What Is OM?

What is OM? If you have ever taken a yoga asana class, there is a chance that the yoga teacher started the class with the sound of "OM," chanting with many of the other students in the class. Why do some teachers choose to make this sound with students? What is the significance? Please join Phoebe and Keric for an informal discussion exploring the meaning of OM.

Transcript

Hi,

Keric.

Hi,

Phoebe.

Today we are talking about OM.

Maybe you've been in class when a yoga teacher chants the syllable OM at the beginning of class or the end of class.

Maybe you are a yoga teacher who prompts students to chant OM,

And we are here today to talk a little bit about why we chant this in class and what this syllable means.

I use the OM chant in almost every class,

And I don't think I always explain what it means and I think it will be great today to unpack it a little bit and give it a little bit of meaning.

And it's probably a reminder for both of us to take a moment once in a while and explain why we're making this weird sound at the beginning of our classes.

I've chanted OM as a student in many classes and as we've been talking about recording this episode,

I've realized how much there is to learn about the syllable of OM.

It is replete with meaning and symbolism and there's a lot of different elements of it.

Keric,

How do you define OM in the most simple way possible?

I like that even just now you mentioned OM as a syllable,

So you didn't say this word OM.

It's not really a word.

OM is a syllable or it's a sound.

It's really at its very simplest,

It's just that.

And so we are making this sound together and I think kind of the bumper sticker definition that I hear all the time is OM is the sound of the universe.

And then the question is,

Well,

What is the sound of the universe,

Right?

I like to think of it like it's the background vibration or the background sound of the entire universe if the universe had a background sound.

And I think a lot of people maybe want to believe that and maybe it's true,

But I couldn't find too much in the way of a scientific frequency for the background sound of the universe.

However,

If you Google it,

You'll get 432 hertz as the tone or the frequency of OM.

And I'm not even really sure how they chose 432,

But I could not find anywhere where NASA has measured the background frequency of the universe and they're telling us it's 432.

So it's a nice notion and I really like it.

I like the thought that there's maybe this hum in the background of everything and it's resonating at this certain tone and that's the OM tone to me.

So I like the notion,

I just couldn't back it up with science.

So the idea is that by chanting OM,

We are attuning ourselves with the same hum of the universe,

Which is interesting.

It's something that brings us together as a collective at the beginning of a yoga class.

I personally always feel a little bit more relaxed after we OM and this is my personal interpretation.

It always feels sort of like a,

We're in this together.

We're about to start this.

So it's the idea of attuning with the universe and there doesn't seem to be empirical data that necessarily proves that.

Do you want to hear 432 really quick?

Yes.

So that's 432 hertz.

It's pretty high.

In class,

I don't think we're probably chanting at that frequency all the time.

I need to turn that off somehow.

So I've heard 432 hertz spoken about by musicians who say that that's Earth's frequency and that the best music is attuned to that same frequency.

So clearly there's something with that number.

Yes.

432 is approximately an A,

The note A.

I think that most orchestras or most music is tuned to an A that's not quite 432.

I think it's 417.

I could be wrong on that though.

It's just a little bit off from 432.

And there are people who think that if you tune the A to 432,

It will sound better.

Like the music sounds better.

It sounds richer or more full or something.

And there's also some math around 432.

For example,

If you divide 432 by 4,

You get 108,

Which is sort of sweet because 108 is this sort of magic number in yoga and other traditions where it's thought that 108,

We could get into a whole discussion on 108.

We should do that sometime.

Episode about 108 coming soon.

Yeah,

Episode 108.

We'll talk about 108.

So the math works really well with 432.

I think when you start to divide it and things like that.

I have maybe seen a couple of things on Earth's frequency being 432,

But I'm not very familiar with the science of that either.

What's interesting though is the point is that whether it's the syllable of OM or whether it's a particular frequency,

The intention in a yoga class of chanting OM is to attune our personal frequencies with the collective frequency.

And then when it comes to music,

It's the same idea.

Orchestras or musicians are attempting to attune music to a collective frequency as well.

