The ancient vedas of India, the oldest texts in the world, describe Auṁ as the sacred syllable, the primordial sound, the sound of the universe, and the seed sound that created the whole universe from vibration.
We chant Auṁ to tune ourselves into our true centered self, so we can attract all that is meant for us and our life. It’s all about authenticity, the more we can let go of the things that we have accumulated, the beliefs that have negatively affected our voice, like viruses on a computer, the more we can enjoy living in our truth. We attract “like-vibrations” and the voice is no acception. The ancient texts tell us that chanting Auṁ is the fastest and easiest way to exercise our true vibration and attract what we’ve always wanted into our lives, and since we are living in the darkest of times, the “kali yuga,” no other mantra will work as well as Auṁ.
Stewart Pearce is a sound healer and internationally renowned voice coach. He says that our note is in the middle C, between the high treble, which is very cerebral, like a talking head, and the bass which feels unnaturally low. When we feel the vibration of the treble, we can literally feel the buzz of energy, like a bee, coming from our head. When we encounter this energy on the receiving end, it has a confrontational feeling which may elicit feelings of needing to protect oneself from an overly logical perspective. Arm yourself with lots of facts, figures and evidence or choose not to care what they think. The other extreme is the bass, which feels like it’s coming from the solar plexus. It feels powerful, yet it takes way too much energy to maintain for long. Between the two extremes, the middle is where we find our heart. Stewart says, “In ancient Rome, this was taught as persona, so people acquired persona, and per-sona in latin means “per” through, “sona” sound. So you revealed the entirety of your being through sound, and so therefore they worked physiologically, to feel their note, because they knew that sound was at the core of creation.” Stewart quoted sufi, Al-Suhrawardi, “If words come out of the heart, they will enter the heart, but if they come from the tongue, they will not pass beyond the ears” (NewRealities, 2017)
Auṁ is chanted before and or after a yoga class to bring us all together in unity. Unfortunately, most yoga teachers and students don’t know the actual pronunciation of Auṁ to receive the maximum of benefit. In fact, most books that parrot information these days (especially about Yoga) don’t actually consult sanskrit scholars. Fortunately, my yoga certification was from Shiva Rea’s “Global School of Living Yoga,” aka Samudra. One of our guest speakers was Christopher Tompkins, a sanskrit scholar, who translated many ancient texts for us. Auṁ, most frequently, yet incorrectly is pronounced “oh-m.” Christopher pointed out for us that there is actually a dot over the “ṁ” in the ancient written word, called a bindu, a diacritic dot used in many Indic scripts to mark a nasal sound, an anusvara. Without a bindu, the “m” is pronounced “m,” but with the original, ancient bindu dot above the “ṁ,” it is pronounced “ng.” So, all together Auṁ is pronounced “Ah-oo-ng.” Why is this important? The vibration of Auṁ, is known for its power of spiritual transformation, it literally moves matter! Christopher explains that as we chant Auṁ, in the ancient texts, the bee flies through the darkness, back to the beehive. The bee is used as a metaphor for part of a great cosmic vibration, the beehive is the collective consciousness, the great “All,” in “All is One” (Tompkins, 2019). The “ng,” is much more effective in literally moving matter in the subtle body and physical body, because the vibration of “ng,” stimulates the ceiling of the upper palate inside the mouth where the tongue touches a smaller lesser known chakra located at the ceiling of the upper palate. This chakra is known as the Lalana, Kala, or Talu chakra, which then passes the vibration on to its neighbor, the pineal gland, the famous third eye chakra, also known as the sixth chakra of intuition and the psychic senses of knowing. Here at the third eye, the energy circuits journey is completed. In contrast, by simply using the “m” sound, the energy vibration terminates at the lips of the mouth. When this mantra is done by feeling for the path of ascending vibration, it can be exercised to become stronger and more potent.
Cymatics is the study of visible sound and vibration, the science of wave phenomena, it physically demonstrates how sound vibrations can restructure matter into form. Cymatics also shows us the validity of the ancient Eastern Indian story of creation. The term “cyma” comes from the Greek root “kyma” meaning “wave.” In the late 1700’s, the German physicist, Ernst Chladni drew a violin bow across a metal plate covered in sand, creating geometric patterns in sand (Gilbert, 2018).
Later (1904-1972), Dr. Hans Jenny, a Swiss doctor, used a variety of surfaces for support, such as rubber, steel, and paper. Jenny also experimented, using powder, pastes, salts, oils, water, and molten plastic instead of using only sand. Jenny used a sine wave generator with a speaker to create sound vibrations and crystal oscillators attached to the bottom of surface membranes, while applying electrical stimulation to the crystals to create exact vibrations of sound. Jenny’s work was published in German and later translated to English and published by the American, Jeff Volk. Clips from Volk’s DVD’s may be seen on YouTube (Gilbert, 2018).
