Today’s hack hails from India. Vak Shuddhi is the Hindu term to describe pure sound.

There are many dimensions for the body to be healthy and sound is one such dimension. This can either nurture or damage our system. Both the sounds that we hear and those we utter have a great impact on us.

Our system can be tuned to regenerate itself with the right kind of food, posture, breathing, attitude, thoughts and emotions. However, uttering the right kind of words and hearing the right kind of sounds are also important to cultivate a nervous system that is sensitive to life around us. 

Hearing loud noise or jarring sounds of machines or blasphemies are certainly not conducive to our system as are sounds of soothing music, hearing the rain, the crashing of sea waves against pebbles or birdsong.

Being aware and sensitive to the impact sounds has on our system will help us to purify the words we utter for the maximum impact on us.

Vak Shuddhi does not mean saying nice things − it means uttering the right sounds. Whatever sound we need to utter, it should be in such a way that it is beneficial for us. And whatever is beneficial for us will naturally be beneficial for everyone around us.

Vak Shuddhi does not mean saying nice things − it means uttering the right sounds

Speech is a unique gift to humans. However, certain languages like Sanskrit, Latin, Indian, Spanish and certain other languages were consciously created so that their very words will reverberate in a certain way within our system, through the nature of the arrangement of sounds.

Just uttering the Sanskrit language will purify the system. The English language, which is one of many modern ones, is very short of reverberating sounds and has a minimum range of expression. In this case, to achieve Vak Shuddhi, one has to compensate for this lack of expression by active awareness and volition when talking. This can be achieved through the use of tonality and intention of what we say to be of benefit to our hearers. Telling someone “Come here!” can be said either in a rough or in a gentle way. Both ways will have a different effect on one’s system.

So, if we speak to someone in a way as if it would be the last time we speak to that person − with every person we speak − we would be fixing our Vak Shuddhi. Our words will reverberate in a certain way, purer and nurturing to both ours and the hearer’s system.

One can understand that the quality of sounds uttered by a child’s first word, wedding vows, birdsong at dawn, a child laughing, a fire crackling, a thunderstorm, waves crashing onto the beach, a favourite band playing live or the sound of rain falling – all are soothing to our system and life enhancing.

Nowadays, there seems to be a universal trend − mostly on social media − for people to use raw, crude street language which to many sounds cool and authentic. Probably, the younger generation connects with it. This is the same situation regarding the legal adoption of cannabis in our current lifestyles. It is not in anybody’s merit to judge as everyone  has a different mindset and level of consciousness – but it is up to the individual to realise that certain things – even if legally acceptable – do not aid in enhancing one’s quality of life in the long run and it is up to the mature individual to take what is nurturing to one’s system.

Would anyone like to be operated on by a surgeon on opium or travel with a pilot who relies on cannabis? It’s obvious were the best choices lie when there’s anything that compromises the clarity of mind or challenges our system. Crude language has the same effect in impinging on one’s life quality.

Cultivating our Vak Shuddhi will bring our system to higher possibilities. To become conscious of the sounds, the science of sounds, is a lifelong pursuit. Getting accustomed to the sounds in chanting, for example, will attune us to the phenomenal effect sound has on our system.

Vak Shuddhi means cleansing the sounds we utter. The sounds should be life enhancing and not destructive in any way. And if the language adopted does not provide enough expressive sounds, Vak Shuddhi can still be attained by using a soothing tone and intention to back our speech, as it has a bearing on the impact it has on our physical make-up.

Mary Attard, Freelance writer and photographer