So OM is this sort of catalyst for bringing the collective frequency together,

Which makes a lot of sense before a yoga class when we are essentially working on raising our vibrations by breathing and moving and facilitating circulation.

So I'm just kind of putting this together as I'm saying it.

We are attuning ourselves before we begin the practice.

So then OMing at the end of class,

How I guess we're kind of sealing up the attunement with the intention of hopefully letting people leave with that same collective high frequency.

Just personally for me as a teacher and a student,

When we OM,

The way that I sort of conceptualize it is that we're communicating to each other just by making that sound,

That we're all here for the same purpose.

We're here to improve ourselves,

Make our lives better,

Help each other,

Make life better for others.

So we almost enter into a social contract just by chanting the sound OM together.

In business terms we're getting on the same page,

Aligning our intentions with one another,

All just in connecting by voice.

Because in most yoga classes the teacher is the only one talking for 60 minutes or 90 minutes or however long the class is.

And the students are more on a receiving end.

They're taking in the instructions and then their only kind of feedback is what they're doing,

What they're physically doing,

How they're moving their bodies,

How they're breathing.

And so the one moment for everyone to communicate together is that OM at the beginning of class and the OM at the end of class.

So we were kind of kidding about it that some of our students,

They just think that OM is a greeting,

That we chant that as a way of saying hello at the beginning of class and then we chant at the end of class as a way of saying goodbye.

And it kind of is,

Right?

Because it's like this universal greeting at the beginning of class and then this universal goodbye at the end of class.

But it's so much more than that,

Right?

It doesn't mean hello and goodbye.

But to me it implies greeting one another,

Getting on the same page,

Agreeing that we're here for the highest purpose of attaining consciousness and bliss.

And so all that takes place in chanting one syllable together.

Yeah,

I interpret what you just said as OM containing a sort of community element to it and community is one of the pillars of Anusarayoga,

Which is the style that both Kerik and I teach.

And so in thinking about it,

No OM chanted is ever the same.

To have a particular group of people together at a particular moment in space and time,

OM is this singular experience of this community of people coming together and chanting.

It's sort of ushering in the beginning of this new experience of what's about to happen on your mats and then closing it out at the end.

That particular class,

That particular collection of people and frequencies will never happen again.

And so,

Wow,

As we're talking about it,

I'm really understanding it as an almost like a sacred bookend or something at the beginning and end of class.

Have you ever had people ask you about OM or react in a funny way to OM?

Mostly when I use the OM chant,

It's in yoga studios.

So I choose to leave it out of my corporate teaching assignments.

I don't OM with them just out of respect for being in that more businesslike environment.

I haven't had many students have trouble with it or are bothered by it.

I definitely allow for students to not chant with us.

You can just listen and I'll often say that.

One interesting thing is that sometimes the OM chant is not as harmonious and as beautiful as I would like it to be.

And I'll stop the chant sometimes because if we're off,

If we're not tuning to the highest frequency,

If we're not attuning to each other and aren't aligning with the same intentions,

You can kind of hear it in the way that the OM sounds.

So I'll pause the students and we'll start over and try again.

And I'll ask them to really listen to each other,

To soften,

Pause.

Because when the OM sound is off,

It's usually because someone jumps in too early and they don't hear the tone of everyone else around them or they're chanting too loud and they can't hear the tone of everyone around them.

Their intention is just a little bit off.

Their intention is very ego focused if they're too loud or they jump in too soon.

And that's not the intention of yoga.

So I ask everyone to soften for a moment,

Listen to the bigger sound,

Listen to the group,

Be a part of the group,

Not just be your loudest individual self.

And so it's important for me to sometimes I don't do it often.

Sometimes you just let it go.

You just let the OM be a little off.

But it's interesting you were talking about the orchestra tuning to.

.

.

Is it the lead violin or the lead flute or whatever?

Of course if someone in the orchestra is off and not tuning,

Well then they have to stop.

And then okay,

Listen,

Everyone listen,

Tune to the lead tone.

So as yoga teachers we are conductors of frequency and energy.

It's really cool to think of it in that way.

I've never put it together until now.

