BONUS – The Unstruck Sound: On Hearing the Ever-Present Hum of Consciousness
Reflections on Nada, Perception, and the Subtle Currents of Consciousness That Carry Us Home
Prologue: The Night in Antrim
It was late in the evening in Antrim, New Hampshire, in Fall of 2013. The men’s facility for the Teacher Training Course (TTC) sat in that particular kind of quiet found only in rural landscapes—a quiet that feels whole, as if the very air itself were resting. Inside, the hallway lights had long since dimmed, and most of the course participants had retired to their rooms.
My evening routine, after the day’s instruction concluded, was simple and centering: I would shower, light an incense stick, and prepare either to read the latest letter from Mina—she was on the Women’s Course not far from the campus of Maharishi International University in Fairfield, Iowa—or to write a response to her, often accompanied by an artistic rendering on the first page. It was a ritual I had established not long after beginning the course on 20 August of that year.
One night, late in the night, I lay awake. The stillness of the day’s extended meditation lingered—along with the deep knowledge we had received about the tradition, the technique, and the sacred responsibility of teaching Transcendental Meditation in accordance with its lineage. That stillness was familiar to me. After more than four years of daily practice—often for several hours each day—it had become a steady presence in my life, a constant companion, if you will. During the five-month seclusion of TTC, that constancy deepened even further.
But what came next was unlike anything I had ever encountered.
From within that silence, I began to hear Sanskrit chanting—soft, steady, and unmistakably present. At first, I assumed it was playing somewhere in the building. After several nights of hearing it, I mentioned it to one of our Course Facilitators, Jeff, convinced that the couple who managed the facility—and also cared for the twelve course participants, two facilitators, the liaison, and chef—must have had ambient music or chanting quietly playing overnight.
Mind you, the sound was not intrusive. On the contrary, I found it beautiful—almost like the perfect soundtrack for the Course.
After I mentioned it again during a session, Jeff kindly offered to inquire. Later, he returned with a simple but surprising answer:
“There’s no Sanskrit chanting playing at night” he said.
And that was the end of it—for him.
But not for me.
Because I kept hearing it.
Over the next few nights, I noticed it again—usually upon waking briefly in the night to relieve myself. The sound was neither a memory, nor an echo from a nearby room. It was a living presence: soft yet insistent, threading itself through the stillness. It was as though the very air was carrying a chant—ancient, resonant, and alive.
And then, slowly, I began to understand.
This sound was not coming from outside me. It was not generated by speakers or external devices. It was not external at all.
The hum—the chanting, the resonance—was arising from within.
The Long Arc: Thirteen Years of an Unbroken Hum
The Sanskrit words themselves faded over time, dissolving into something more elemental—a hum. Not the high-pitched irregular ringing of tinnitus, but a continuous, unbroken tone that seemed to be woven into the very fabric of my awareness.
Days became months, months became years. Nearly thirteen years have now passed, and still the sound remains. I never felt the urge to make it stop; instead, it became something like a quiet companion. As I type these lines with our children in their room chatting away as only sleep-resistant children can do, as per usual, the hum is present.
In conversation with others, I did not speak of it. How could I explain that the most constant “sound” in my life was one no one else could hear? Yet privately, I sensed it was not an anomaly, but a sign—a marker of a deep refinement that had been silently building across decades of study and contemplation, including more than four years of meditating for several hours a day up to that point in 2013.
Only recently did I share this experience with a close friend who has taught TM for fifty-three years. He chuckled softly—a knowing laugh, the kind that comes only from one who recognizes the subtle play of consciousness.
It was, however, long before revealing this experience to him that I began studying the Vedic texts more closely—and realized there were words for this. There was precedent. And there was purpose.
As the years passed, the Sanskrit syllables softened into something more elemental—a hum. Not the irregular ringing of the ears, but a tone woven into awareness itself. It was only later, through deeper study of the Vedas, that I learned this experience had a name: Anāhata Nāda—the unstruck sound.
Anāhata Nāda–Anāhata means “unstruck”; nāda means “sound.” It refers to an inner sound that does not arise from any two things striking together—a sound existing prior to physical vibration, perceived inwardly.
The Vedic Lens – Understanding the Anāhata Nāda
The Vedic tradition—like many others across the world, particularly in Africa—holds that all creation arises from sound—not sound in the ordinary sense, but from a primordial vibration: the self-interacting dynamics of consciousness itself.
The Nada Bindu Upanishad speaks of the nāda as both guide and goal: a subtle sound that can draw the attention inward toward the Self. In the Hatha Yoga Pradipika (Chapter IV), the yogi is advised to “focus on the sound that is heard without the ears,” moving from coarse sounds (like roaring, buzzing, or ringing) toward subtler tones (like the flute, harp, or bells) until even those dissolve into a dynamic silence.
