How do the following conditions affect the meditator: partial colour blindness
and hearing deficiency?
—Ravi, India
Dear Ravi,
Thank you for your question. Color blindness and hearing deficiency do not hinder a person’s ability to meditate.
Once Swami Kriyananda was asked, “if you lose your hearing, would you lose your ability to hear the AUM sound in meditation?”
Swamiji replied, “Oh, no. That has nothing to do with it. There’s an inner ear and an outer ear. The inner ear is your capacity of hearing, and the outer ear is your physical sense of hearing. An interesting thing is that deaf people find that, when they die, they suddenly hear perfectly clearly! Blind people see perfectly clearly.
“There are these two aspects of the senses. The inner aspect belongs to the astral body, and the outer aspect belongs to the physical body.
“So, no, you don’t lose your ability to hear AUM. Rather, being hard of hearing improves your ability to hear AUM!”
Joy to you,
Dharmarajan
