The Right Way to Chant “AUM”

When you become silent by your own nature, the reverberation of AUM will naturally happen within you. -Sadhguru

Aum is a sacred sound and spiritual symbol in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. It is considered the sound of the universe and represents the essence of the divine. Aum is a Sanskrit word that is often chanted during meditation, and is believed to have powerful spiritual significance. Multiple scientific studies have been carried out to understand the significance of Aum chanting.

In this video, Sadhguru explains how Aum is the universal sound, and is not religious in nature. He explains how it is found across the world in various traditions – including Christianity and Islam, and what is the transformative significance of the sound.

Sadhguru: “If you have to utter any kind of sound without using the tongue, what are the sounds that you could utter? Someone who is unable to speak, a mute person, who is unable to speak what are the sounds that he makes? If you remove your tongue, you can only make three sounds “Ah” “Au” and “Ma”. You place your tongue in different positions in your palate to mix these three sounds and produce all the other sounds that you produce.”

“Now these three sounds “Ah” “Au” and “Ma” are referred to as the basic sounds or the universal sounds because these three sounds are the basis of all the other sounds that you can utter. If you utter these three sounds together, what do you get? It’s not “Om”. If you open your mouth and expel the air, it becomes “Ah”, as you’re closing it halfway down, it becomes “Au” when you close it, the sound becomes “Ma”.”

Sadhguru: “Today modern science is telling you the whole existence is just a creation of energy. It is the same energy vibrating in different ways which makes it so many things. If the whole existence is a vibration, where there’s a vibration there is bound to be a sound. So, the whole existence is a complex amalgamation of sounds. If you feed any sound into an oscilloscope, the sound measuring instrument, depending upon its frequency, amplitude and other dimensions of the sound, it gives out a certain form. That means every sound has a form attached to it. Similarly, every form has a sound attached to it. So, this relationship between the sound and the form is known as the science of mantras. Now modern science is proving to you the whole existence is just a vibration-where there’s a vibration, there is bound to be a sound. So, the whole existence is sound and the root sound for all this complex amalgamation of sounds are sounds Ah, Au and Ma.” 

“In Christianity whatever they say they close it with amen. If you look at it the way it is said at the Vatican, it’s always said Amen. Islam born also in the same region under the same cultural and language influences they are saying “Ameen”. Take away n and say Ameen. It is the same sound because wherever a human being becomes silent by his own nature, sound “Aum” will reverberate in the system because the root sound for your physical existence is sound “Aum”. When “Aum” reverberates, it starts from just beneath the naval and ends at the tip of your nose. This reverberation will happen by itself. Wherever a human being truly sat quietly, within himself he always became aware of the sound “Aum”. When he transmitted it, it got distorted. Even in India ‘Aum” has become “Om”. You open your mouth and, say “Ah” gently, close your mouth it becomes “Au” and close your month, the sound becomes “Ma”. “

“Sound “Aum” has innumerable benefits. Even today, if anybody comes here with any kind of psychological disturbances the first prescription is always “Aum”. You do this for a few weeks, you settle down and then we go into other aspects. If you are suffering from excessive fear, distorted dreams, nightmares, unstable mind, unstable body, or if your general constitution is weak, you tend to fall sick too often, if children have attention disorders, daily utterance of “Aum” for a few minutes a day will make an enormous difference. If you have problems that you are unable to do anything with a certain resolve in your life, daily utterance of “Aum” will be truly transformational for you. Within a couple of weeks, you can notice a phenomenal difference in the way you function because this is the basic sound in your physical existence.