Once You Understand OM, You Understand Everything about Reality

Once You Understand OM, You Understand Everything about Reality

Author Name:Adhvaitha

Youtube Channel Url:https://www.youtube.com/@adhvaitha

Youtube Video URL:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSD1nP5K1M4



Transcript:
(00:00) There is a single syllable, a single sound that holds the secret to your existence and to the existence of this entire universe. That sound is om. This holds the [music] secret to life, death and creation, to past, present and future. [music] Om is not just a chant or it is not just a symbol you see in [music] temples.
(00:31) It is a mathematical code of the universe. The vibration from which everything arises. The ancient [music] rishies said if you understand the single syllable the single sound of om you need [music] not study thousands of scriptures and spend decades of your life understanding philosophy.
(00:55) Within this one sound lies the essence of all the oponyish vedas and Bhagawat Gita itself. So today we will just explore this single syllable Om. And by doing so we will understand everything there is to understand about life about this universe about our potential and the existence itself. And to do this we will be referring to the mandukaishad.
(01:24) And let us begin with the first verse of this ancient mandukish. It says Now let me translate this profound verse for you and after this we will get into what every part of the syllable means and how it explains to us what this reality is. Translation: Harm the word or the syllable is all there
(02:11) is. It is the entire existence. All that is past, present and future ism itself. That which is beyond the three periods of time is also itself. Now imagine Om like the secret code or a secret seed within which all the other secrets of the universe are hidden and to decode it we need to understand the anatomy of Om.
(02:41) So in the opanish it is said that this Om represents Brahman or the infinite consciousness or God. Let's understand how. First of all, om is one syllable, one sound when it's put together. But symbolically, if we break it down, it has three components. There is a, there is u, and there is m. When we put it together, it becomes and each component of it has a meaning.
(03:10) It has a significance. Now let's symbolically try to decode it so that visually you will never ever forget what stands for. So first understand that one part of the M is representing the waking state. The another part of the M is representing the dream state. The third part of the M is representing the deep sleep state and the fourth is representing the pure consciousness.
(03:47) In mandukishad it is described as turya. What does this actually mean? We are discussing today a framework that is called as austraa vivea in vdanta and we can understand this by understanding om. Now before we go deep into this, I want you to look at your own reality. How do you live your life daily? Every single day.
(04:14) In the morning, you wake up, you walk around, you do your work, whatever your responsibility is as a professional, as an entrepreneur, you will do that and then you will come to your home, you will spend time with your family and then at night you go to sleep. Now, as long as you're awake, whatever you do, let's all put it together and let's call it the waking state and it is the primary state in which our consciousness right now is identified with.
(04:43) Now, after this, what happens? After finishing your day, you stretch your legs, you go to sleep and you close your eyes and you begin to dream different dreams. Within the dream, everything is different. The world is different. Your relationships are different. Your health is different. Your body itself might be different. But still you have an ego and you operate there as a person and you experience different things.
(05:08) This is the dream state. Even in the dream state there is subject object split. There are various experiences. And after a while after the dream state fades away you enter into a deep sleep state which we call sushupti in vdanta. So this is the deep sleep state where there is total blankness. There is no subject there is no object there is no appearance of the ego and there is no experience as such.
(05:38) There is complete blankness and this is where you are totally relaxed. There is total silence and you are not aware of anything at all. Whatever is happening outside of you that is not in your awareness. You might be a terminal patient who is suffering from a very serious condition in terms of the physical body.
(06:03) But at the deep sleep state you will not experience anything like that. You might be a mother who has given birth to an infant and that infant might be lying next to you. But in this deep sleep state, you are not a mother. You are not aware of your baby also. So this is a very strange state that we all go through every single day where we do not experience anything but blankness or darkness.
(06:32) Now within the syllable of om, a represents the waking state or jagrat aasta. U represents the dream state or swapnavasta and ma represents the deep sleep state or sushupti. This is what each and every one of us go through. It is very simple and easy to understand because we all experience this every single day. Right now if you're watching this video you are in the waking state.
(07:00) You are in the jagratawasta. You are in the first state. Now let's go deeper into each of these states to understand the truth of reality and the truth of existence including the truth of who we actually are beyond the body beyond the mind as that infinite consciousness. Let's analyze the similarities and the differences between these three states of existence.
(07:29) These three states are the only three states of existence for each and every human being. You cannot tell me any other state apart from these three. Whatever you have experienced in your life so far, it falls under one of these three states. But when we closely examine these three states, we will see something profound and this in turn will take us to that ultimate reality.