British osteopath, Dr. Peter Guy Manners used wave phenomena for healing the physical body. In the 1940’s, Manners began research on the vibrational codes of the human body, where he found that everything has a frequency in which it resonates, which he called the Prime Resonant Frequency, PRF. Just like “the law of attraction” when another thing or being is at the same frequency it is more easily absorbed, attracted, or magnetized. A person’s body PRF is between 7-10 Hertz. A typical cell is 1000 Hertz and a human heart is at approximately 100 Hertz. After decades of research, Manners, along with his collaborative group of scientists and medical doctors was able to find 750 vibrational codes for precise physiological and energetic functions. Frequencies were identified to restore tissues, organs, glands, bones, etc. to their natural healthy resonance using audible sound. Using his practical application of Cymatics for healing, he developed the first Cymatherapy device to deliver these healing codes to patients, producing “miraculous” results. Today, there’s an App that can be found here: www.cymascope.com The App converts sound vibrations into Cymatic patterns. The self healing, Cymatherapy device can be found through the Vesica Institute (Gilbert, 2018).
Using cymatics, the visual vibration of Auṁ, can be seen in water. Here in this photograph we can also see “The Fibonacci Sequence,” Auṁ displays, which is often regarded as the mathematical blueprint of creation or “sacred geometry,” as seen with psychedelic usage, specifically psilocybin mushrooms (Sodini, 2015).
Throughout the world, ancient texts tell us about an age in which sound could move monoliths such as the building blocks of the Great Pyramids of Egypt, Stonehenge, or the Mayan Pyramids of Guatemala. The power of sound increases exponentially with the quality of harmonics and the number of participants singing or playing musical instruments. There have been eyewitness accounts of Tibetan monks moving huge boulders with their voices and musical instruments. Swedish engineer, Olaf Alexanderson, described sonic levitation, “We know from the priests of the far East, that they were able to lift heavy boulders up high mountains with the help of groups of various sounds… the knowledge of the various vibrations in the audio range demonstrates to a scientist of physics that a vibrating and condensed sound field can nullify the power of gravitation” (Mattson, 2017).
From 1923 to 1951, Edward Leedskalnin cut and moved huge blocks weighing more than 58 tons, to build his castle in Florida. Leedskalnin said, “I have discovered the secrets of the pyramids, and have found out how the Egyptians and the ancient builders in Peru, Yucatan, and Asia, with only primitive tools, raised and set in place blocks of stone weighing many tons.” Leedskalnin built “Coral Castle” by “singing” to large stones, to lift them. By placing his hands over a stone to be elevated, he sang a scale until he felt a response from the stone (Mattson, 2017).
In Tokyo, Yoshili Hashimoto developed an acoustic levitation machine in which sound vibrates at 20,000 times per second to keep a small silicon wafer hovering one millimeter above a surface (Mattson, 2017).
When I began reading the tarot and astrology out on the Venice Boardwalk, there was a lot of time between clients so I brought my blanket, did yoga and chanted Auṁ. First, we find our tone which is usually lower than we think it is. Most women are too high “in their heads,” like Alvin the chipmunk. First, breathing deep from our Buddha belly, the “Ah,” vibration comes from the heart chakra, the energetic center. Next, the “oo” sound, as in the word moon, where the vibration moves up to the throat. Last, the “ng” sound vibrates at the ceiling of the palate, as in the word long. If we keep the tongue as close as we can, to the ceiling, through the whole process, while keeping the mouth round, like we have an egg in it, we can get that elusive double ring like the Tibetan monks.
Back at the Boardwalk, as I was chanting Auṁ, I was looking at one of my beautiful decks of oracle cards, deeply loving the illustrations on the “Angels of Atlantis” deck produced by Stewart Pearce. At the same time, I was thinking, “Wow, I would love to meet this man and tell him how much I love this deck.” A few minutes later, a fellow walked by and told me how much he loved the deck too. He told me that Stewart Pearce was just up the street, a few blocks away, at the Hari Krishna Temple (back when it was pink and on Rose Avenue in Venice). What a brilliant light he was in real life! When I walked in, he walked up to me, “Mermaid! I recognize you from Atlantis!”
References
New Realities. (2017). Stewart Pearce helps Alan find his note. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6INlsxkI5M
Tompkins, Christopher. (2019). The phonetic Science of the ‘unstruck’ sound (Anahata). Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/christopher.tompkins.754/videos/281537846058448/
Gilbert, Robert J. (2018). Cymatics: How sound vibrations create physical structures. Retrieved from https://vesica.org/vibrational-science-articles/mr-cymatics-how-sound-vibrations-create-physical-structures
Mattson, Jill. (October 27, 2017). Secrets of sonic levitation behind the building of the pyramids and other seeming miracles. Retrieved from https://consciouslifenews.com/secrets-sonic-levitation-behind-building-pyramids-other-miracles/11124409/
Sodini, Jennifer. (December 18, 2015). The OM sound visualized through cymatics. Retrieved from http://www.evolveandascend.com/2015/12/18/the-om-sound-visualized-through-cymatics/
Leedskalnin, E. (February, 2015). Edward Leedskalnin’s writings/booklets. Retrieved from https://sapientiaexanimo.wordpress.com/2015/02/22/edward-leedskalnin-writings-booklets/