(Mind51)- A meditation technique straight from Upanishads

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Upanishads may be the most ancient of the philosophical texts that deal with meditation and the ultimate realities of the world. They are parts of ancient Indian Vedic scriptures, which the Indians believe to be eternal and authorless.

When it comes to the Upanishads, the demarcation between theistic and atheistic beliefs just seems to fade out. Unlike the concept of God in most religions, Upanishadic concept of God is more abstract and far from being an individual.

This God which has no form; which is beyond any explicit description; is just referred to as Atma or Brahma.

You can see more on these concepts in my book “Upanishads – A journey into the unknown”.

But all Upanishads unequivocally declare that the ultimate realization is achieved by meditating on this abstract concept.

But since the target itself is abstract, how do we meditate on that? We need something concrete.

As we saw in the previous episode, we need a target on which we can do dharaNa or focus our mind. That is the first step of meditation.

Upanishads suggest the sound OM to be used as the target for the meditation. This sound which is uttered or memorized in a specific way is called PraNava.


As you meditate, you will be gradually moving from a Mind that is focused but still active, to a completely calm Mind. I will be discussing this gradual journey later on.

So, you need to give some food for the Mind which is still active, so that it does not loiter around into worldly things. Otherwise the entire effort will be futile and a backward march.

So, the Upanishads give lot of imagery to aid gradual moving forward from a gross state of the Mind to more finer states of the Mind.

Upanishads say that the sound OM is actually a combination of three sounds namely A, U, and M. They say that ‘A’ means creation of this world or the beginning, ‘U’ means its sustenance, and ‘M’ means its re-absorption.

Upanishads say that these three acts – creation, sustenance, and final re-absorption are the succinct definition of the abstract entity called Brahma or God. So, A, U, M or OM stands for God.

So, if you meditate on this sound OM, you will be actually meditating on the God that is represented by this sound and hence such a meditation would ultimately lead you to final realization.

What is amazing is that similar ideas like OM exist even in Islam.

In Quran, one comes across sounds like A, L, M or Alif, Lam, Meem in certain chapters or Suras. Though Quran does not explicitly say what these sounds actually stand for, some commentators have explained them in a way very similar to the way Upanishads define the sound A, U, M.

I have discussed this interesting similarity in my book “Towards a better understanding of Islam”.


Coming back, how does one go about meditating on the sound OM?


In the initial stages, one focuses on the mental imagery of the sound as provided by the Upanishads. Then one gradually shifts focus to the variation of sound intensity that occurs when one utters or memorizes the sound OM.

Variation of sound in PraNava

For the practice of meditation, the sound OM is repeatedly uttered or memorized as a sound that suddenly builds up in intensity and then very gradually dies down.

Traditionalist term this as an OM that measures 8 units of time – Ashta Matra. Each Matra is the time taken to utter one letter. It is also called Pranava to differentiate it from the normal short utterance of OM.

You have 3 matras for the three letters A, U, M followed by a long gradually dying sound – or Nada – of 5 matra duration. This gradually decaying sound is the one that calms down the mind.

It also helps if you can synchronize your breathing in and out with the rising and falling of this sound OM, uttered or memorized in this fashion.

You take in the breath during the first three Matras, i.e. when you utter OM, and breathe out very slowly when you utter the elongated gradually dying sound M. That would help speeding up your progress.


Prolonged practice of meditation on this Pranava sound, takes one into deeper states of meditation and finally into the ultimate Samadhi stage as I discuss later.


Incidentally, even Patanjali talks about this Pranava meditation as part of his Ishwara PraNidana. Some of the words he uses there, seem to have been taken straight from the Upanishads.


In the next episode, let us see the meditative technique suggested by another ancient scripture namely the Bhagavad Geetha.

 

A series revolving around Mind – Science of Mind, Philosophy of Mind, Notions of reality, Mind modulation, Domains beyond Mind, and so on. © Dr. King, Swami Satyapriya 2019-2020