The Significance of OM

Have you ever been in a yoga class where there is a led chanting of OM and thought that this was just another hippie-dippie method of making the class seem more "authentic"? I was a few years ago, when I was first starting to explore yoga, and that inspired me to do a little reading-up on the meaning of OM and of chanting in general.

Above you see one of the most popular tattoos of enlightenment-seeking, hybrid-driving westerners, the sacred and mystical syllable of Indian religions. But what makes it so sacred? And how can we find significance and importance in using this in chanting or meditation mantra?

OM is the origin of all sound, the cosmic vibration of the universe. If you are quiet enough, you can hear the hum of OM anywhere and everywhere, in everything you do. God manifests as OM and OM is what we take away from any spiritual experience, whether we know to label it as such or not. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1).

Carerra's commentary on the Yoga Sutras says the following:

"OM is the hum of the business of creation: the making, evolving, and dissolving of beings and objects. You can hear it in the roar of a fire, the deep rumble of the ocean, or the ground-shaking rush of a tornado's winds...It is always vibrating within us...This hum can be hears in deep meditation, when external sound is transcended and internal chatter stilled."

Om is comprised of three letters, A, U, and M and is usually pronounced as a tripthong, each syllable representing birth, life, and death; creation, evolution, and dissolution. There is a lot of energy manifested when one chants OM and so it is the origin of all mantras and the prefix to most mantras.

Yesterday, I spent the day on Plum Island, on a small nature reserve in northern Massachusetts. I was there to sun myself, play in the water, and relax in the sand. I succeeded in all of those things! But I also spent some time trying to listen for OM in the sound of the waves. It did not take too much time or effort to hear the rumble of a wave being born and rushing towards the shore, the crashing of that wave as it crested and fell, and the fizz as it died and retreated back into the ocean. This rhythm became clearer and more powerful the longer I sat there listening for it.

To try to symbolically recreate that sound, the sound of God at work in the world, with a simple chant, seems to fall short. I do know that mindless parroting of a sound has no power, but to be able to just start grasp the possible significance of the mantra, brings about a subtler perception and a moment of connection with the Self.

(sorry for the incredibly poor quality of this cellphone video!)

Where in the world have you heard OM? What have you experienced from the chanting of OM?