Yoga Sutra 8.2 Aum

HE IS KNOWN AS AUM. REPEAT AND MEDITATE ON AUM.

REPEATING AND MEDITATING ON AUM BRINGS ABOUT THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ALL OBSTACLES AND AN AWAKENING OF A NEW CONSCIOUSNESS.

HE IS KNOWN AS AUM: And this God, the perfect flowering, is known as aum. Aum is the symbol of the universal sound. In you you hear thoughts, words, but never the sound of your being. When there is no desire, no need, when the body has dropped, when the mind disappears, what will happen? Then the real sound of the universe itself is heard. That is aum.

And all over the world people have realized this aum. Mohammedans, Christians, Jews, they call it amen. It is aum Zoroastrians, Parsis, call it ahura mazda. That a and m – ahura is from a and mazda is from m – it is aum. They have made it a deity.

That sound is universal. When you stop, you hear it. Right now you are talking so much, chattering within yourself, you cannot hear it. It is a silent sound. It is so silent that unless you have completely stopped you will not be able to hear it. Hindus have called their gods a symbolic name – aum. Patanjali says, He is known as Aum. And if you want to find a Master, a Master of Masters, you will have to get more and more attuned to the sound of aum, oriented that he will not even leave a single word, and he will not use a single word more…

REPEAT AND MEDITATE…

Wherever he says repeat aum, he always adds meditate. The difference has to be understood.

REPEAT AND MEDITATE ON AUM.

REPEATING AND MEDITATING ON AUM BRINGS ABOUT THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ALL OBSTACLES AND AN AWAKENING OF A NEW CONSCIOUSNESS.

If you repeat and don’t meditate, it will be Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s Transcendental Meditation – TM. If you repeat and don’t meditate, then it is a hypnotic device. Then you fall into sleep. It is good because falling into sleep is beautiful. It is healthy: you will come out of it more calm. You will feel more well-being, more energy, more zest. But it is not meditation.

It is like a tranquilizer and a pep pill together. It gives you a good sleep, and then you feel in the morning very good. More energy is available, but it is not meditation, and it can become dangerous also if you use it for a long time. You can become addicted to it, and the more you use it, the more you will realize that there comes a point where you are stuck. Now, if you don’t do it, you feel that you are missing something. If you do it, nothing happens.

This point has to be remembered: whenever meditating you feel that if you don’t do it you miss it and if you do it nothing happens, then you are stuck. Then something is needed immediately to be done. It has become an addiction just like smoking cigarettes. If you don’t smoke, you feel something is missing. You feel continuously that something has to be done; you feel restless. And if you smoke, nothing is gained. That is the definition of addiction. If something is gained, it is okay; but nothing is gained – it has become a habit. If you don’t do, you feel miserable. If you do, no bliss comes out of it.

Repeat and meditate – repeat aum, aum, aum – and stand aloof from this repetition. Aum, aum, aum; the sound is all around you and you are alert, aware, watching, witnessing. That is meditating. Create the sound within you and still remain a watcher on the hill. In the valley, the sound is moving – aum, aum, aum – and you are standing above and watching, witnessing. If you don’t watch, you will fall asleep. It will be a hypnotic sleep. And Transcendental Meditation in the West is appealing people because they have lost the capacity to sleep well.

In India nobody bothers about Maharishi Mahesh Yogi because people are so fast asleep, snoring. They don’t need it. But when a country becomes rich and people are not doing physical labor, the sleep is disturbed. Then either you take tranquilizer or TM. And TM is, of course, better because it is not so chemical. But it is still a very, very deep hypnotic device.

And hypnosis can be used in certain cases, but should not be made a habit, because ultimately it will give you a sleepy being. You will move as if in hypnosis; you will look like a zombie. You will not be aware and alert. And the sound of aum is such a lullaby, because it is a universal sound. If you repeat it, you can completely become alcoholic through it, intoxicated. And then comes the danger, because the real thing is not to become intoxicated. The real thing is to become more and more aware. There are two possibilities you can drop out of your worries.

Psychoanalysts divide the mind into three layers: first they call conscious, second they call the subconscious, third they call unconscious. Fourth, they don’t know yet – Patanjali calls them superconscious. If you become more alert, you move above the conscious and reach the superconscious. That is the stage of a god – super-conscious, super-aware.

But if you repeat a mantra without meditating, you fall into the subconscious. If you fall into the subconscious, it will give you good sleep, well-being, health. But if you continue, you will fall into the unconscious, then you have become a zombie, and this is very, very bad – it is not good.

A mantra can be used as a hypnosis. If you are being operated in a hospital it is okay. Rather than taking chloroform, it is good to be hypnotized; it is less evil. If you don’t feel sleepy, it is better to do TM than take a tranquilizer. It is less dangerous, less harmful. But it is not meditation.

So Patanjali continuously insists, REPEAT AND MEDITATE ON AUM.

Repeat and create all around you the sound of aum, but don’t be lost in it. It is such a sweet sound, you will be lost. Remain alert – remain more and more alert The more sound goes deeper, you become more and more alert; so the sound relaxes your nervous system, but not you. The sound relaxes your body, but not you. The sound sends your whole body and the physical system into sleep, but not you.

Then a double process has started: the sound drops your body to a restful state and the awareness helps you to rise to the superconscious. Body moves to the unconscious, becomes a zombie, fast asleep, and you become a superconscious being. Then your body reaches to the bottom and you reach to the peak. Your body becomes the valley and you become the peak. And this is the point to be realized.

Repeat and meditate.

REPEATING AND MEDITATING ON AUM BRINGS ABOUT THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ALL OBSTACLES AND AN AWAKENING OF NEW CONSCIOUSNESS.

The new consciousness is the fourth – the super-consciousness. But remember, only repetition is not good. Repetition is just to help to meditate. Repetition creates the object, the most subtle object is the sound of aum. And if you can be aware of the most subtle, your awareness also becomes subtle.

When you watch a gross thing, your awareness is gross. When you watch a sexual body, your awareness becomes sexual. When you watch something – an object for greed – your awareness becomes greed. Whatsoever you watch, you become. The observer becomes the observed: remember this.

Krishnamurti insists again and again that the observer becomes the observed. Whatsoever you observe, you become. So if you observe the sound of aum, which is the deepest sound, the deepest music, the sound without sound, the sound which is uncreated – anahat, the sound which is just the nature of existence, if you become aware of it, you become that – you become a universal sound. The both, subject and object, meet and merge and become one. That is the superconscious where object and subject have dissolved, where the knower and the known are no more. Only one remains; the object and subject are bridged. This oneness is yoga.

The word yoga comes from the root yuj. It means meeting, combining together. It happens when subject and object are yoked together. The English word yoke also comes from yuj, the same root from where yoga comes. When subject and object are yoked together, sewed together so that they are no more separate, bridged, the gap disappears. You attain super-consciousness.

That’s what Patanjali calls, REPEATING AND MEDITATING ON AUM BRINGS ABOUT THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ALL OBSTACLES AND AN AWAKENING OF A NEW CONSCIOUSNESS.