of sound can set off extraordinary reactions - like fingernails down a blackboard or spooky noises in the night. I remember one of my girls had an amusing aversion to the sound of sticky tape being pulled off the roll. "TAAAAPE" she would scream, and run out of the room! My eldest boy intensely disliked the sound of the vacuum cleaner until about 5 years old. Perhaps I had inadvertently frightened them with these noises when they were in the crib or perhaps she was an overworked storeman and packer and he an overworked housemaid in their previous lives!
   A baby's first connection between sound and experience is already inbred. Remember he has already spent 9 months closely experiencing all your moods: your happiness, sadness, anger, peacefulness, tiredness, energetic times; he knows them already. Things like your blood pressure, adrenal energy or physical agitation during pregnancy were all teaching him what an argument means - biologically and psychologi-cally. So anytime after childbirth you are stressed, your baby will pick up on that, through any of his senses, as well as through his intuition. You cannot trick him with the pretences of coo-cooing and a cute little nursery song!
   For him to trust in you, the intentions of your actions, tone of your voice, volume of your voice, words of your voice, facial expressions, as well as your handling of him, should all match. For example if you are trying to calm him down with a soothing voice, but your inner anxiety is showing on your face and in your frustrated handling of him, there will be confusion in his understanding of what that voice pattern, facial expression and way of handling means. This leads back to my frequent assertion that your own state of being so frequently becomes your baby's.
   There is much conjecture about how humans learn the skill of language. Some linguists believe language skills are hard-wired into our brains and that upbringing just brings it out. Others believe it is an acquired skill, dependent on how it is picked up within early life. I believe that both these factors come into play and that also we teach our children language by putting it into their brains in utero and then later by bringing it out through experience. I have always been astonished at the young age a baby is able to comprehend not only the tone of a mother's voice but also the meaning of her words. It is my opinion that as our children's first educators we should assume they want to understand and assume they can understand rather than assuming they don't and can't. Always communicate with your baby not with babble but with real words and real meaning. He has heard your words

before. They are already in his unconscious memory and through matching external experience with those words, conscious understanding of them will gradually unfold.
   Exposing children to certain kinds of music is now known to help with harmonious brain development, not to mention the soothing effects it can have on their emotions. Small babies are often soothed by the gentle singing of lullabies. Certainly babies and children love simple songs and rhythms, and nursery rhymes have long been used as a teaching tool for language and emotional self expression. The yogic practice of kirtan - repetitive chanting of mantras to music - is a simple and pleasant way to induce a meditative mood in children (and adults too) as well as a great opportunity for unselfconscious vocal expression. Based on the system of classical Indian ragas, the musical branches of yogic science (Nada Yoga and Shabda Yoga) teach that particular frequencies and scales deeply affect the human being, both in its physical and etheric forms. Through music of the correct kind the subtle energies of the chakras can be balanced, moods can be changed and even the biological condition of the organs can be altered.
   So, as well as protecting babies from strange and frightening noises, exposing them to a wide range of interesting (preferably natural) sounds, is the best way to enhance their auditory skills as well as to help develop their vocal capabilities.

The Sixth Sense
   What is the sixth sense? Do we humans have a sensory input and method of expression which is other than the 5 (so-called) normal senses? Of course we do. According to yoga, the sixth sense is nothing other than pure mind - or intuition as it is often called. It is simply commonsense, the most basic one and the one we all have in common, irrespective of our other sensory physical abilities and disabilities. Intuition is simply that sense of knowing which has not come through any one of the other 5, external senses. It is not something super-natural or para-normal but is really the most natural and most normal sense we have. For those who know how to access it, it is the most trustworthy sense we can use when information from the usual 5 senses may be conflicting. So how does intuition work between a baby and its mother? Is a baby using its sixth sense to communicate even before it can think rationally or speak? This is definitely a controversial area, but my understanding of the way things work is as follows.
   Babies are very pure-minded entities. (And I don't mean perfect beings or