The Word That Is God–Foreword

“I am Om, the Word that is God.”1

In searching for material on Om, the Pranava,2 I came across a kind of digest of the Upanishads3 in which the author had made the following paraphrase of the teachings of the Mandukya Upanishad:

“The Syllable Om is the atman.4 One who knows this has his jivatman5 merged in the Paramatman6–yea, one who knows this. Know the Omkara;7 for he who knows Om need know nothing further. Meditating, be absorbed in Om. It is Brahman,8 the fearless. For him who is ever absorbed in Om there is no fear any more. Om is the lower and the higher Brahman. It is the beginning of everything, its middle and its end, too. He who thus knows Om is merged in It forthwith by means of It. Know Om as Brahman, Who is enthroned in the heart of all. The sage who knows Om as all-pervading grieves not. Partless and with unending parts is the blessed cessation of duality. Who knows Om as such, he alone is a muni,9 none else.”

As the Atharvashikha Upanishad says: “He who knows Om in this manner will attain the fruits resulting from all kinds of meditation, from resorting to Yoga and Jnana.”10

As I compiled the material on Om from the scriptures and the Masters of Wisdom I was astounded at the amount I discovered, and even more astounded at how little of it is known to any but the most scholarly. The panorama of these texts provided me with a vista regarding Om that awed and inspired me. I easily believed the words of Gaudapada, the guru of the guru of the great Shankaracharya,11 who wrote in his commentary on the Mandukya Upanishad: “Om is indeed the beginning, middle, and end–everything. One should know Om to be God seated in the hearts of all. Meditating on the all-pervasive Om, the intelligent man grieves no more. The Om, without measures and possessed of infinite dimension, is the auspicious entity where all duality ceases. He by whom Om is known, is the real sage, and not so is any other man.” And Shankara, commenting on these words of his guru’s guru, affirmed: “He who knows Om is a sage because of his meditating on the Supreme Reality, and not any other man, though he may be learned in the scriptures.”

Consequently I wrote Om Yoga to share with others what I had learned from both my own experience in meditation and my researches in the age-old lore of Om. However, it seemed to me that serious students of yoga would benefit from having access to the entire range of material on which it was based. And so this book was put into shape for your study along with some brief comments of my own. I hope you will find it as fascinating and valuable as I do, concluding with Shankaracharya that: “Through Om the Lord is met face to face.”

     Swami Nirmalananda Giri
     Atma Jyoti Ashram

• Forward
• Chapter One–The Scriptures on the Pranava
• Chapter Two–The Scriptures on the Pranava, continued
• Chapter Three–The Masters of Wisdom on the Pranava
• Chapter Four–The Glories and Powers of Om

2) Pranava: A title of Om, meaning “Life-ness” or “Life-Giver.”Om is the expression or controller of prana–the life force within the individual being and the cosmos. [Go back]

3) Upanishads: Books (of varying lengths) of the philosophical teachings of the ancient sages of India on the knowledge of Absolute Reality. The upanishads contain two major themes: (1) the individual self (atman) and the Supreme Self (Paramatman) are one in essence, and (2) the goal of life is the realization/manifestation of this unity, the realization of God (Brahman). There are eleven principal upanishads: Isha, Kena, Katha, Prashna, Mundaka, Mandukya, Taittiriya, Aitaryeya, Chandogya, Brihadaranyaka, and Svetashvatara, all of which were commented on by Shankara, thus setting the seal of authenticity on them. [Go back]

4) Atma(n): The individual spirit or self. [Go back]

5) Jivatma(n): Individual spirit. [Go back]

6) Paramatma(n): The Supreme Self, God. [Go back]

7) Omkara: Om. [Go back]

8) Brahman: The Absolute Reality; the Truth proclaimed in the Upanishads; the Supreme Reality that is one and indivisible, infinite, and eternal; all-pervading, changeless Existence; Existence-knowledge-bliss Absolute (Satchidananda); Absolute Consciousness; it is not only all-powerful but all-power itself; not only all-knowing and blissful but all-knowledge and all-bliss itself. [Go back]

9) Muni: “Silent one” ( one observing the vow of silence (mauna); sage; ascetic. [Go back]

10) Atharvashikha Upanishad 3:4b. Jnana: Knowledge; wisdom of the Reality or Brahman, the Absolute. [Go back]

11) Shankara: Shankaracharya; Adi (the first) Shankaracharya: The great reformer and re-establisher of Vedic Religion in India around 300 B.C. He is the unparalleled exponent of Advaita (Non-Dual) Vedanta. He also reformed the mode of monastic life and founded (or regenerated) the ancient Swami Order. [Go back]