Om is both a word and a sound.
What is om the word for?
All meaningful words refer to objects that give meaning. Doesn’t the word ‘tree’ refer to a certain perennial plant with a wooden stem and branches covered with green leaves? Doesn’t the word ‘golden’ refer to a colour? Doesn’t ‘brave’ refer to a person without fear?
All words that give meaning refer to objects that have meaning. All words, perhaps, except for one. Om is a word, discrete and clear. It follows all the rules of grammar, all the rules of sense making. And it refers to nothing.
And yet, it is a word that gives meaning. And yet, we all know that speaking or chanting the word om has noticeable effects on us, on our health, on our well-being, our happiness, our peace and our serenity.
It other words, om gives meaning without referring to anything at all. It is meaning without referring to something, it is meaning itself, the possibility and the origine of all meaning.
The meaning of the universe before the universe was filled with meaningful things
What is om the sound of?
If we imagine the oldest ear of the universe, passively listening, to what might seem like silence, it would hear the sound of om. The great wise souls of all ages, though their experience and practice confirm that the sound of the universe when it is being itself is: om.
It is the sound of the world at its most pure, its most basic, its most bereft. It is the sound of the universe before it was filled with sounds. It is the sound of silence, the sound of sound. It is the sound of the universe when it is doing nothing.
We make this sound in various spiritual practices. When we do so, we are doubling the sound of the universe, harmonising with, letting the ton of our voices match the tone of the universe.
When we form the sound om with our voices, we soften the vocal chords, open the wind pipe and breath from our lungs. In doing this, we open the deepest spaces of our body to the deepest reaches of the universe. We become one with our surroundings, with the world, with the sound of the universe.
What is a sound? It is a vibration. A vibration is caused by the flow energy. Vibration is energy that is transmitted in waves. When something vibrates, it is moved back and forth. Thus sound is a double transmission of energy: first in a continuous, but second in the vibration of that continuous stream.
Modern science teaches us that not only sound travels by vibration, but also electro-magnetic energy of all kinds, both material and immaterial energy. Vedic science teaches us that this how spiritual energy flows. Om is the primal vibration, the one that causes the vibration of matter and things, of spirit and the heart.
Om is the original sound of the universe, life and existence in its purest form. It is what the universe sounds like if we listen with purified ears, unhampered by the sounds of the material world coming and going, of all that is fickle and vain, undistracted by passing desires, untouched by ego, disinterested in all that comes and goes in fads and fashion, all that will not remain. Om is the sound of the eternal, of the soul, of the divine. The Upaniśads call it the sound of Brahman, the undifferentiated, impersonal divine.
Modern science has understood material energy as vibration, and Vedic science has understood immaterial energy as vibration, is Bhakti science that has understood the relation between energy and the flow of energy.
Of course, energy is not energy unless it flows. energy does not appear alone. Energy flows from one place to another, from one thing to another, from one heart to another. Energy is always for something, for another, another object, another state of things, another heart. The mode of being of energy is to energise something, to connect something, to impact something.
In other words energy is the original form of relation. Relation in its simplest form, stripped of decoration is relation.
When energy vibrates it vibrates between two or more states, rising and falling, ebbing and flowing, intensifying and calming.
Om is the original call of one heart to another, the attraction of one soul to another. It is the original sound of desire, of connection, of desire, of yearning, of love.
Bhakti-yoga lets us understand this energy hlādinī-śakti, the energy to please God, to live for God, to work for God, and above all to love God. The symbol and embodiment of the highest love for God is Rādhārānī. She embodies the loving energy that carries things, that makes all things happen, that makes all things appear and disappear, all in service of the divine Kṛṣṇa.
All the energy that circulates in life, the energy that causes the opening of a flower, the caress of a hand, the flight of a bird and a rocket to the moon, happens out of an inherent desire to please God. The divine om lying in our hearts takes the shape of love, embodied in its purest form by Rādhārānī.