The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgita :13-9.

Chapter 13: Centring the Mind in the Heart-9.

The recitation of Om is a common practice among all religious devotees.

The pranava is attached to every mantra, and whenever we begin any religious performance or ablution, we repeat the mantra Om.

The idea behind this recitation is to gather up our energies into completeness, so that we become filled with a vibration which is to be in sympathy with the vibration that originated this universe itself.

The Om mantra that we chant is not merely a word that we utter, it is not a sound that we produce, but a vibration that is generated from every part of our system.
Often it is said that the chant of Om has to rise from the nadi or the navel, the root of our body, and not merely from our lips or throat.

This means to say that the whole of our being has to be shaken when we chant Om.

This word, this letter, this sound symbol Om is recognised as the word of God, the seat of all wisdom and knowledge, the origin of all language ultimately.



Any language can be traced to this root of Om, the comprehensive word wherein the entire vocal system begins to operate totally.

In the utterance of the letters of the alphabet—ka, kha, ga, gha and so on in Hindi or a, b, c, d and so on in English—only the part of the system that is the vocal chords begins to operate.

But here, the whole of the sound box begins to operate.

This is perhaps the reason why linguists and philologists have opined that the chanting or the recitation of Om is equivalent to the repeating of every letter or every word, or producing every kind of sound which goes to constitute the letters of any alphabet of any language.

Swami Krishnananda
To be continued  ..