AUM -The Aadi mantra

[Guest guest]

!!!HARI AUM !!!

 

The Pranava Mantra still baffles humanity. It may be

the most widely researched spiritual symbol amongst

all religions.

 

Just copied an article from 'yoga.com'.

 

Wish u all happy reading

 

Narayana Narayana Narayana

 

Regards

 

Balagopal

 

John Schumacher 9/01/2001

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

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