Now and Beyond This is THAT (February 2022 Newsletter)
I was invited to teach a term-long weekly yoga class at a local middle school in the Hilltop area several years ago. It was an illuminating, reassuring and enlightening time. The first time I entered the classroom one of the boys jumped up on his desk, crossed his legs, rested his hands on his knees, closed his eyes and loudly chanted a long ‘OOOOMMM’. It was a promising start in a community where yoga is the least of their concerns.
Image credit: KittenBroEeev, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
In my classes I suggest a variety of ways to focus one’s attention, hoping that one of the many ways will resonate with each student. However, in the back of my mind is always the thought that perhaps we should stick to the simplest and most profound of mantras, chants, vibrations and what have you! The sound ‘Om’.
Om is the sound of silence. Om is the sound of the one hand clapping. Om is the vibration of the living Universe as it breathes. It is a steady pulsation just like a breath… on and on and on. Correctly pronounced it is exactly as it is written, ‘OM’. Known as anahat nada in Sanskrit, it means that it is a flow, vibration or sound (nada) produced without two objects being struck together as in a percussion instrument (anahat).
The sound is the combination of three sounds, A.U.M. ‘A’ represents one’s waking state and the physical body. It also represents the birth of sound, since sound and vibration are primary to all experience, as explained in 'First there was the Word'. It is the beginning or waking. ‘U’ represents the subtle body and the dreamless state of existence and represents life and living. ‘M’ is the ending drawn out sound which represents the causal body in a state of deep sleep, death, and other states beyond consciousness.
Note the crescent on top of the OM symbol, and pay special attention to the tiny dot that floats above it. The dot is known as turiya, literally meaning the 4th. The crescent divides this world of things that the senses can experience. All of this is maya or illusion. The 4th means it is beyond life and is true. It is the eternal Self, indescribable and beyond comprehension. There are no words for it!
How should it be sounded? Who knows? If we could describe it, it would be within the ambit of our senses, but it is not. We cannot describe what is beyond. But we can each experience it differently in color, light, echo and sound. Try it, stick with it. In yogic terms, it should be sounded all the time, and also as one takes their last breath so that they may gain enlightenment.
OM
Namaste,
sipra