5 The Sounds of Nature
Danny woke up after a few hours. At that time Petunia also entered the room with another bottle of milk and some kind of baby food.
After feeding Danny she left, but not before sighing again at how good a child Harry was.
As she shut the door to his room, Danny's mind started working again. He went through all the points he had made in his mind and zeroed in on the first thing that he needed to do.
Actually, his body didn't give him much of a choice as he couldn't do anything that involved any physical effort.
Thus, the only thing left was the second point of the six-point formula: Gain full control over his magic power.
He started going through everything he remembered about the original story, but there were very few means of increasing and controlling one's magic:
1. The amount of magic one could possess or in other words, the amount of mana in one's body was directly proportional to one's age.
2. Get some kind of magical artifact, like Dumbledore's Elder wand or Gryffindor's sword to gain more magic power.
3. Use transfiguration magic over your own body and hope for the best.
Among these methods, the first one was automatically out, since that is exactly what he needed to solve. This method required a lot of time and time was the one thing that he didn't have.
The third option was the most dangerous one, Voldemort being the prime example. He used a lot of transfiguration on himself and by the end of it, he barely resembled a human being. So he was very cautious about it because he would like to remain human instead of looking like a lizard.
But Danny didn't completely rule this option out. He would decide this only after he knows more about transfiguration.
Anyways, in order to be successful in this, he would first need to become an animagus. But that was in itself one of the most difficult magic in existence. There were only seven registered animagus in the entire magical world.
Although not all the animagus register themselves, Harry's father and his three friends, the Marauders, were a prime example of this fact.
Even then, there would not be more than twenty of such in total. That just proves its difficulty.
So only after he is able to achieve his animagus form, he would think again in this direction.
Then comes the magical artifacts. From the story, he could only count a few such items that could actually help him achieve his goals. The elder wand was with Dumbledore while the Gryffindor's sword was also out of the question since it was a property of Hogwarts and the entire magical world would be on his tail if he dared to take it for himself.
So, he felt completely out of options. But being the tenacious guy he was, he didn't give up. He had read a lot of books on spiritual enlightenment in his previous life. Among all the books, there was one thing in common, they all talked about the importance of meditation.
He didn't know how the current world perceived magic.
According to him, it was something similar to blood that had its own pathways to travel inside the body. It was more illusory as compared to blood which could be seen and felt with your five senses.
Magic, however, could not be perceived through normal five senses. It required the use of the proverbial sixth sense, something which was nothing more than an abstract idea at best.
But in all the spiritual books, they talked about enhancing the sixth sense or as some cultures called it, awakening the mind's eye. It was needed in order to feel what couldn't be felt normally.
He didn't know how much of it was true and how much of it was plain hogwash, but he needed some place to start.
Otherwise, he would go insane being unable to do anything for the next few years.
As such, he calmed himself down and recalled the methods of meditation that he could use in his situation. But he didn't want to just keep on meditating without any specific goals. Otherwise, it would be inefficient and even if he got any results out of it, he wouldn't be able to capitalize on it.
Therefore, he decided to set a few milestones for himself:
Step 1. Feel the existence of magic inside the body
Step 2. Understand the flow of magic
Step 3. Control this flow
Step 4. Achieve enough control so as to alter the path of mana inside the body
Step 5. Use all this to cast spells and figure out if the spells can be modified or enhanced
It was a pretty ambitious goal, but he knew, as long as he was able to achieve the first two, the rest would follow pretty easily.
So with that in mind, he tried the first step of meditation: Empty your mind.
This would be the initial step, no matter which method or school of meditation you follow.
Only after you are able to empty your mind effectively would you be able to go to the next step: Visualization.
The final step would be the Inner Eye.
This could also be called as the mind's eye or the third eye or the eye of the soul.
All of these methods had the same ultimate purpose and thus, Danny put everything else out of his mind and started focusing on emptying his mind.
Although it sounded not so difficult, reality gave him another kick in the nuts.
Even after trying for almost three days, he was not able to achieve any progress on the first step.
The more he tried to empty his mind, the more his mind would wander off.
After failing for the umpteenth time, he decided to change his approach. It was very difficult to completely empty your mind from any thoughts. Forget difficult, it was outright impossible to do so.
Any kind of stimulation from outside would produce some ripples in your brain which would, in turn, produce some imagery and your attempt would fail.
He thought really hard and when he recalled the stories of ancient saints and all the spiritual gurus from his previous life, the one thing they all had in common was they chose someplace that was close to nature in order to achieve enlightenment.
But being close to nature wouldn't solve his predicament of absolute emptiness. There would still be noise and slight stimulations which would affect his psyche. So that could not be the answer.
What was it about being close to nature that led these saints towards their goal?
At this moment, the door to his room opened and Petunia walked in with his dinner.
As he finished his food, instead of walking out like usual, she sat beside his cradle and started humming some tune while rocking him gently. He understood that she wanted to help him fall asleep.
It touched him a little bit and he looked at her more carefully this time. She had long black hair with a few strands of grey here and there. There were a faint crow's feet at the corner of her eyes. Overall she looked older than what she should be. She had a gentle smile on her face as she rocked his crib and he slowly started feeling sleepy while listening to the lullaby she was humming.
Just as he was about to drift off, a light bulb went off in his head.
He felt so stupid for not realizing it earlier.
He failed in his attempt at meditation because it was impossible to succeed with his current approach. He wasn't supposed to completely empty his mind. Instead, he was supposed to be able to control it enough so that he could focus on whatever he wanted to.
That's why all the saints chose places close to nature as they have fewer distractions and most of the things could be considered nothing but background noise, which can put you under a trance-like state more easily as compared to doing it while living amongst other people.
It was the same principle as he felt just now when Petunia was humming the lullaby and he started feeling sleepy. The tune provided a background noise that helped in removing any distracting thoughts from his mind and helping him achieve that sleepy state.
Maybe this was the reason why all the meditation centers in his previous world would play some kind of soothing music filled with sounds of nature, like the chirping of birds, flowing of water or the sound of the rustling of leaves.
As he spent more thought on this, it started making more and more sense to him and he got the feeling that maybe this was the breakthrough he has been waiting for.
So he concentrated on Petunia's humming and slowly he could feel himself enter a peculiar state, where all the other thoughts that kept popping up in his head previously had disappeared and he could feel his every heartbeat and every breath he was taking.
It was a wonderful feeling, something similar to when you enter deep into a swimming pool and all the noises just disappear. You are able to feel your beating heart and if you stay long enough, even the flow of your blood.
This was a huge leap for him and he felt as if his goals might not just be a pipe dream. With this thought, he finally drifted off to sleep.
