Why is the syllable ‘Om’ considered so powerful and sacred? When the Pure Infinite Cosmic Consciousness we call God had the divine urge to manifest, it let out a huge sigh —a thunderous cosmic exhalation or ‘Aaaaa…Vuuuu…Mmmm’ that began to reverberate everywhere and became the seed of creation. The ancient sages called this syllable ‘Om’ or ‘Aum’, which modern scientists call the ‘Big Bang’.
The cosmos emerged from this seed syllable which continues to reverberate in the Universe. As long as this sound still vibrates, the Universe will continue to expand. This is not expansion in volume, but the power of potency that keeps increasing. When the reverberation stops and the retention of the breath of the cosmos begins, the Universe will stop expanding.
For instance, take soap bubbles at the end of a ring. If you keep your breath blowing at a particular rhythm through the air tube behind the ring, the bubble continues to be stuck to the ring in front of the air tube. If you exhale, the bubble gets dislodged and goes afloat in the air for sometime, finally breaking into just moisture. Likewise, when the cosmic exhalation begins, the Universe will begin to contract just like the soap bubble in the air and finally merge with its source.
This cyclical process of creation and dissolution, which takes thousands of billions of years, repeats periodically at the Will of the Pure Infinite Cosmic Consciousness. This is what our enlightened sages have told us. Of the Big Bang Theory, scientists also say that our Universe began with a Big Bang; it is currently expanding, but will begin to contract at some point in time and will ultimately disappear into a ‘black hole’ leaving no trace of either matter or energy.
When our breath is fully charged through meditation, we will be able to hear this Cosmic Syllable ‘Om’ constantly within us. Even now, if one picks up an empty glass and holds it next to the ear, a faint humming noise will be heard. That is ‘Mm’ or the last part of the Cosmic Syllable ‘Aum’, which sustains the Universe and constantly expands it. Since it is the very source of the whole cosmos, ‘Om’ is considered very sacred. As many are aware, ‘Om’ is a combination of three vowels —Aa, Uu and Mm. That is why the sages who dwell in the Himalayas always chant ‘Om’ as ‘Aum’.
‘Aum’, as we know, is also the seed syllable of our soul. So, whenever we chant it, our connectivity with our own soul is activated. When we strengthen this with regular chanting, our minds become extremely subtle and we attain the subtlety that is required to understand our soul. For example, all of us have many electronic or electrical gadgets at home. These have at least one crucial, subtle micro-connection by which the chip has been soldered to the motherboard using a powerful magnifying lens. As long as this soldering is intact, the gadget functions perfectly. However, when it gives way, the gadget breaks down. Likewise, our connection with our soul has been cut off and ‘Aum’ is the sacred syllable that resolders us to our soul.
Always remaining connected to our soul is the purpose of spirituality which is the science of vibrational frequencies. The cosmos is filled with waves of different kinds, vibrating at various frequencies. For instance, when we want to tune in to a particular radio station, we have to select the appropriate wave frequency on our radio. So, if we want to tune in to our soul, which is a very subtle energy, all our five sheaths must vibrate at the right frequency. This is accomplished when we chant ‘Aum’, because it is a universal connector. As we know, we get connectivity on a mobile phone to make calls only when we insert our SIM card. Likewise, ‘Aum’ is the spiritual SIM card that we must insert into our spiritual core to obtain complete connectivity with our soul.
ashram-india@shrinimishamba.org