If I was forced to use a label to describe myself I’d say I am a comfortably-lapsed Roman Catholic with a pronounced Taoist streak who has a lot of experience just listening.

But as Lao Tzu said: “The Tao that can be named is not the Tao”. lol.

During their development, the little “peace pucks” now called N.O.W. refused to be named for quite some time. This evasiveness to becoming form-limited by a name is one of the charming aspects of N.O.W. People call N.O.W. their “tone time”, their “tone pods”, their “peace pods” and even (one of my favorites) “God in a can”. All good.

I’ve written a lot about N.O.W. because, in part, I enjoy the process of attempting to use symbolic language to describe something that cannot be described –– to use words as “pointers” to that which cannot be named. But sooner or later it comes back to this: “just listen”.

As an audio product designer with a lot of professional experience listening and describing what I’m hearing I could describe ways in which you could listen to N.O.W.

I could talk about bringing your focus to the various acoustic aspects of N.O.W. as a substitute for the incessant, unwanted, problematic thinking you may wish to transcend.

Listening to N.O.W. we could focus on timbre (the pure sine wave tone quality) or the amplitude pulsation variations that are always changing. We could focus on the moment-to-moment pitch sequences that almost, but not quite, make melodic lines (see –– N.O.W. even evades being “melodic”) or we could focus on the ambiguous vertical pitch intervals (chordal information) that arise when multiple tones are played at the same time.

But none of that is necessary. We can just listen.

Without analyzing why N.O.W. is endlessly intriguing and effective at creating gaps between thoughts in which you are simply aware –– conscious, we can simply just BE with N.O.W.

“Just listen” is pretty close to “just be”. Because listening is not quite a “doing”, listening is a type of sensory awareness, and when we get to intentional sensory awareness we are just baby steps away from noticing we are aware. And who, or what, is noticing? We could say consciousness is noticing, we could say our essential self is noticing.

N.O.W. is like a personal short cut or secret passage around the traffic jam of your thinking mind –– a direct route that gets you back to your essential self much more quickly than years of meditative practice. Because so often meditative practice is treated as a “doing” and not as simply “being”. Repeating a mantra is mental doing, it is not being. Why not skip the doing and just be?

Well, I suppose the popularity of mantra meditation could be ascribed to the fact that many people don’t know how to just “be” without doing something. The egoic mind certainly does not like this. In fact, the egoic mind doesn’t exist during periods of “just being”  –– the egoic mind only exits through thought. But even the egoic mind gets tired and lets its guard down. It stops thinking occasionally.

Transcending the noise and mental suffering of a busy mind begins with simply noticing when thought is not present. This is not doing, it is just noticing.

N.O.W. gives us something to notice –– pleasant, ever-changing tones that are not fixed in form. One doesn’t have to repeat a mantra, practice a tricky breathing technique, focus on a candle or even watch the stream of thoughts as they arise and evolve.

N.O.W.’s New Origin Waveform tones exist outside of thoughts. If one just listens with intent –– attentively, one cannot be thinking at the same time. And when we begin to be “aware of being aware”, when we experience our essential self as consciousness, we are participating in the ongoing evolution and blossoming of consciousness itself –– the eternal, infinite formlessness which cannot be named by symbolic language.

Now that is a great place begin life again and again each day. 

Just listen!

N.O.W. is an acronym for New Origin Waveforms.

N.O.W.’s New Origin Waveforms help you experience “awareness of being aware” –– experience your essential self, increasingly free from thought. This is the essence of a spiritual practice –– simply awareness of formless being unencumbered by the constraints of your mind’s thought forms.

New Origin Waveforms are the special tones that are the heart of the N.O.W. Tone Therapy System. These special tones help relax you, help you remember the inner peace that comes when you remember your essential self, and, importantly, they provide their special help over and over again. The New Origin Waveforms help us begin to awaken –– again and again, after we’ve fallen back asleep into form-identification.

