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What is Om?

 
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I am trying to understand the meaning of Om

When I think of "acceptance", I think of the Om symbol

But what is it really?

According to this website, http://cosmicpsychic.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/om.jpg

It represents the cycle of birth, life, and death. But what is SIlence? Is Silence pervasive throughout this cycle? That the universe works in silence?

I am very interested in learnng about this.


 
Sandra Bachan
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By the way, I am reading things on the internet, i.e http://paper.ijcsns.org/07_book/200808/20080825.pdf about the benefits of chanting Om.

Should someone chant it out loud, or in their mind?

I would really love to know what is your take on Om.
 
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If I had to pick a single philosophy to follow it would probably be taoism. So from that perspective I think of om as maybe the most fundamental opposite of silence, or silence's oldest partner?

I've heard om chanted out loud in many eastern rituals.

fun question for sure!
 
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Disclaimer: I am an atheist. I am also no Robert Langdon.

I regularly chant out loud, Om or Aum during meditation. Meditation, for me, is focusing my mind. Concentrating on a single entity. Not to think of anything else...not to even think of not thinking of anything else. That is true meditation. Om helps me do that.
The correct way to say it is to say it as Ooo (elongated 'o' as in hello') + mmmmmm (elongated 'm' as in Yum)
1) Take a deep breath
2) Close your else
3) Start with Ooo
4) End with mmmmmm
5) The period taken for Ooo should be half the period taken to say mmmmmm
6) Pause
7) Repeat
If said properly, one can feel the resonance(scientific, not spiritual) from inside. This is not really surprising considering the internal body structure from mouth to anus.

I have noticed it helps me empty my brain and relaxes me, also , it helps with the lungpower.
 
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Maneesh Godbole wrote:Disclaimer: I am an atheist. I am also no Robert Langdon.

I regularly chant out loud, Om or Aum during meditation. Meditation, for me, is focusing my mind. Concentrating on a single entity. Not to think of anything else...not to even think of not thinking of anything else. That is true meditation. Om helps me do that.
The correct way to say it is to say it as Ooo (elongated 'o' as in hello') + mmmmmm (elongated 'm' as in Yum)
1) Take a deep breath
2) Close your else
3) Start with Ooo
4) End with mmmmmm
5) The period taken for Ooo should be half the period taken to say mmmmmm
6) Pause
7) Repeat
If said properly, one can feel the resonance(scientific, not spiritual) from inside. This is not really surprising considering the internal body structure from mouth to anus.

I have noticed it helps me empty my brain and relaxes me, also , it helps with the lungpower.



+1
 
Sandra Bachan
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Maneesh Godbole wrote:Disclaimer: I am an atheist. I am also no Robert Langdon.

I regularly chant out loud, Om or Aum during meditation. Meditation, for me, is focusing my mind. Concentrating on a single entity. Not to think of anything else...not to even think of not thinking of anything else. That is true meditation. Om helps me do that.
The correct way to say it is to say it as Ooo (elongated 'o' as in hello') + mmmmmm (elongated 'm' as in Yum)
1) Take a deep breath
2) Close your else
3) Start with Ooo
4) End with mmmmmm
5) The period taken for Ooo should be half the period taken to say mmmmmm
6) Pause
7) Repeat
If said properly, one can feel the resonance(scientific, not spiritual) from inside. This is not really surprising considering the internal body structure from mouth to anus.

I have noticed it helps me empty my brain and relaxes me, also , it helps with the lungpower.




How interesting.

Om occurred to me while I was studying for the CISSP exam. One of the domains discuss Acceptance, i.e. acceptance of the inherent risks of an Information System. When I heard Acceptance, I thought of Om. I'm looking at it from a spiritual aspect, i.e. accepting the Universe.
 
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With a distorted face, he stared into the water, saw the reflection of his face and spit at it. In deep tiredness, he took his arm away from the trunk of the tree and turned a bit, in order to let himself fall straight down, in order to finally drown. With his eyes closed, he slipped towards death.
Then, out of remote areas of his soul, out of past times of his now weary life, a sound stirred up. It was a word, a syllable, which he, without thinking, with a slurred voice, spoke to himself, the old word which is the beginning and the end of all prayers of the Brahmans, the holy "Om", which roughly means "that what is perfect" or "the completion". And in the moment when the sound of "Om" touched Siddhartha's ear, his dormant spirit suddenly woke up and realized the foolishness of his actions.
Siddhartha was deeply shocked. So this was how things were with him, so doomed was he, so much he had lost his way and was forsaken by all knowledge, that he had been able to seek death, that this wish, this wish of a child, had been able to grow in him: to find rest by annihilating his body! What all agony of these recent times, all sobering realizations, all desperation had not brought about, this was brought on by this moment, when the Om entered his consciousness: he became aware of himself in his misery and in his error.
Om! he spoke to himself: Om! and again he knew about Brahman, knew about the indestructibility of life, knew about all that is divine, which he had forgotten.


Siddhartha, by Hermann Hesse

There's also a whole chapter called Om, but I haven't got there yet.
 
Sandra Bachan
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Just now, I was in the kitchen preparing vegetables (took about two hours), and I kept saying Om, Om, (God knows how many times) but I started to feel pressure in my chest. The M m was vibrating 3 or 4 times as long as the O. And the crazy part it, I was unable to taper off the M properly. In other words, it is as if the vibration of M was overtaking me, and couldn't stop without abrupt silence.


Then I came back to coderanch, read the quote from Greg, and re-read Maneesh's post, and realized, one shouldn't exert themselves when chanting Om.

Now, I am sitting cross-legged in front of my computer, and I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and when I breathe out, I can say Om almost effortlessly, where the M is twice the period of O, and the M naturally tapers away.


I would love to be able to chant Om while doing things around the house. Even better, I would like to chant Om silently, especially while on public transportation.

Has anyone chanted Om silently, in their head, as opposed to saying it out-loud. Definitely, there are differences, just curious about your experiences.
 
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Sandra Bachan wrote:I am trying to understand the meaning of Om

When I think of "acceptance", I think of the Om symbol

But what is it really?



The meaning of om is what you give it i.e. it is your mind that gives it meaning. That also means that it has no inherent meaning as such. Any other word/sound too can acquire the same meaning.
 
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Sandra Bachan wrote:

Om occurred to me while I was studying for the CISSP exam. One of the domains discuss Acceptance, i.e. acceptance of the inherent risks of an Information System. When I heard Acceptance, I thought of Om. I'm looking at it from a spiritual aspect, i.e. accepting the Universe.



You are almost there regards the meaning. From what i know about Om from my parents.

The audible OM (AUM) is the first step towards clearing your mind(consciousness) to what is to follow. That is the reason we find it preceding texts or rituals or even mundane activities.

How does it do it. The sound if uttered properly is supposed to activate the Chakra located between the eyes. This Chakra represents intuition and connected to the mind part of the body.
A person at peace of mind is able to accept things as they stand which is also depicted by "OM TAT SAT" which means all which is true and hence the feeling of calmness with chanting AUM.

 
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Om


To me it is sanskrit word i have read in my school times.
This word is a soul of peace.
Applications:
-People more often use this word especially while doing yoga.
-Sometimes they also get a tatoes of it as a sign of purity and a good luck charm.
 
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We use it in meditation. It will increase concentration
 
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