The Mandukya Upanishad : presented the quintessence of the acme of thought and experience reached in ancient times, – the Upanishads. 4-1.5.

12/10/2018
Section 1: The Pranava or Omkara :-5.

This Upanishad, the Mandukya, suggests a very simple method for the establishment of Jiva in Isvara, to transfer the relation of the personality to the non-relation of Isvara and to achieve this by a direct method of invoking the presence of Isvara, or Brahman, into our being, summoning Isvara into our consciousness. Give Isvara a place in your heart. Instead of thinking of an object corresponding to a particular name, think of Isvara who is designated by a comprehensive Name. All the names of the world like mountain, river, etc. are particular names corresponding to particular forms. But Isvara is not a particular form; He is a Universal Form, and therefore you cannot call Him or summon Him by a particular name.

You have to call Him by a Universal Name, because He is Universal Form. No particularised language can describe Isvara, because Isvara is not a particularised object. He is not a man or a woman or a human being; He is not here or there; He is everywhere. That which is everywhere can not be designated by a language that belongs only to particular country or a man or a woman or a particular person. You require a very comprehensive language to describe the comprehensive Form of Isvara. There is no comprehensive language; all languages are local. You have many languages, and there is no single language that can be applied to the whole world. And even if there be a language that can be valid for the whole world, even that is a local language from the point of view of the vaster cosmos.

Is there a language that can be valid for the whole universe? That language alone can describe Isvara, because He is Universal. There is no such language. The only language conceivable, revealed to the ancient Rishis, is Om, or Pranava.

The recitation of Om is the speaking of a universal language, a language which comprehends within itself all other languages; and the vocal organ, in the recitation of Om, or Pranava, vibrates also in a very comprehensive manner. When you utter A, B, C, etc., a particular part of the vocal system begins to vibrate, but when you recite Om, the entire soundbox begins to vibrate.

This is a matter for experiment. Anyone of you can experiment with it and observe the result. The whole soundbox begins to function, not merely a part of the soundbox; and all the languages are supposed to be contained in Om because of the fact that in the recitation of Om every part of the vocal organ begins to vibrate, and naturally every word, every phrase should be somehow included in the root-sound that is created when Om is chanted. Not merely this; the recitation of Om has another significance or meaning. The chanting or the calling out of a particular name produces a vibration in you.

You have a feeling generated within you by the recitation or the calling out of a name. Rasagulla, laddu, kheer, coffee, tea, rice: these are certain names of certain objects, and you know that when you utter these names, different ideas occur to your mind and you have different sensations in your body. Scorpion: a different sensation; disease, ugliness, earthquake, atom bomb, war; – all these ideas produce vibrations in your system. They are not merely words; they are vibrations that are conveyed to your system by a particular word or a phrase; and Om is also a vibration, not merely a word or a sound. Om is a vibration, a Universal vibration with which creation commenced, as they say.

To be continued ...