RO ON SPACE & SOUND – 5

“THE SOUND OF OM”

To most, Om is the hum of a yoga class as it congregates, the peace in the Yoga Teacher’s shuttered eyes. It’s a charismatic chant, a mystical mantra, a bottomless breath that emanates from the core of your being.

To me, Om is also the sound of the bluey-green Andaman Sea in Phuket expanding and exhaling – its very restiveness bringing rest to what seemed my troubles only a moment ago.

Om is also the rustle of fall leaves in Central Park when the wind pirouettes with them. Om is the silent hush of a tropical rainforest at McRitchie Reservoir in Singapore, contrasted only by the psychedelic screech of parrots. Om is the sound of the heater in my cold New York office, or the sound of the fog in San Francisco when it starts rolling in. Om is the contented purr of my wine cooler when it’s just been filled. Om is the sound in my inner ear when I’ve peeled away all the layers of sound and I’m not listening to anything.

In other words, Om is Omnipresent.

According to the Vedas, the oldest sacred texts of Hinduism, “Om” is a combination of three syllables: Aa. Au. Ma. “Aa” represents the state of being awake, “Ma” the state of deep sleep, and “Au” nestles snugly somewhere in-between the two that flank it like a spiritual sandwich. “Om” also represents Creation, Preservation and Dissolution. As well as Past, Present and Future.

And so the three sounds wafted in together like wispy feathers on the breath of the universe to blend in a chord of perfect harmony. So powerful was the accuracy of this sound, that the entire universe came to be.

The Upanishads (the Hindu Scriptures that teach the Vedanta) say that "Om" is “the original primordial creative sound”, the mother sound of the first word ever uttered by the human tongue. Which may also explain the similarity of the derivatives, “Mama”, “Maman”, “Amma”, “Ahm”, “Mëmë”, “Mére”, “Mãe”, “Madre”, when we call out to that sometimes endearing lady.