motivation for meditation is to achieve a better understanding of influences from the unconscious, and to break with limitations imposed by one's personality, the sound combinations used should be neutral and have no fixed meanings or associations attached to them.
Mental sound is more powerful than physical sound.
Last but not least, the crucial element is the way the sound is repeated. For prayer and devotional purposes, it may be useful to repeat the sound with intense concentration, as is sometimes recommended in religious contexts.
But for relaxation as well as for psychological and existential growth, the free mental attitude of Acem Meditation is the best way of ensuring good effects. The repetition of the meditation sound should be as effortless as possible.