What is the syllable Om, and what do the traditions say it means?
What it is
The syllable Om is sounded as a long o closing into a hum, and it is the best known mantra in the world. It opens and closes recitations of the Veda, begins most Hindu prayers and stands at the head of many Buddhist and Jain formulas. The Upanishads treat it as the sound that stands for the whole: the Mandukya Upanishad divides it into three sounds, a, u and m, which it matches to waking, dream and deep sleep, and counts the silence after it as a fourth. Written in the Devanagari script, its sign has become an emblem of Hinduism.
The teaching
As the Mandukya Upanishad with the other Upanishads and Patanjali teaches it.
All this is Om
The Mandukya Upanishad opens: Om, this syllable, is all this. Its explanation follows. The past, the present and the future, all of it is Om, and whatever lies beyond the three times, that too is Om. All this is brahman; this self is brahman; and this self has four quarters. The rest of the short Upanishad lays the four quarters of the self upon the parts of the syllable.
A, the waking
The first quarter is the waking state, Vaishvanara, the self common to all people. It knows outward, has seven limbs and nineteen mouths, and enjoys the gross world. Its letter is a, the first sound, because it runs through all speech and comes first; whoever knows this, the Upanishad says, gains all desires and becomes first.
U, the dream
The second quarter is the dreaming state, Taijasa, the shining one. It knows inward and enjoys the subtle world the mind makes for itself. Its letter is u, which stands for raising and for being between, since dream lies between waking and sleep; whoever knows this raises the line of knowledge and becomes equal to all.
M, the deep sleep
The third quarter is deep sleep, Prajna, the knowing one, where one desires nothing and sees no dream. It is a single mass of consciousness, made of bliss and enjoying bliss, the doorway back to dream and waking. Its letter is m, which stands for measuring and for merging, since in it the other two are measured and dissolve; whoever knows this measures all this and merges into it.
The fourth
The fourth is not a further state but what the three appear in. The Upanishad describes it only by negation: not knowing inward, not knowing outward, not both, not a mass of knowing, neither knowing nor unknowing; unseen, beyond dealings, ungraspable, without marks, unthinkable, unnameable; its essence the certainty of the one self; the stilling of the world; peaceful, kind, not two. That is the self; that is what is to be known. It has no letter. Its sound is the silence after the syllable, which the Upanishad calls the Om without parts.
The bow and the arrow
The other Upanishads give Om its uses. The Mundaka says: Om is the bow, the self is the arrow, brahman is the target; it is to be struck by one who is undistracted, and one becomes one with it as the arrow with the mark. The Katha calls it the word that all the Vedas declare and all disciplines proclaim. The Shvetashvatara says to make the body the lower fire-stick and Om the upper, and by the friction of meditation to see the god hidden within, as fire is hidden in the wood.
The Chandogya calls it the essence of essences: the essence of all beings is earth, of earth water, of water plants, of plants the person, of the person speech, of speech the hymn, of the hymn the chant, and of the chant, Om. It is also, the Chandogya notes, the word of assent: whenever one agrees, one says Om.
Patanjali's word
Patanjali's Yoga Sutras give Om its place in practice in three short lines. The word that expresses the Lord is the pranava, Om. Its repetition, with dwelling on its meaning, is the practice. From that comes the turning of awareness inward and the falling away of the obstacles. He names the obstacles: illness, dullness, doubt, carelessness, laziness, craving for the senses, false seeing, failing to find firm ground, and losing it once found.
The sound and its sign
Om is sounded as a long o, which in Sanskrit is born of a and u running together, closing into the hum of m. In Devanagari the sign joins the letter for o with the crescent and dot that mark the nasal close. A modern way of reading the sign gives its three curves to waking, dream and deep sleep, the crescent to the veil of appearance and the dot to the fourth, building on the Mandukya's map. The Jains read Om as the joining of the first sounds of their five honoured beings, and Sikh scripture begins with Ik Onkar, the One, written with the sign of Om.
The sound within
Nada yoga turns from the spoken syllable to sound heard within, the unstruck sound, anahata. The Hatha Yoga Pradipika tells the practitioner, sitting still with the ears closed, to listen inward, and describes the sounds in stages: at first like the ocean, thunder and the kettledrum; then like the drum, the conch and the bell; and at last like small bells, the flute, the vina and the humming of bees. The mind, it says, follows the sound as a bee follows nectar, and is stilled in it. A ringing in the ears that stays, or comes with deafness or pain, is a matter for a doctor and not for practice.
Sounding it
Om opens and closes recitation, and many teachers have it sounded three times. The sound begins deep in an open throat, moves forward through the mouth as the lips round, and closes into the hum, and the silence after it is attended to as carefully as the sound. The tradition asks that it be sounded with respect, without strain, at a pace one easy breath can carry, and with the mind on what it means.
How it is practised
Om is a public sound and anyone may sound it, with respect for what it is to those who hold it sacred. Sit upright and breathe in through the nose. On a slow out-breath let the sound open as a low o and close into a hum, at a comfortable loudness, and let the hum fade before the next breath comes of its own accord. Three to seven rounds are enough to begin with. The lips and chest can be felt to buzz, which is the plain mechanics of a hummed note. If light-headedness comes, stop and breathe normally.
Where it comes from
The syllable appears in the later Vedic texts as a word of assent spoken in the ritual, and the early Upanishads, from about the seventh century BCE, make it an object of reflection; the Chandogya opens with it. The short Mandukya Upanishad, of uncertain date, is given wholly to it, and the philosopher Gaudapada wrote a famous commentary on that text around the seventh century CE. Yoga texts name it the pranava, and Patanjali's Yoga Sutras call it the sound that expresses the Lord. The spelling Aum sets out the three sounds the Mandukya counts. A later teaching called nada yoga takes all sound, outer and inner, as a path of attention.
What is known, and what is not
The texts and their order are matters of scholarship and are fairly secure, though the Mandukya is hard to date. Small laboratory studies of chanting Om report slower breathing and, in brain scans, quieter activity in regions tied to emotion, but they involved few people and no agreed comparison. Humming was found to raise the nitric oxide measured in the nose in a Swedish study of 2002. That Om is the sound from which the world arose is a religious teaching, and is not a claim open to test.
Its words
The syllable Om- The syllable that opens and closes Vedic recitation and begins most Hindu prayers. The Upanishads treat it as the sound that stands for the whole.
Nada yoga- A teaching within yoga that takes sound as its path: first outer sound, music and the voice, then the subtle sounds said to be heard within.
Mantra- A sound, a word or a verse that is repeated, aloud or silently. In the Vedas a verse of a hymn; in later practice more often a short formula given to be repeated.
Ask the Oracle further
What does the syllable Om stand for in the Upanishads?Is Aum the same as Om, and why is it spelled with three letters?
Before you practise
Chant slows the breath and steadies the heart’s rhythm, and singing together lifts mood. No pitch, tone or “frequency” has been shown to heal anything. Keep it gentle and never loud: loud sound harms hearing for good. Sound is no substitute for a doctor’s care.
Its other branches
MantraChant in the monasteriesSinging the namesBowls and gongsThe claims for a pitchWhat chanting does in the bodyThe whole artSearch the tree
