Listen & Chant Along
Meaning & Translation
Sanskrit
ॐ
Transliteration
Om (A-U-M)
Deity / Quality Invoked
Brahman (the Absolute)
Word by Word
Pronunciation
ohm — sounded slowly as ah-oo-mm, letting the closing hum fade into silence
Full Translation
Om (also written Aum) is held in the Vedic tradition to be the primal sound from which all creation unfolds. The Mandukya Upanishad devotes itself entirely to this one syllable, teaching that its three sounds — A, U, and M — encompass the waking, dreaming, and deep-sleep states of consciousness, while the silence that follows points to turiya, the "fourth" state: pure awareness itself. To chant Om is to sound the whole of existence in a single breath.
Spiritual Significance
Om is chanted at the opening and closing of practices, prayers, and sacred texts, attuning the chanter to the underlying vibration of reality. Nearly every Sanskrit mantra begins with it, because Om is understood as the seed (bija) from which all other mantras grow. Sustained Om chanting settles the breath, steadies the mind, and dissolves the sense of separation between the one who sounds it and the sound itself.
Cultural Context & History
Om first appears in the Vedas and is elaborated throughout the Upanishads, where it is called the pranava — "the humming." It is sacred across Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, and echoes in the Sikh Ik Onkar ("the One, Om-expressed"). In the modern West, Om has become the universal emblem of yoga itself: classes worldwide open and close with it, and group Om chanting is often the first taste of mantra practice a newcomer ever has.
Terms in the Glossary
Words from this page, explained in our A–Z reference.