In this framework, the unstruck sound is not an auditory hallucination, but a refinement of perception—the nervous system attuned to the subtlest level of the senses.
And unlike tinnitus, which is irregular and often distressing, the nāda is stable, harmonious, and in many cases such as mine—blissful. Its presence aligns with deep inner silence, not agitation.
Śabda–“Sound” or “word,” understood in Vedic philosophy as both the audible phenomenon and the subtle vibratory field underlying creation.
Oṃ–The primordial sound; not merely chanted, but present in its subtlest form as the hum of pure being.
Consciousness, Perception, and the Soundless Sound
In the stages of yogic development, this phenomenon often emerges during pratyāhāra—the natural withdrawal of the senses from external objects—and dhāraṇā, the refinement of attention on subtler levels of experience.
Transcendental Meditation, by its very nature, allows the mind and body to settle without force. As the surface activity of the mind quiets, the senses follow. Perception becomes less bound to physical stimuli and more open to subtler levels of reality.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi often described pure consciousness as the “self-interacting dynamics of the Unified Field.” In this view, the hum I have heard for almost thirteen years now is not foreign—it is the most natural sound possible, the vibratory expression of the field itself.
Interestingly, many spiritual traditions recognise a similar experience:
In Shabd Yoga, it is the “sound current” guiding the soul homeward.
In Sufi mysticism, it is the saut-i-sarmad—the “eternal sound.”
Christian mystics have written of a “celestial tone” that can be heard when the heart is wholly stilled.
The language differs, but the experience is strikingly similar: the human nervous system, when refined, perceives the hum of existence.
The Hum as Teacher
Not long after the realization of the hum, I ceased thinking of the hum as a “thing happening to me” and began to relate to it as a teacher.
It reminded me—constantly—that silence is never empty. That beneath the seeming quiet of life, there is always a current, steady and unwavering—dynamic.
I began to notice that the hum was most vibrant not in perfect stillness, but when my awareness was expansive yet relaxed—as when sitting for long stretches within meditation. It was a living pointer, directing me back toward the Self whenever the mind became caught in surface activity.
This changed the way I approached meditation, teaching, and even the smallest tasks of daily life.
In reflecting on this almost thirteen year odyssey with this internal sound from beyond form, I am compelled to encourage as many people as possible to learn Transcendental Meditation for its myriad benefits. For even when experiencing the vicissitudes of life, the unstruck sound reminds us of what is truly important—the only real game within the universe—Pure Consciousness.
Closing: The Sound Beyond Sound
I often think back to that night in Antrim—the darkness, the stillness, and the moment when silence revealed itself to be alive.
The hum has been with me for thirteen years this fall. I no longer question it, because I understand: it is not a random occurrence, nor an “extra” in the script of life.
It is a reminder. That Pure Consciousness, once awakened to itself, continues to speak—not in words, but in the sound beyond sound. This, I believe, is the “sound of silence” as posited by Simon & Garfunkel.
And for those who listen, it says only this: I am here. Always.
So, learn to meditate and know thy self as that.
Suggested Reflection Practice
You may not hear a hum, a tone, or an inner melody. That does not matter. What matters is the awareness it points to.
A Simple Listening Practice
Find a quiet space and close your eyes.
Allow the body to relax and the breath to flow naturally.
Without strain, notice the subtlest sound you can perceive—whether it is an inner tone, the faint sound of your own breath, or simply the feeling of presence.
Rest your attention there, letting the awareness expand around it.
The purpose is not to chase an experience, but to let the senses rest so that awareness can recognize what is already present.
Whether or not you hear the hum, it is there—the subtle reminder that silence itself is singing. And dare I say . . . calling.
Will you answer?
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About the Author
Dr. Baruti KMT-Sisouvong is a consciousness scholar, executive coach, and Certified Teacher of Transcendental Meditation® based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His work—spanning the Model for Perpetual Growth and Progress and the Seven Layers of Manifestation—explores how Pure Consciousness, neuroscience, and social-systems transformation intersect in the evolution of both the individual and society. Alongside his wife, Mina, he co-directs the Cambridge and Metropolitan Boston TM Program. He is the Host/Founder of International Meditation Hour (IMH), a quarterly gathering dedicated to experiencing the unifying power of silence. He writes from the conviction that the most important race is not between nations or machines, but between the conditioned mind and the awakening soul. They are the proud parents of four children. To learn more about him, visit: https://www.barutikmtsisouvong.com/.