Om: Swami Satchidananda chanted it at Woodstock and the Beatles sang it on the last album they made together. It was hennaed on to Madonna’s palm and is tattooed on Alyssa Milano’s wrist. It has been printed on t-shirts and yoga pants, sculpted into coffee table art and painted on tapestries. For more than forty years “Om” has seeped into western consciousness as a symbol of unity, peace and deep spirituality. Of course, Om has a history that goes back much further than the United States in the 1960s. It was presented in the Upanishad texts of India and has been used in the sacred chants of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and by the Zoroastrians. It is claimed by some that reverberations of Om can even be heard in both the “Amens” of Christians and the “Alms” of Moslems.

Often yoga classes begin or end with the chanting of Om. It creates a nice vibration—it is resonant and it feels good to do. But beyond its pleasant feeling, what’s the reason for chanting Om? What’s Om all about? It’s actually a bit more accurate, at least from the yoga tradition, to spell the mantra “Aum” because it is composed of three different sounds, strung together into one mantra. The sounds are “a” plus “u” plus “ma.” They are letters of the Sanskrit alphabet, and each of these sounds has a multiplicity of interpretations. One common version is that “a” (as in “mama”) is the root sound of the energy of Brahma, the Hindu creator-deity. Chanting Aum invokes the energy of this divinity.
The second syllable of Aum is “u” pronounced “oo” as in “who.” “U” is the sound of preservation or continuation. It is the force of the deity Vishnu, the preserver, the one who maintains life. So, the chant also invokes a sustainable energy. The last sound of the mantra, “ma” is related to Shiva, the one who dissolves, or withdraws from common reality; in other words, the one who presides over physical death. The three parts of Aum, which merge into one long sound, represent the journey through all three stages of the expressed universe—birth, life, and death—on both a personal and a macrocosmic level. When all three sounds are strung together correctly, the prana, or life force energy coming out of the chanter, hits the mouth in all five positions of the Sanskrit pronunciation, from the back of the throat up to the lips. In other words, the prana goes through the roots of all sacred sounds to produce Aum.

Some yogis have taught that the three sounds should be made from different parts of the body with the lower chakras producing the “a” sound, the heart and throat chakras producing the “u” sound and the “ma” sound coming from the upper chakras in the head. If you chant the mantra this way, it makes a sort of “ng” sound at the end as the tongue presses into the palate on the last part of the mantra. Pronouncing the chant sort of like “ong” causes its vibration to rise up into the head and reverberate throughout the upper chakras.
Another way to think about Aum is to use the metaphor of the marketplace. If you were up close shopping at a market, you would hear bits of conversation like, “How much are those peppers?” and “Those tomatoes look good, I’ll have three pounds.” But if you were to move away from the market place, you would just hear a low humming noise composed of all the conversations merging together. Similarly, if you were able to step back from the universe and just listen, you would hear the collective sound of the universe, and that sound is Aum. And this is why the yogis say that ultimately, the true sound of Aum is heard in deep meditation. In a deep state of meditation, the yogi is able to step away from the universe and hear the totality of existence. For thousands of years, yogis reported that the sound they heard while contemplating the deepest reality was Aum. This mystical Aum cannot be heard with the ears or made with the vocal chords. The human ear is limited to hearing what is within range; it can’t hear the entire universe. Similarly, the human voice is limited; by itself it cannot create the sound of the entire universe. It can only replicate it, which is probably why the ancient yogis decided to chant Aum in the first place. They were trying to replicate what they heard internally, and allow the students to have a glimpse of their experience in order to give them a sense of a deeper reality.

The three sounds of Aum as the reflection of the totality of creation are not the end of the story. If you look at the design to the left, you’ll see a crescent-moon shape at the top with a dot above it. While the shape that looks like a three with the swirl coming out of it to the right represents the expressed universe, the dot on the top represents the unmanifest universe. It is sometimes called a “sonic dot,” and implies that there is a realm of existence beyond the manifest universe, the spiritual realm. The crescent shape represents the process of transmuting matter from the manifest to the unmanifest; in other words, doing the practices of yoga take one from the individual Self to the union with the cosmic Self. This means that Aum is not only a chant that represents the whole of the expressed universe, it’s also the vehicle, when heard internally, through which material life is transported to the spiritual realm. And really, this is why it feels good to chant it. It’s reminding us that it is possible to grow and transform ourselves, to move from occupying a mundane reality to living in a spiritual one. The universe is ceaselessly chanting its call of Aum, and to catch a murmur of it is to wake up to a blissful reality. Om shanthi, om shanthi, om shanthi.

Kristine Kaoverii Weber MA, LMBT, e-RYT, has taught yoga for the past eleven years. She is the director of the Subtle Yoga Teacher Training program at One Center Yoga in Asheville and the co-director of the Ananda Marga Yoga Teacher Training program. Please visit her website at subtleyoga.com.

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