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The Meaning of Aum (OM)
John Schumacher - Founder of Unity Woods Yoga Center, Washington, D.C.
Namaste,
I begin my classes here at Unity Woods and
out on the road the same way every time. I sit with the students for a few
minutes, either in Sukhasana or Virasana, palms folded in front of the
chest. As we sit, I give some instructions to relax the students and
redirect their attention inward. Then we sound Aum together three times.
Although in my classes here the same students tend to stay from session to
session, inevitably, a few leave and some new ones take their places. So
every now and then, I talk with them about why we chant Aum. There are
several reasons.
One is that Aum is a soothing sound that
allows us to settle down from the busy-ness of the world and invites us to
turn our awareness inward.
Another is that because we begin Aum with
our mouths wide open and gradually close our lips as the sound progresses,
we transition physically as well as mentally from projecting ourselves into
the material outer world to redirecting ourselves into the inner world of
the Spirit.
Yet another aspect I mention is that the
sound ahhhh starts in our chests at the heart center (Anahata Chakra), moves
upward with the ooooo sound in the throat center (Vishuddha Chakra), and
ends with the sound mmmmm., which vibrates the higher centers in the head (Ajna
and Sahasrara Chakras). Thus, it represents and enhances the upward movement
of energy along the spine that occurs as we progress in our practice.
There are many more meanings behind the
sacred syllable Aum. In the introduction to Light On Yoga, B.K.S. Iyengar
says, "A few instances of the various interpretations given to it may be
mentioned here to convey its meaning." He then mentions these "few
instances" for another page and a half.
Amongst all of these, the interpretation of
Aum that is most meaningful and powerful to me is as the representation of
the Primordial Vibration, the Original Sound, the First Word. Maybe it's
because I'm a musician, but in explaining this aspect of Aum to my students,
the image that works best for me is that of a stringed instrument. When you
pluck or strike one of the strings on a guitar, for instance, the other
strings, though unplucked themselves, nonetheless vibrate in resonance with
the vibration from that plucked string. In a very real sense, we are-indeed
all of creation is-nothing more or less than strings vibrating in resonance
with the First Vibration or Word. Much of what we do in our practice of
yoga, it seems to me, is to work on tuning ourselves more and more
exquisitely, so that as we resonate with that First Sound, represented by
Aum., we do so as harmoniously as we can. Perhaps even more important, our
practice prepares us so that if and when we, ourselves, are plucked, our
tone is as clear and beautiful as the Earth's song on a spring morning, and
the vibrations we send out are steady and balanced, in sync with the pulse
of the Great Cosmic Ooze.
Lest this strike you as a complete flight
of fantasy, attractive, perhaps, but a little out in the ozone, let me
relate it to a story I read in the paper the other day. A headline on the
front page had caught my eye. "Calculating Contents of Cosmos," it said,
with the subtitle "Ordinary Matter Makes Up Only 4.5 Percent, Teams Find".
Although that may sound like pretty
ponderous stuff, I find articles about astrophysics and quantum physics
really interesting. Not because I'm a science buff. In fact, in school I
avoided mathematics-oriented sciences such as chemistry and physics like I
avoid Republican fundraisers. I notice such articles, however, because ever
since I read The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra a couple of decades ago,
I've been fascinated by the parallels between Yogic philosophy and Western
science concerning the origins and nature of the universe.
The newspaper article presented information
about the current theory that the universe is made up primarily of stuff
astronomers call "dark matter" and "dark energy". Only 4.5% is ordinary
matter, which the author, Washington Post Staff Writer Kathy Sawyer,
described as "all the shining stars and galaxies, plus people, computers,
cats and so on". The "dark matter" and "dark energy" part was intriguing,
but I found another piece of the story even more fascinating.
It stated that, "Three independent teams of
astronomers yesterday presented the most precise measurements to date of the
infant universe..., exposing telltale reverberations they called Ôthe music
of creation'.... [T]he research teams reached back across time and space to
take precise readings of light emitted about 400,000 years after the Big
Bang explosion that gave birth to the universe."
The article quoted John Carlstrom of the
University of Chicago as saying, "We're looking back as far as you can go
with light-14 billion years, or roughly the age of the universe,... In a
sense, [the ancient light] allows us to Ôsee' sound in the early
universe."Aum.
When I read those words, I couldn't help
but think of the biblical passage, John 1:1, "In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."Aum.
I recalled also that in Genesis (1:1-3),
the Bible says, "In the beginning God created the heaven and earth. And the
earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the
deepÉ. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light."
The Old Testament is saying that in the
beginning, even before there was light, God, the Creator who made heaven and
earth, existed. And the New Testament declares that in the beginning God was
the Word. According to the Bible, then, heaven and earth-the cosmos-issued
forth from the Word.Aum.
And the most current scientific beliefs
described in The Washington Post article are in fundamental accord with the
Bible. The entire cosmos, they say, emanates from the "music of creation".
Aum.
I find it exciting that both the ancient
Judeo-Christian and contemporary scientific explanation of the Creation seem
to point in the same direction. And just as exciting, these explanations
agree completely with the teachings and philosophy of Yoga.
B.K.S. Iyengar, for example, in Light On
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, says, "Sound is vibration, which, as modern
science tells us, is the source of all creation." (This is in his commentary
on the 27th sutra of the first chapter, which refers to the meaning of
pranava or Aum.)
The Amrita-Bindu-Upanishad states that,
"The imperishable sound [om] is the supreme Absolute."
Georg Feuerstein in The Yoga Tradition
says, "The syllable om... is held to be or to express the pulse of the
cosmos itself. It was through meditative practice rather than intellectual
speculation that the seers and sages of Vedic times arrived at the idea of a
universal sound, eternally resounding in the universe, which they saw as the
very origin of the created world."
It's so fascinating that the very same
things ancient (and contemporary) yogis, sages, and seers discovered by
peering through their inner eye into their inner universe, the modern day
scientists are discovering as they peer through their telescopes into the
far recesses of the outer universe.
The great Sufi master Hazrat Inayat Khan
says it very well: "The one who seeks truth through science, the one who
searches for it through religion, the one who finds it through philosophy,
the one who finds it through mysticism-in whatever manner one seeks truth,
one finds it in the end."
He goes on to say, "A world in the making
can be likened to a great jigsaw puzzle whose separate parts have life and
are capable of independent movement. The way in which man can find his own
place is to tune his instrument to the keynote of the chord to which he
belongs. Sound is the force which groups all things from atoms to worlds.
The chording vibration sounds in the innermost being of man and can only be
heard in silence. When we go into the inner chamber and shut the door to
every sound that comes from the life without, then will the voice of God
speak to our soul and we will know the keynote of our life." Aum.
Reprinted with Permission
John Shumacher
Unity Woods Yoga Center
http://www.unitywoods.com
All rights reserved
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