Moving from a “normal”, busy state of mind full of past and future-focused thoughts is a gradual process. Many people are not even aware they have an essence-identity (consciousness) beyond their thoughts. Others have embarked on a path that has been called “awakening” –– becoming increasingly aware they are consciousness beyond their thoughts. On this path they experience moments of thought-free awareness interspersed between longer periods of thought-bound existence.

During a 3 minute N.O.W. Tone Therapy Session the only thing one has to “do” (and it is not really a “doing”) is to simply listen, and remember to bring attention back to listening when thoughts arise and are recognized. The New Origin Waveforms help listeners to do this because they themselves are always beginning again in each moment.

Unlike a fixed-form musical composition with a definite beginning and organized development, N.O.W.’s New Origin Waveform tone sequences are always “just starting” and there is no logical or intentional development. Each tone cluster that arises in each moment is a new arrangement never before heard in exactly that particular way. There is sublime beauty in this. I experience this as forgiveness of the “past” and as an invitation to begin again.

To be human is to strive and to experience both successes and failings. Failing to meet a challenge successfully is simply an opportunity to rededicate ourselves to learning and growth. This also occurs during the challenges we face as we practice stilling our minds so that we can experience our true, essence-identity that exists beyond our thoughts.

During diffuse focus, “open monitoring” meditation (different than focused mantra meditation or verbally guided meditation) there will be periods of still mind and periods where thoughts have entered. N.O.W.’s New Origin Waveforms give the listener something to observe, and they function as a gentle reminder to let thoughts go as they arise and return again and again to: just listen.

Because the New Origin Waveforms are constantly beginning again and again, they demonstrate the essential “OK-ness” of returning to thought-free awareness of awareness, again and again. There is no “getting it right”, there is no “failure”. There is simply turning away from thoughts that arise and beginning again to be aware of being aware.

What does this sound like in the head?

I’m an audio product design engineer. I’ll use some language from the world of my work experience to describe the subjective states I experience while listening to N.O.W. Of course you’re a different person with different experiences, different perceptions and different ways of expressing yourself. So here is one person’s experience of a New Origin Waveform session.

I’m one of those beings that came into this world oriented to it through auditory perception. I’m endlessly interested in, and fascinated by, sound and listening to sound. And, as I’ve said before, when one is truly and deeply listening one cannot be thinking at the same time. Try it right now –– just stop reading and listen to whatever is going on around you. You will notice that for at least a few seconds you are not thinking. As your auditory focus weakens, thoughts will arise and your mind will soon be off following a new stream of thinking again.

When I begin a N.O.W. listening session I’m in a state of mild excitement or anticipation –– “what will N.O.W. do this time?” (unvocalized). This heightened, anticipatory state is experienced free of thought.

But before too long, I become aware of either fully-formed thoughts and sentences, or become aware of thoughts and sentences that appear to be trying to come into mind-audible form. This second category is particularly interesting –– the nearly mind-audible thoughts can be observed and abandoned before they become completely audible in the mind’s “ear”.

This shows me that there is a range of “audibility” of my mind’s mental activity. During some N.O.W. sessions I notice words, sentences, “I” / “me” / “mine” thoughts are attenuated. It is as if I have brought down the mixing board fader on the “thought channel” and these thought-sounds, while arisen, are not distinctly audible in my mind, they seem more distant, unclear and nearly inaudible. Because they have been attenuated they are not so clear and compelling. It is easier for my conscious self to simply ignore them and not become engaged with them.

But of course some thoughts arise that are SUPER COMPELLING and my mind becomes engaged and follows them around. This may go on for a second, a few seconds or in severe cases perhaps even a minute where I am “lost in thought”. No problem.

Eventually, something in the New Origin Waveform tones pulls me back to listening again and thoughts fall away. I find N.O.W. to be the most gentle and patient teacher. It simply says, “no problem with thoughts, just listen again”. I find N.O.W. helps me forgive the intrusion of thoughts and begin again and again to create a new now moment –– a new origin, free of thought imbued with the grace, joy and love that comes with recognizing my essential self –– consciousness.