Om: The Sound That Was There Before Everything

In 2003, NASA released recordings made by the Chandra X-ray Observatory of pressure waves emanating from a black hole in the Perseus galaxy cluster. The waves had a frequency 57 octaves below middle C — far below the range of human hearing. When scientists converted them to audible sound, the result was a deep, resonant hum.

The ancient seers of India had a name for this sound. They called it Om — or more precisely, Aum — and they described it as the primordial vibration from which all of creation arises. Not a symbol, not a word, but a sound that exists at the foundation of reality itself.

The three components of Aum — A, U, M — are said to represent the three states of consciousness: waking, dreaming, and deep sleep. The silence that follows the M is the fourth state: turiya, pure awareness, the ground from which all experience arises.

When you chant Om, you are not performing a religious act. You are tuning your body — which is itself a vibrating system — to the fundamental frequency of existence. The ancient seers understood this. The physicists are beginning to catch up.