Your Yoga. How to Chant OM.

How to Chant OM

Recently I gave you the correct way to practise siddhasana, the queen of all asanas. Today I give you the practice of the sound OM, the king of all mantras. You will now have the king and queen of Yoga; by practising them, you can achieve a great deal. If you also add the new pranayama—in mystical Yoga, the main element of pranayama is breath retention—you will be able to fulfil your wishes.

Many people believe that OM should be repeated loudly, and the louder the better. They spend a year, two years or more practising loudness. But this is not correct.

I am not giving you recordings of my “correct” pronunciation of this mantra, or anyone else's recordings. You do not need to imitate anyone when repeating it: through practice, the mantra itself will lead you to your own vibrations. Everyone has their own OM. You will find that sound only if you seek your own sound rather than imitate someone else.

Nevertheless, there are certain rules of pronunciation, which I will explain below.

First, practising OM is not only a mantra practice but also an excellent pranayama practice: you control and direct prana.
Second, it is part of an unearthly language. It does not use the teeth, a legacy of the animal kingdom, of lower beings. It is the sound of vibration: the language spoken by Siddhas, higher, celestial, perfected beings—or, if that is easier to understand, Gods. In repeating OM, it is as though you begin to remember this beautiful, elevated language spoken by the higher inhabitants of the Universe.
Third, this vibration will begin to purify your physical and energetic bodies. You will feel more and know more. Your level will rise. The higher chakras will open, and lower desires will disappear. Your dreams will become the book from which many Saints and Prophets learned: they will become prophetic, allowing you to travel through other worlds or communicate with Higher Beings.

I will give two forms of the mantra: OM and AUM. The second is more correct, but the difference is very small. Essentially, when you pronounce OM, you are still pronouncing AUM. It is like a child calling their mother “Mum” or “Ma” rather than “Mama”. In essence, it is the same thing.

How to practise

As I said, no imitation and no recordings of “great gurus”. If you have never chanted OM, begin by simply sounding a long OOOMMM a few times. Observe how it feels in your throat and vocal apparatus: what vibrates and how it vibrates.
Then move the sound deeper into your throat and widen the space for resonance as much as possible. Recall how you yawn: the space in your throat opens, and the yawn happens. Here it is the same, but without the yawn. You can even imitate a yawn and immediately chant a long OOOMMM. You will notice that the sound becomes deeper and more resonant, as though inside a bell.
The OOO sound is made with the lips slightly open, and MMM with them closed. Nothing changes in the throat. You may even feel that you are not articulating any sounds at all: as the lips close, OOO changes into MMM by itself. Do not try to pronounce O or M as you would in ordinary speech. Here, you articulate nothing: O and M arise naturally because you have created a vibration in your throat and then simply open and close your lips.
AUM follows the same principle. A—the open “ah” sound—arises with the lips opened wider. As you narrow the opening, O is heard. As you slowly close your lips further, U—the “oo” sound—is heard; with the lips fully closed, M sounds.
As you can see, the lips should close slowly. In OM too, U appears as a transitional sound, just as it does in AUM.
In OM, sustain O for as long as M.
In AUM, it is a little different: A is shorter than U, and U is shorter than M. Although O also appears in this mantra, treat it as a transitional sound, just as U is transitional in OM. In other words, OM emphasises O, while AUM emphasises U.
Gradually extend the sound of the mantra to about half a minute or longer. Sustain or chant it for as long as possible.

Now for the most important part. At first, chant OM in a full voice, but not loudly. It is enough to feel the vibration throughout your body. Then lower the volume, chanting more and more quietly. Do not constrict your throat: the space should remain as open as when you chant in a full voice.

When you reach very quiet chanting, imagine yourself in a beautiful temple somewhere in the mountains. It need not be a temple: any room with good acoustics will do. Feel the temple walls vibrating with your chanting, even though you are chanting more and more quietly.

At the final stage, you make no audible sound at all. There is silence around you, and you chant OM only within. This is the most mystical part, the one that brings the most important attainments and possibilities. You hear yourself chanting OM within, and it resounds. The temple walls vibrate. With practice, the mantra sounds stronger and stronger, and the walls vibrate more and more powerfully. As practice continues, everything around you begins to vibrate, extending to the whole Universe.

As a rough guide, you can devote a week to the first stage, chanting in a full voice; a month to the second, quiet stage; and an unlimited time to the final, inward stage.

Notes

You may omit the imagined temple if, for example, you can feel the walls of your own home vibrating.
You may wonder what to think about or concentrate on while chanting OM. There are many possible visualisations. If you know some, choose whichever appeals to you most. You can also create your own; your personal image may simply arise. You can contemplate the Infinity around you, yourself—the one within the body—as an eternal Being of Light, the Universe, the Divine, and so on.
You can chant OM while sitting in siddhasana, combining the best and most powerful practices, or in any other posture.
Chant OM for as long as possible. At first, this may be ten minutes. But set aside days when you practise for sixty minutes without interruption. You will be amazed by the purity and peace that arise within you. It is an esoteric intoxicant that will draw you back again and again. You cannot give it up. You will seek it despite laziness, fatigue, the bustle of life, and so on.

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