Ayone have a meaning to 'om' that they could share?

Jeffrey

I have heard this in the heart sutras mantra. "om gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha"

I would guess in that context it means "behold the truth"???

federica

I like this.....

BonsaiDoug

@federica - nice. I especially like: "Chanting Aum allows us to recognize our experience as a reflection of how the whole universe moves."

I once read that the sound of Om/Aum is likened to being the "dial tone" of the universe. And if I'm not mistaken, science has indeed shown that the universe does have a sound associated with it.

swaydam

lobster

Jeffrey said:

I have heard this in the heart sutras mantra. "om gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha"

I would guess in that context it means "behold the truth"???

In this context, that is one interpretation.
It is a bit like an opening sanctification, such as
In nomine Patris et fillii et Spiritus Sancti
or the Tetragrammaton.

It is as others have suggested, the sound of the 'universal consciousness' according to the Brahmic religions. It has an effect, when chanted, on mentation, going beyond trance induction or simple sound healing. It is itself part of 'the beyond' simplicity of enlightened being.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmic_scripts

Dharani are often like mantra not required to be intelligible, though that too is offered
http://buddhism.about.com/od/buddhismglossaryd/g/Dharani.htm

Japa yoga or mantrayana is a complex mind science. Important? In some forms of Buddhism it is in effect the totality of the practice . . .

Oh my!
Gait! All is the Gait!
Beyond the Gate
Yonder the Great Gate

Body
So There!


Om gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha

John_Spencer

lobster said:

Oh my!
Gait! All is the Gait!
Beyond the Gate
Yonder the Great Gate

Body
So There!


Ha! That is funny. I read the opening question and thought to myself OM = Oh My!

I_AM_THAT

"OM" is the sound that is in all things... The perfect sound; the sound of God.

music

It is the mother of all sounds, one which Beethoven was in touch with.

lobster

Well said @music.
Deaf but in touch . . . :wave:

taiyaki

om in my practices is the beginning of mantras.

om also represents the head or the wraithful mandala of movement.

white in color, seated on the forehead.

i always here that om is the alpha sound.

but then there is AH. Maybe it has to do with affinity?

Zayl

"Om" is commonly muttered by Buddhists who are caught by a question that confuses them.

A little boy asked a monk "so, why do you shave your heads?" The monk responded "Ommm, it saves us money we'd spend on shampoo?"

nenkohai

Perhaps it falls into the realm of "new age urban legend," but I've heard told that the "Om," is the aggregate sound the entire earth and its life, literally, generate. Taken as a whole, that sound corresponds to C-Sharp. Its interesting to note that, in the musical traditions of India (what very little I understand about them) that sitars and tambouras are tuned to a C-sharp fundamental.

Some of the didgeridoos I've made and intentionally tuned to C-sharp, I've painted in homage to the Om. Sometimes with the sanscrit, and at least once, a stylized dharma wheel.

Jeffrey

@nenkohai, you make didgeridoos? Cool. What do you make them out of?

nenkohai

@Jeffrey, thanks for saying so. Two kinds - one type out of inexpensive plastics and the other from local hardwoods that I collect from storm-downed trees. In my area that usually means poplar, maple, oak, and hickory. Occasional cherry, copper beech.

pegembara

"The sound of silence is like a subtlety behind everything that you awaken to; you don't notice it if you're seeking the extremes. Yet as we start to become more poised, more present, fully receptive of all this moment has to offer, we start to experience it vividly and listening to it can draw us ever — deeper into the mysteries of now."

"With what I call 'inner listening', you can hear the noises that go on in the mind, the desire, the fears, things that you've repressed and have never allowed to be fully conscious. But now, even if there are obsessive thoughts or fears, emotions coming up, then be willing to allow them to become conscious so that you can let them go to cessation. If there's nothing coming or going, then just be in the emptiness, in the silence of the mind. You can hear a high frequency sound in the mind, that's always there, it's not an ear sound. You can turn to that, when you let go of the conditions of the mind."

Ajahn Sumedho