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Chapter 9§

Language of Meditation

In the summer of 1968, Himalayan Academy conducted an Innersearch Travel-Study Program to Ascona, Switzerland. I was working on a little book called The Advaitin. The book was about the refined states of ex­peri­ence deep within the inner realms of pure consciousness, just before one merges into the Self and after one comes out of that state. The little book was unfolding beautifully, but upon rereading what had been written, I thought, “This is very understandable to me, but would it be so to someone just beginning on the path? It’s going to be so complicated, so difficult to understand, for what I wish to portray in words, there are no words in the English language.” I then began to feel that what should be done was to begin using Sanskrit to provide the necessary, adequate words so that the inner and refined areas of the mind would have their own name in the same way emotions, physical things and so forth are named in English.§

When we use the English language to describe inner realms, we are quite limited. It is difficult for the beginner to believe in the reality of the inner man unless he has had positive experiences himself, simply because there are not enough words to describe it.§

Everything that is really “real” is named in English, and the intellectual mind begins to grasp, take hold of and believe in those areas of mind that have a proper name. Even before the individual experiences them, he can intuit the experience. At our Ascona summer retreat, this theory that unfolded from within was going ’round and ’round in my mind, and I began looking through several Sanskrit dictionaries to locate certain words that could be used in The Advaitin. But in three Sanskrit/English dictionaries, each translator had translated each of the words in a different way. I threw up my hands at this and said, “This is going to make it more confusing for my beginning students than if we didn’t use Sanskrit,” simply because of the differing translations.§

The feeling began to come that what was really needed was another lan­guage, a new, fresh language, one giving me a vocabulary that we could use to accurately describe inner states of consciousness. Two or three days later we traveled to Venice for a few days’ excursion. This idea of a new language was still strong in my mind. It was in Venice that I decided to go deeply within and bring out a new esoteric language. So, I went deep within, and wrote down some instructions to my outer self as to how to go within, and where, to be able to unfold another language. My instructions were, “You go within the uda current of the simshumbisi.” That is the current of mind flow where language exists.§

In following the instructions, my spine lit up in a beautiful, pale yellow and lavender light. The yellow and the lavender intermingled, one color coming in and out of the other. It was just beautiful! But I only found one end of the uda current, and did not have any results in Venice. Three days later, after returning to Ascona, Switzerland, while working within myself, I found both ends of the uda current. Then, in meditation, after coming out of nirvikalpa samadhi, I heard the tones of the svadishthana, the anahata and the ajna chakras. Within two hours, out of my inner mind came the script, the basic alphabet of eighteen sounds, the syntax as well as some of the basic vocabulary, like simshumbisi, vumtyeudi, karehana. The first word to be uttered was Shum.§

Shum now names the mystical language of meditation. As fast as I could, I wrote it all down and ran down­stairs to one of the monks, shouting, “I have it! I have it! Here is our language!”§

Because of the immediate need for a vocabulary of fifty or a hundred words for me to work with during the Innersearch Travel-Study Program, I was eager to proceed in bringing through the new language.§

Shum started out in a very simple way. I thought, “Fine. Now we will have ten or fifteen or twenty or maybe a hundred more words eventually to work with, and they will be marvelous inner teaching tools.” However, in the days to follow, this uda current became stronger and brighter and brighter. I didn’t tell anyone about it at the time except two or three of the Saivite monastics who were with me in Switzerland.§

I began working day and night, and the structure and script for the language began to refine itself, and vocabulary started coming through, right from the inner light. I would see light within my head and see little images or letters in the Shum script drop down one after another and line up. Then I would read the word, like “kanasimni,” and know what it meant, and then write the Shum word with the meaning in English. Vocabulary flowed out like this for two or three weeks. In Nice, in Southern France, the whole concept of liunasi, the psychic nerve system, and alikaiishum, the warmth and psychic heat of the body, came through. I saw how in a word of several images, the moving of the accent from one image to another changes the meaning slightly as far as going into the depth of the same area of the mind, the next deeper area and the next refined area.§

Then, later in our Innersearch, in Paris, more of Shum came through. Upon returning to the United States, I had a vocabulary of about 300 words, and every day more were coming to Earth. Finally, the images stopped dropping out of the inner light, and I would hear the meaning of the word clairaudiently, almost as if someone were speaking. Sometimes they would come in reverse—English first, Shum second. The vocabulary and the structure of the language developed quickly.§

Shum has had wide acceptance and grown into a marvelous teaching tool because within the structure of the language is contained the entire Saiva Siddhanta philosophy. It has within it the perspective man had to hold to make the Advaita Siddhanta philosophy of the ancient rishis alive and vibrant today.§