(07:55) Let's begin with the waking state which is where you are right now. And here are different parameters that I have mapped for you. And as we go through this exercise, let me know and engage in the comments. In the waking state, which of the four parameters of you is active? Your body, your mind, your ego, which is your identity, and your awareness or consciousness.
(08:24) In these four parameters, think about what are active when you're awake. Let's look at it one by one. Your body is awake because right now in the waking state, I'm able to move my body. I have a control over my body and my body is active. So I can put a tick here to indicate that my body is active during the waking state.
(08:47) Even my mind is active right now. Right now I'm thinking and I'm synthesizing information before I present it to you. And similarly you are consuming the information and you are thinking different thoughts and forming different opinions. So your mind is active right now. So we can say our mind is also active in the waking state.
(09:07) Next comes the ego or the identity. This is a sense of iness. If we close our eyes and if we look at ourselves, we feel that we are a person. We we we feel an existence that is tied to an individuality. Whether it's our body or mind, there is some kind of an identification, right? If someone calls your name, you will immediately turn because you feel like a person. That is the ego.
(09:35) So even that is active for us right now. So let's put a tick here. And then consciousness. Of course we are aware. We are conscious right? Without consciousness I will not be able to speak anything and you will not be able to listen to anything. The very act of my speaking and the very act of your listening indicates and points to consciousness.
(09:58) So consciousness has to be there in the waking state. So let's put a tick here. So in the waking state, the body is active, the mind is active, the ego is active, and the consciousness is active. Now let's come to the dream state. Try to imagine what happens when you're asleep, when you're dreaming different dreams. At that state, is your body active? Think about it.
(10:23) Your body is not active there because you are unaware of your body. Within the dream, you are a different person altogether. You are going through a very different experience maybe. So the body is not active at the dream state. So you have no consciousness or awareness of the physical body which is sleeping on the bed. But you are experiencing a different reality in a different simulated world which we call the dream world or swapnavasta and you are a different person there and that person might have a different dream body which is not the physical body. So the
(10:58) physical body is not active in the dream state. But what about the mind? The second parameter, mind is of course active. Without mind, how can we visualize that dream and experience that dream and go through so many emotions? Even in the dream, let's say if a tiger chases you, you run for your life and you're scared and your emotions are active.
(11:24) So mind is nothing but your thoughts, emotions and belief systems. Hence mind is active in the dream state. Right? Simple to understand. And then is the ego active? Yes. Even in the dream state, we experience the dream world as an individual, as an individual identity. Of course, that ego might be different from this ego and the nature of thoughts and emotions tied to that ego might be different.
(11:51) But still an individual ego exists even in the dream state without which the dream experience is not possible. So even the ego exists in the dream state. Now let's think about consciousness. Is there consciousness in your dreams? Of course yes. Right? Without consciousness how can there be any experience? So consciousness also exists in the dream state.
(12:17) Let's come to the deep sleep state or sushupti. Here it gets a little bit tricky and here we need to go a little deeper and we need to understand the meaning behind terminologies like consciousness. At the deep sleep state when we are experiencing total blankness or when there is absence of any experience is the body active? Of course not.
(12:42) It's easy to say the body is not active. We are not even conscious of the body. We're totally blank. And then is the mind active? No. Even the mind is not active because there are no thoughts and emotions there. So mind is absent. But is the ego active? Here we need to go a little deeper. Generally when we are in the waking state or the dream state, ego is dominant and ego is very visible.
(13:07) And it's easy to say that ego is active. But at the deep sleep state in the vdantic perspective it is said that ego goes to its seed state at a causal level ego still exists in a very subtle way. It is a state of darkness or ignorance where ego still exists but we will not put a tick mark here because it is not as dominant or as obvious as the other two states but it is at its seed state. So that is the difference.
(13:41) Now why are we saying that ego still exists there? So let's think about it. Ego still exists at the deep sleep state because when we wake up from deep sleep, we claim that experience. We tie that to ego. We say to ourselves that I slept nicely. I slept peacefully. I was totally unaware of what happened. Still there is a sense of I that we can intuitively judge.
(14:09) So that is the eye which is in the seed form which is in a very subtle form but it still exists. And now let's think about consciousness. Does consciousness exist at the deep sleep state? Now immediately you might answer no here because the general understanding of consciousness or awareness is an experience. Because always we experience consciousness within the framework of subject and object.
(14:39) We never experience consciousness without the subject and the object. And hence we tend to say there is no consciousness at the deep sleep state. But Vanta says consciousness is the life force. If consciousness is not there here that means you are dead and you cannot be dead ultimately as per Vanta because your consciousness itself.
(15:01) But what Vanta tells us is that consciousness still exists even in the deep sleep state. But it is not obvious to us as there is no object to consciousness. When we are awake there is the subject object experience that we go through. You're watching this video in your awareness. So I am the object for you and you are the subject.
