Who Am I? And the Silence after Om.

[dwai]

One way to directly "access" the underlying "self-nature" or "True Nature" is to ask the following question: "Who Am I?" and observe what you get before a single thought/memory arises (i.e., without relying on a single thought after silently asking that question).  

 

The same can be accessed when meditating on the silence after Om. One Vedantic meditation method is to do a long chant of Om (Oooouuuummm) silently. The idea is to treat the chant as a sacrificial fire, and as we chant "oooo" we take the entirety of our waking experience and offer it into the fire. Then we take the entirety of our dreaming experience and offer into the fire as we chant "uuuuu", and the entirety of our deep sleep (absence of experience) and offer it into the fire as we chant "mmmm". What follows after is a stillness/silence that remains. Stay with this silence for as long as the mind rests, and keep going back to it by repeating the process until the mind stays still/silent for an extended period of time. 

Swami Sarvapriyananda has a wonderful lesson on this meditation on youtube - I strongly recommend it to those who are interested. 

 

I found that the "Who Am I" is a way to quickly access the same stillness/silence as in the long om meditation. If your mind is agitated, it is a good way to enter into stillness/silence. 

 

P.S. - here is another good resource on the om meditation - https://swamij.com/om-mantra.htm

Edited August 2 by dwai

[old3bob]

Om Tat Sat, Om Tat Sat, Om Tat Sat Om.......