But when someone's OM is off or too loud or off key,

It means that their frequency is off from the collective.

And that's not a bad thing necessarily.

It just means that the frequency is actually different.

And I think that's my reluctance with OM sometimes is that in doing it in class my fear sometimes is that someone will be off and that it will set a tone of being sort of disharmonious.

And now that we're talking through it I'm realizing I should just do it until we get it.

Maybe.

Maybe.

Maybe.

Sometimes it's not possible.

Most of the time it's possible to get everyone to tune at least to a pretty good degree.

I feel like sometimes I can tell how the class is going to go based on how the OM sounds.

So if I sit down and there's just this beautiful harmonious OM without much prompting from me without me having to stop the chant and start over again and everyone's just in it and they're together and it's this one sound coming from the group,

I kind of know that that's going to be a really good class.

Like people are going to be tuning vibrationally or energetically to one another and I'm like wow this is going to be a good class and I get really excited.

And if it's off a little bit then I'm like okay this class is going to maybe I'm going to have to work a little bit here.

And it's funny because the more advanced classes tend to have a better sound,

The newer class,

My newer students in the basics classes,

They have a little harder time tuning to each other and they're newer to yoga.

They're not used to tuning their bodies or their minds or their voices to other people or each other or even to themselves tuning to their own vibrations.

So of course it would be harder for them to tune to a group.

It's rare that the more advanced class will be completely out of tune or completely off in the OM.

I love that OM as a barometer for how the class is going to go.

And that makes a lot of sense because if you're an advanced practitioner you are in sync with your body and with others enough to be able to do challenging poses and to maintain your breath and be present which is essentially what OM requires to stay sort of on key or on pitch with OM.

You really just have to be present enough to be listening to the people around you.

And it's like you said the people who sound off are the ones who are just doing it for themselves and not attuning to the people around them.

And you're absolutely right.

I've been in your class,

Large classes before where the OM at the beginning is so powerful.

It's this beautiful kind of energetic momentum.

I've felt that before.

I was looking at some definitions of OM online which there are many.

One of the definitions I found that I like,

It's kind of like a Zen riddle is OM is the sound of one hand clapping.

I love that one.

So really the sound of nothing which is really interesting.

So the OM,

When I chant OM it's the one syllable that we were talking about but we can also break down OM into three parts,

AH,

OO,

And M.

And some teachers will really sort of exaggerate that when they chant with the class,

They'll really draw out each of those syllables and make them very clear.

I don't do that as much but that is part of a tradition too where AO represents like the beginning,

The middle,

And the end.

It represents creation,

Sustenance,

And destruction and then that M sound going into nothingness.

So like the sound of one hand clapping.

And so we can really,

There's a lot of symbolism in the sound and in the not sound.

So let's talk about OM as the cultural phenomenon that it is.

I think I've seen the OM symbol as one of the most popular tattoos in the yoga community.

I see it everywhere.

It's ubiquitous and then there's a lot of clothing and yoga swag that has the OM logo on it.

And I wonder how other people interpret OM and why it's such a popular symbol.

Yeah OM being the syllable or the sound of the universe.

So then really OM,

It really is the universe.

I would say that maybe having the tattoo of OM represents like just being in tune vibrationally with tuning to the universe herself.

Several years ago I designed a t-shirt where we put the OM symbol in the Superman shield.

And you know to me it represents,

It's a super OM right?

So what could be higher or better than that?

To me wearing that symbol,

The OM symbol in the Superman shield on my chest,

It's like okay here's a doorway for the universe to just come into my heart and for my heart to go back out into the universe.

That's the way I always conceptualized it.

So then you could look at that symbol,

It's a doorway into the universe and that doorway opens both ways.

The universe can come in or we can go out into the universe.

For me there's such power in symbolism in yoga and outside of yoga as well.

And so it's for good reason we see that symbol everywhere from tattoos to clothing to you know symbols in yoga studios.

I love that super OM.

And it's interesting because OM is a doorway to the highest and it's also a doorway to the lowest.

I saw a definition that said it's the common denominator of everything.

