What is ॐ and What is its Significance in Dharmic Tradition
A lot of you have asked me about ॐ and have requested me to explain its significance. So in this article we will elaborate about ॐ.
ॐ is one of the most important iconographical features of all the Dharmic religions coming out of India. Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism all consider ॐ to be divine. Despite being of great importance in all Indian religions, most Indians are confused regarding what this divine syllable actually means. This is because different explanations have been presented in different traditions for it. We must realize that as our sages have always said, truth is one but people reach at it via different paths, all these different explanations are just different paths to understand this truth. So here is my humble attempt at explaining to you the truth about ॐ.
Let’s start with the fundamentals. ॐ is a syllable and the science of syllables is Vyakaran. Now who is the tallest figure in the area of Vyakaran? Panini. So let’s go to Panini’s Ashtadhyayi. In his commentary on Ashtadhyayi Paatajali provides an analogy to understand the relationship between the word and its meaning. He says that while thinking of the relationship between the word and its meaning, you should think of the relationship between a flame and the light coming out of the flame. Think of the flame as the meaning and the light coming out of the flame as word. So the word and its meaning are related in the same way at the light coming out of a flame. Now this might be a bit counterintuitive so let me explain this in detail. In other words I will do a commentary on the commentary of Patanjali on Astadhyayi.
What is a flame? Well scientifically speaking, a flame is plasma, or a set of energetically excited atoms, which are vibrating at a very high frequency, and in the process are emitting an electromagnetic field in the form of light rays that we then perceive and see that a flame is there. Now, Patanjali in his analogy compares the flame with the meaning of a word. So what does he mean by this. To understand this let us look at our thinking process. Modern psychology tells us that we do not think in words, we think in emotions, feelings and images. We then attach words to these feelings to express them to ourselves in our conscious mind. It is after a feeling has been associated with a word that it manifests to us and we become conscious of that feeling.
This is completely opposite to what our intuition generally tells us. We generally think that when we have articulated something in a clear language is when we have understood the meaning of it. This is a mistake and a sign of our poor understanding. We must realize that the meaning is already there within our subconscious mind, when we articulate it in words, we become conscious of it. Going back to Patanjali’s analogy, if we picture the meaning of the word as the flame and the sound associated with that meaning that we call the word as the light emitted by that flame. Then it becomes quite clear that it is not that the meaning is coming out of the word rather it is the words that come out of the meaning. Just as vibrations inside matter that is plasma generates light waves in the physical world, vibrations of the excited mind that is feeling and emotions generate sounds in our consciousness.
To give an example from ethymology, let us consider the word dhamaka. It has the sound in the beginning “dham”, which sounds just as an explosion will sound and then “aka” is added to give it subjectivity. When language first started, it must have started like this. We have different sounds associated with different feelings and emotions. Sound of Flute is calm, of Rudra Veena is primordial and of Thumri is erotic. This feeling and emotion goes both ways. When we feel calm we feel as if flute is playing inside our mind, and when we hear the sound of flute externally we feel calm. So you understand that the word and it’s sounds and its meaning is one and the same, this especially the case with Sanskrit. When the Rishis got shruti from the higher plane of consciousness they expressed their inner experiences through Sanskrit and their inner experience got stored in their writing. By meditating on those same sounds others could also experience what the Rishis experienced. That is why it is very important for you to pronounce all the mantras correctly. Any distortion in the pronunciation disturbs what the Rishis want you to experience.
If you have understood this then you can understand what ॐ is. In all the Dharmic religions, the ultimate goal of human life is to experience God and attain enlightenment. Meditating on the syllable ॐ takes you closer to God. AUM can be broken down in four parts a u m and silence. These four parts refer to four states of mind that is waking, dreaming, dreamless sleep and turiya. The sound A is waking state, sound u is the dreaming state, sound m is the dreamless sleep and the silence after this is Turiya. In this state Turiya is when you experience Brahman provided you have cleansed your mind from wandering tendencies. Now as long as you can stay in the Turiya state you experience Brahman, after Turiya disappears you start the next chanting of the word ॐ. The sequences of these sounds in themselves help you concentrate your mind for experiencing Turiya.
The parallel for the sound ॐ is the bell in the temple, which has the same pattern, hitting of the hammer to the skirt of the bell is activity, which is the waking state, followed by the transition from impact to a continuous sound, this is the state of dreaming where we transition from waking state to dreamless sleep. The continuous sound that follows is the sound of deep sleep and finally the silence is the Turiya where you experience a calm and clear mind experiencing God.
Now as I mentioned previously the word, its sound and its meaning is one and same thing. The word ॐ, and its sound and its meaning that is experiencing God is one and the same thing. Therefore ॐ is God itself, the absolute. Now here I would like to add something very important that you must understand. ॐ is the only word that represents God in absolute sense, every other word for God comes from its qualities. As an example we say God is Brahman, but this name brahman come from the meaning every expanding which God is, so it comes from the quality of God. Since everyone comes from God, so God is ever expanding and therefore he is called Brahman. If we say God is Viraat, or God is Anant, all of these names are derived from the Qualities of God and not by God himself. ॐ is the only name of God, which is God himself.
I would like to end this video with a very important thing to keep in mind. I have tried my best to explain to you what ॐ is, but it is not very easy to understand it unless you have really experienced it first hand. So if you really want to understand ॐ, then meditate on this sound. Slowly you will experience him and then no explanation will be needed, you will know yourself why ॐ is God.
Originally published at https://stoicsadhu.com on January 11, 2020.
