Swedish Bhairavi Says: “Sacred Sound Beyond Borders”

Many of you have probably wondered how a mantra can move you so deeply when you do not understand every word. Sometimes a sound brings tears. Sometimes the body softens, the breath changes, or something inside becomes very still. The thinking mind may not know what is being said, yet another part of you seems to recognize it.

We mentioned in a previous video that a baby can settle at the sound of its mother’s voice long before it understands language. In a similar way, sacred sound can reach us before intellectual understanding begins.This does not mean that meaning is unimportant. It simply opens the possibility that understanding is not limited to the thinking mind.

The question of language is also connected to identity.

We have mentioned before that we are Vishva Bhairav and Bhairavi. A rough meaning of Vishva would be universal, worldwide, or belonging to the whole world.

We may be born into a particular race, nationality or culture. We may also be raised between several cultures. These things form part of our human experience, but something within us resonates much more deeply than these categories.

What we have seen is that when someone identifies too strongly with only the outer categories of this lifetime—nationality, race, language or culture - it can become difficult to see beyond them, or even through them.

This can become one of the 8 knowns main obstacles encountered in Tantra. The individual remains enclosed within the veil of a particular identity, and approaching a tradition preserved within another cultural context becomes confusing.

People may begin to wonder:

Should I simply learn from the tradition and extract whatever seems useful because the teachings are universal, right?

Should I try to become part of that culture completely, remove all things from my past and pretend for a while it works?

Or should I exclude myself because the tradition does not “belong” to me and I am afraid of cultural appropriation?

None of these positions is complete.

Countries exist. Languages exist. Cultures shape how people feel, think, relate and understand. Traditions are carried through particular lands, communities and human lives. Tantra did not appear in an empty space. It has been protected, practised and transmitted through real cultural and historical contexts. Recognising a broader spiritual reality does not require us to deny any of this.

Within Siddha Tantra Arts, we can hold both realities precisely because we are Vishva - of the world and for the world.

Does this make our approach vague, superficial or willing to dilute the tradition?

No. It means that we know a person can resonate at the level of the heart, the core and the soul. We do not think less of the beings who come before us merely because they were born elsewhere or did not grow up within a particular culture.

At the same time, resonance alone is not enough. We do the necessary work to help practitioners learn, practise, understand and move through the many veils and webs of life and Tantra. There is discipline, training and association. Through this process, what is merely imagined begins to separate from what is real, true and authentically resonant.

Although it is not exactly the same subject, I remember something that happened when I was a teenager. At that time, there was a great deal of bad news about the United States. Through the news, it appeared to be a hostile environment in which many people were being excluded.

Then, at some point, I happened to see a video of Niagara Falls and the surrounding landscape, some documentary shot in the US.

Something in me clicked.

This is Earth!

The water did not belong to the news. It did not belong only to the people who happened to be living there at that moment. It was part of the same living world from which I had emerged - from which all of us have emerged. Every place on Earth is, in some essential way, part of us, and we are part of it. Nobody ultimately owns it, yet it belongs to everyone.

Imagine that…You are related to every stream, every forest and every mountain. You are related to the deserts, the deep floor of the seas and the precious Himalaya. The elements forming your body are not foreign to any part of this planet.

What, then, are changing borders, languages and passing cultural identities in relation to that vastness?
They are not unreal, but neither are they the whole reality.

A mature spiritual mind can recognise the cultural form through which something has been preserved while also sensing the living current beneath that form.

Of course, one should have great respect for the cultures and beings who created, preserved and carried these traditions. We have spoken about this before. There are reasons why certain things have been remembered in one place and forgotten in another, why something is more accessible to one person and remains out of reach for someone else. This involves karma, eligibility, Samskara and much more.

No matter where you stand, you do not need to imitate another ethnicity or pretend to have an identity that is not yours. But neither should you remove a practice from its roots, erase its origin and present it as something you invented.

The spiritual current may move beyond borders, but it is not without origin.

We have also noticed that this path can sometimes be easier for people who have already lived with multiple perspectives. Someone from India may have a strongly Western mindset. Someone born in the West may be naturally attuned to certain Eastern ways of perceiving life. Someone may have grown up between several nationalities, making the idea of one fixed national identity feel insufficient. Someone else may never have resonated with the political or religious views of their own family. The list goes on.

Many of you live lives that are not always considered “normal.” Perhaps this has brought struggle and hardship. Most often, it has.

Perhaps the general public does not fully recognise you as one of their own. Or perhaps you have had access to many countries, communities and social spaces, and through that experience you understood that you would have to choose your own individual path. In many ways, this can become an advantage.

You already know what it means to live a life you have consciously chosen - a life with its own quirks when measured against mainstream standards. The Dakini essence is already around you.

For some, it appears through force, disruption and difficult experiences. For others, it comes through softer and more charming ways. But it can already be seen in the choices you have made, the identities you have questioned and the life you have been willing to create.

This is one reason Siddha Tantra Arts is a great place for you to learn.

Within Siddha Dharma, we speak not only about identity but also about eligibility and patrata - the capacity to receive, contain and carry something. A teaching may be universal in its deepest nature, but the individual vessel must still be prepared to receive it.

As you enter this journey of mantra and sacred sound, try to relax into it simply as a being who is hearing and sensing sound. Listen before demanding that the mind understand everything. Feel where the sound forms. Notice the breath. Notice what changes when the pronunciation becomes clearer and repetition settles into rhythm. Learn the meaning, but do not reduce the mantra to its translation.

Honour the culture. Learn and follow the proper etiquette of a sincere practitioner. Respect the lineage, the language and the beings through whom the current has been carried. But do not imagine that the Divine is confined by geography.

Within Siddha Tantra and the current of Siddha Dharma, we know that Śakti and the Divine can awaken anywhere on Earth through the grace of the Mahāsiddhas and Dakinis.

Such an awakening does not make you less connected to your own culture, nation or ancestry. It allows you to serve them from a deeper place. You do not become an imitation of someone else. You become more fully yourself. You do not need to arrive knowing everything. Approach truthfully, with sincerity and heart.

Grace will follow.

With love “Swedish” Bhairavi