Exploring OM

OM: More Than a Sound

If you’ve ever come to a yoga class and heard the teacher invite everyone to chant OM, you might have wondered: what does it really mean? Is it just a ritual to open and close practice… or something deeper?

For me, OM is a practice that continues to unfold. I’ve felt its grounding, unifying effect in my own body, and I’ve been carried by it in the collective sound of kirtan. The more I’ve explored it, the more I see how OM weaves together philosophy, science, myth, and devotion — all in one simple syllable.

OM in the Yoga Sutras

Early in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, there are just two short verses about OM (1.27–1.28). They’re easy to skim past, but they hold so much.

Patanjali writes: “tasya vācakaḥ praṇavaḥ” — “The word expressive of Īśvara is the mystical sound OM.” (Satchidananda, 2022). In the next verse, he keeps it beautifully simple: repeat OM, and reflect on its meaning.

It isn’t about having a perfect voice. It isn’t about performance. It’s simply about allowing sound and awareness to meet — a direct way to turn the mind inward and experience stillness.

The Universal Vibration

The Upanishads — some of yoga’s oldest texts — call OM the sound of the whole universe. The syllable is broken into three parts:

• A – waking and creation

• U – dreaming and preservation

• M – deep sleep and dissolution

And the silence after the sound? That’s turīya — the state beyond all states.

So when we chant OM, it’s said we travel through our own states of being into the stillness beyond.

What Happens in the Body

For thousands of years yogis have said OM has a calming effect. Now science is beginning to explain why.

• Just a few minutes of OM chanting can shift the nervous system from “fight-or-flight” into “rest-and-digest.” (Telles et al., 1995; Harne & Hiwale, 2018).

• Brain scans show OM quiets activity in the amygdala — the part of the brain linked with stress and fear (Kalyani et al., 2011).

• And when we chant in a group, research shows it lowers stress hormones and increases oxytocin, the bonding hormone (Tarr et al., 2014).

This helps explain the feeling I’ve had when chanting OM — both grounded in my body and connected to something much bigger.

OM in Myth and Story

Philosophy gives OM a precise meaning, but myth brings it alive.

In Shaivite stories, OM was the very first sound. Before creation, Shiva sat in deep meditation. When he began his cosmic dance — the Ananda Tandava — from the silence of his being came A-U-M. That vibration rippled outward, and the universe was born.

Each part of OM plays a role: A for creation (Brahma), U for preservation (Vishnu), M for dissolution (Shiva). And the quiet after — turīya — is the eternal ground beneath it all.

I feel this connection most deeply when chanting Om Namah Shivaya — “I bow to Shiva, the auspicious one.” Whether alone or in the collective energy of kirtan, the sound feels ancient, alive, and heart-opening.

OM in Kirtan and Devotion

In Bhakti Yoga — the yoga of devotion — OM often begins or ends a mantra, like a doorway into the chant. Krishna Das says, “When you sing, you’re not singing to anyone outside yourself. You’re singing to the presence within, which is the same in everyone.”

That’s how it feels. On your own, OM is a vibration inside the body. In a group, it’s a current that carries everyone into the same rhythm.

Ram Dass put it beautifully: “Chanting is a way of getting in touch with that place in you that is love.” And OM, for me, is the purest note that opens that doorway.

Closing Thoughts

OM is many things. A sound, a vibration, a mantra, a story, a tool for the nervous system, and — maybe most of all — a reminder of our connection to something larger.

Whether through disciplined meditation, devotional chanting, or simply breathing it out in a quiet moment, OM remains what it has always been: a bridge between philosophy and feeling, sound and silence, the self and the infinite.