So it's both ends of the spectrum.

It's the infinity of the never-ending spectrum.

It's everything.

One definition is OM is everything.

So do you know why the,

I know that there's some significance to why the symbol looks the way that it does.

I've read or heard different things.

I mentioned the AH,

OOH,

MMM sounds within OM and I think that the OM symbol itself within the symbol of the OM you can find shapes that are similar to the Sanskrit characters or syllables for AH,

OOH,

And MMM.

There are some other things that people say about the visual representation of OM as well.

Do you have others,

Examples?

I do and I can't remember them right now so hopefully some of our listeners will be able to help us out and let us know what some of the different interpretations are.

I think some people see Ganesh like if you squint really hard they see Ganesh in the symbol.

That I've heard.

It's like the ears and there's sort of a number three looking part of the symbol.

And so if you look there's maybe an elephant in there.

Yes and Ganesh for reference is a Hindu deity who's known to be the destroyer of obstacles or challenges.

So great guy.

How about you Phoebe?

Did you have other examples of students who have approached you or with confusion or resistance?

No one has ever confronted me or asked me about it but I've seen it make people feel really uncomfortable before and I've seen people just not do it.

Do you find that that discomfort is in particular settings or is it just something that you've noticed as a teacher?

That in my classes that are a little bit more athletically inclined then people sometimes look at me like I'm a little nuts.

So I think it's the people who have gotten into yoga more for the physical benefits initially at least who are a little bit confused by it.

That said I've taught it and people have begun to become more comfortable with it.

That said as we're having this conversation I realize that I'd like to open the clock.

If I'm going to prompt people to I'd like to explain a very distilled version of our conversation today so that it gives people a framework because if you don't know anything about yoga then it does feel pretty random.

It seems weird.

It does seem weird.

That said I think we were talking about this a little bit before.

There is a very soothing feeling that comes from the vibration of your own voice which explains why singing to yourself or humming feels really good.

I think healing isn't the right word but can have a very relaxing effect on people and for that matter anything that's your own voice.

I know that's the intention behind kirtan and use of mantras is letting the sound of your own voice attune your frequency back to the collective.

So that is another way of looking at it.

It's a way of facilitating your own recalibration in a sense which is just a sort of more grounded way of explaining it to people who maybe don't understand.

Just giving it more physical context.

The vibration is to help us to be calm,

To calm our nervous system at the beginning of class and it's similar to what you said.

It's not much different than humming to yourself to calm your nerves when you're nervous or anticipating something and you decide to hum or sing to yourself or even talk to ourselves.

I think a lot of us when we're nervous we talk to ourselves and it's really we could do it in our heads but it feels good to like just to have the vibration in the body,

In our throats,

In our lungs.

So there's some physical reasons.

Also at the beginning of class we could explain it that and this is part of the reason why we hum too I believe is that we we hum and we have to clear our throats for a moment right before we hum.

We clear our throats,

We clear our sinuses,

It kind of breaks up things you know that are stuck in in our heads and in our lungs and in our throats so that we're better prepared to breathe when we start doing the asana practice.

That's another very physical way we can think about it like the hum is preparing us calming the nervous system but also just clearing out you know our respiratory system a little bit just breaking things up and getting us ready for yoga.

Which makes me realize all of that is an external manifestation of clearing internally.

I once went to a pretty out there workshop it was chanting we did a full asana practice and then we did we chanted om for an hour while gazing at a flame.

Chanting om for an hour leaves you in a very interesting state of consciousness and the best way that I can explain it which I put together as you were talking about the physical benefits is a state of clarity is a state of being very very connected so clearly what you're saying vibration the sound of your own voice the feeling of your own vibration has both a physical clearing and a mental clearing which now makes a lot of sense for why we start and end yoga classes that way.

So to our listeners as yoga students and teachers we would love to hear from you about what om means to you what your interactions with it have been in class and your interpretation there's dozens and dozens and dozens of definitions.

Reviews

Someone likened AUM to Amen in Christianity. It simply means so be it.

Thank you I had no idea I know I like chanting it this is wonderful information.