(15:24) You as the ego are the subject in this case. But in the deep sleep state there is no object of experience. Since there is no object of experience there is absolute blankness but the subject is still there. The consciousness is still there. So that is the deep sleep state that we need to understand.
(15:46) And now if we deeply examine these three states of existence, we will discover all the secrets to life and reality and to who we are. So carefully bear with me as we decode this right now. In the waking state, there is body, there is mind, there is ego, there is consciousness. In the dream state, there is no body but there is mind, there is ego, there is consciousness.
(16:09) In the deep sleep state, there is no body, there is no mind. We can say there is no ego in any obvious way, but there is still consciousness. So what is common in and through all these states? The body is not common, right? Because the body doesn't exist in the dream state. So just because you go to sleep and you begin to dream different dreams, can we say you have died and you're not there anymore? No. You still exist.
(16:35) We know this intuitively. So that means body is not who we are or body is not the fundamental truth to who we are because we exist without the body also in the dream state. Similarly, the mind can we say the mind is who we are? If we say we are the mind then we do not experience the mind in the deep sleep state.
(16:58) This shows us that we can exist without the mind. And if we can exist without something that means that is not who we are. In this case the mind is also not who we are because we experience a reality in our own life every single day where there is no mind. Now let's talk about the ego or that deep level of identification.
(17:21) Is that who we are? Even this ego we do not experience it in a direct way in the deep sleep state although that ego at a causal level still exists. And so the mandukishad goes on to say you are not the ego also. So you're not the body you're not the mind you're not the ego which is tied to everything but the only thing that is common in and through all of your experiences is consciousness.
(17:50) So this consciousness which is the foundation of your experience in your waking state, in your dream state, in your deep sleep state is who you actually are. You are not the body nor the mind nor the ego. The body comes and goes with each birth. You know mind also comes and goes. But consciousness is something that you actually are.
(18:14) And this consciousness is described as atman which is birthless which is deathless which is eternal which is imperishable which is pure bliss which is pure happiness and which is the source of everything which is the source of creation. Now all this is what the single sound of om is showing to us is telling us is representing.
(18:38) If we understand om we understand everything else. There is nothing more to understand because every single upanishad Bhagawat Gita every scripture of sanatana dharma speaks of realization of liberation of moka which is simply transcending our identifications with the body mind ego to realize our essential nature as consciousness itself.
(19:08) That is all that every oponyish is trying to tell us and that is what Om explains us in a simple yet profound way and om cannot be considered as a typical word because think about this every word represents something for example let's consider a word which is a tree now the word tree symbolizes or represents an actual tree.
(19:37) There is a tree which is an object and the word tree is simply a literary representation of it. But M on the other hand does not represent anything outside of it. Everything that it points to is within it. Therefore M is looked at as the primordial sound of creation. It is a sound from which every other sound emerges.
(20:05) It is the source from which the entirety of the universe arises. And from today onwards, this is the practical takeaway for you. Whenever you see Om or whenever you practice chanting Om, do not just do it mechanically. See what it symbolizes and represents as per Mandukopish and internalize it. When you say ah just understand that it is the waking state that it denotes.
(20:34) When you say u just understand that it is the dream state which it denotes. And when you say ma understand that it is the deep sleep state which it denotes. And after a chant of om when you come to a point of silence that silence is turya the fourth which is the consciousness which is fundamental and which is in and through all your experiences.
(20:59) Now all this can be looked at as theory but to make it practical look at your own experience. In the waking state you have the body. In the dream state you do not have the body but you have the mind. In the deep sleep state, you neither have the body nor you have the mind. But you experience a total blankness. But in and through all these three states, you are always the consciousness.
(21:23) You are that eternal consciousness right here, right now in your own experiences. This is not theoretical. This is extremely practical and this is the reality. This is the truth. If we can just see that and if we can just identify to that aspect of who we are by letting go of who we are not as body and mind that is when we can experience absolute fulfillment and bliss and that infinite aspect of ourselves.
(21:53) That is the goal for us through Vedanta. And to make this happen in your life, begin chanting Om every single day at least for seven times a day. You know, you can just sit with your legs crossed, with your spine erect, with your head turned straight and just chant like this. Oh, chant it in a way where you are giving equal amount of time for each of the parts of a u and ma and don't just mechanically do it but internalize
(22:39) whatever we have covered so far. Whenever you chant om try to grasp the meaning behind it and try to see what it is actually pointing towards. When we do it more and more we get closer and closer to who we are and that is the ultimate goal. I hope this was valuable for you and next check out this important video on mandukopanishad where we discussed the verses of the mandukopanishad which will sort of bring this entire understanding to a conclusion.
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