AUM, the Cosmic Vibration

Excerpt from Sunday Service with Nayaswami Pranaba at Ananda Village, August 12th, 2018

Transcript

Nayaswami Pranaba:

The Dual Spellings of OM: Vocalization and Vibration

When we're chanting OM, that really isn't OM, and yet it is very real that it's OM. But, you know there are two spellings of OM that we use? O M and A U M? And I think you're all probably aware why that's the case. OM is more the vocalization of the sound, so we get it closer to what it can be.

AUM: Reflection of Creation, Sustenance, and Dissolution

Then, the spelling of A U M reflects the vibration and creation of what happens. The first letter, the first part of the sound is Brahma, that creative force. The second letter and that sustaining force is Vishnu sustaining the energy in creation. The M, that last part of the sound, is the dissolving part of Shiva.

The Art of Chanting: From Throat to Lips

Actually, there is a tradition that, of course that's how you chant it, that the beginning of the chant is more in the back of the throat. Next, it comes through the mouth itself and then the lips are closed for the M part. In that M part there's a deep tradition (not that we tune into it in the direct way) of humming in yoga. It comes from that "mmm" part of AUM.

Anagata: The Absolute beyond Expression

But in the Vedanta tradition there's a fourth part of AUM, and it's the Absolute. It's the essence beyond the expression, and it has a name in Sanskrit called "Anagata", and it means the absolute, where there isn't the expression of that sound.

Exploring the AUM

Now, you know, several times it was mentioned about the recording of the Sun flares sounds like OM, and I listen to it, and it does sound like OM. But, even that isn't OM; it's just an expression of OM. Isn't that interesting? It's a deeper, more refined part of it.

Laya Yoga: Absorption into the Essence of AUM

So, what we're doing when we're working with AUM, we're attuning, we're aligning or merging. So there's the tradition of mantra yoga, and the most prevalent mantra in mantra yoga taught as a meditation technique is OM, to repeat OM as a mantra.

Opening Up to Divine Experience

That isn't the tradition that we have from our path from Yogananda, the tradition we have is Laya yoga, which is the absorption into AUM. It's a deeper experience of using the sound and then becoming the sound. We're absorbed in the presence of AUM, and it may be the sounds of the chakras, or it may be the powerful eminence of AUM itself, but that's the part that's beyond the expression.

Of course from one perspective it feels that God is hiding from us. But it's only because we haven't done our part of opening up to that experience.