Thoughts on Meditation: Om mani padme hum

Thoughts on Meditation:

The Beauty of
Om Mani Padme Hum

True meditation is almost a lost art in today’s world of electronics, internet and the many rebellions and uprisings around the globe. As humans our focus is primarily turned outwards, to the world around us while most of us neglect the most important aspect of our lives, the Inner World.

We have six outer senses. In the past man knew only that we have five outer senses; the sixth is a new discovery. It is inside your ears; hence people fail to recognize it.

It is the sense of balance. When you feel giddy or when you see a drunkard walking, it is the sense of balance that is affected.

Just as these six senses are used to experience the outer world around us, exactly the same six senses exist to experience the inner — to see it, to hear it, to feel its utter balance, its beauty. It is invisible to the outer eyes but not to the inner. You cannot touch it with your outer senses, but the inner senses are absolutely immersed in it.

The way to this deep, rich inner world…is through meditation.

Om mani padme hum is one of the most beautiful expressions one can experience when approaching a life long practice of rewarding meditation. Its meaning is

“the sound of silence, the diamond in the lotus.”

As one sets off to explore the vast realms of the inner world, OM is the sound when everything else disappears from your being — no thought, no dream, no projections, no expectations, not even a single ripple — your whole lake of consciousness is simply silent; it has become just a mirror.

In those rare moments you hear the sound of silence, it is the most valuable experience because it not only shows a quality of the inner music — it also shows that the inner world is full of harmony, joy, blissfulness.

All that is implied in the music of OM.

To truly experience the power and beauty of OM, you are not to say it. If you say it you will miss the real thing. You have to hear it, you have to be utterly calm and quiet and suddenly it is all around you, a very subtle dance. And the moment you are able to hear it, you have entered into the very secrets of existence. You have become so subtle that now you deserve that all the mysteries be revealed to you.

Existence waits till you are ready.

In the East all the religions without exception agree on this point, that the sound which is heard in the final, highest peak of silence is something similar to OM.

The word OM is not written alphabetically in any language of the East because it is not part of language. It is written as a symbol; hence the same symbol is used in Sanskrit, in Pali, in Prakrit, in Tibetan – everywhere the same symbol, because all the mystics of all the ages have reached to the same experience, that it is not part of our mundane world; hence it should not be written in letters. It should have its own symbol which is beyond language. It does not mean anything as far as mind is concerned, but it means tremendously much as far as your spiritual growth is concerned.

All music, particularly the classical music, has been trying to catch the sound of silence so that even

people who have not entered into their beings can experience something similar. But the similar is not the same, it is a very faraway echo. Even the greatest musician has to use sounds, but howsoever beautifully she arranges them, she cannot be absolutely silent. She gives gaps of silence in between the notes and phrases; the whole play unfolds between sound and silence. Those who don’t understand hear the sounds, and those who understand hear the silence, the gaps between two sounds.

The real music is in the gaps. The world of the unseen, is hidden in the silence between the notes.

It is not created by the musician — the musician is creating the sounds and leaving the gaps as a contrast, so that you can experience something of what happens to the mystic in his inner world.

OM is one of the great achievements of the seekers of truth.

By simply repeating OM you will never be able to hear it where it is most powerful, inside you! Your mind is functioning when you are repeating it. For centuries people have been teaching: Repeat OM. That creates a false experience, and you can be lost in the false and you will never discover the real.

I say to you not to repeat it but simply be silent and listen to it. As your mind becomes calm and quiet, suddenly you will become aware: like a whisper, the OM is arising within your being. When it arises on its own, it has a totally different quality.

It transforms you.

Modern physics says that everything in the world is constituted of electrical energy. According to modern physics even sounds are nothing but electric waves. The physicists have been working from the outside.

The mystics say just the opposite, but I don’t see that they are contradictory. They say the whole existence is made up of the soundless sound OM. And even electricity or fire are nothing but a certain condensed form of the sound.

In the East it has been known: there have been musicians who could create by their music a flame on an unlit candle. As the music falls over the unlit candle suddenly the flame arises. It was a test in the ancient days, that unless a musician could create light, fire, flame, with his music he was still amateur.

He was not recognized as a master.

The explanations of physics and the mystics look different, but perhaps there is some deeper source

which can withdraw the contradiction and opposition. Perhaps it is only a different interpretation, because the mystic is coming from the inside and the physicist is looking at the outside. What the physicist feels as electricity, the mystic feels as the music of the whole existence. They are both saying the same thing in different languages.

And if there is a choice, I would choose the mystic, because he is experiencing it in his very center. His experience is not just an experiment on objects, his experience is an experiment on his own consciousness.

And consciousness is the very cream of existence.

This mantra of Om mani padme hum, is ripe with secrets . The first wordless word is OM, and the last is HUM. The first is the flowering and the last is the seed.

We will dig further into the mystery and magic of Om mani padme hum, in the next post.