The Place That Sounds Like Aum

For much of my life, I considered the whole concept of sitting cross legged with a few fingers pinched together chanting 'ohm,' or 'aum' to be really rather quite a silly thing altogether. Sometimes tradition can get rather weird and I could see no benefit to making such a pose and speaking such a noise. The concept of meditation itself made some potential sense to me but many of the trappings did not. Therefore, I doubt I had even once seriously considered that the sound 'aum' might have any significance whatsoever. To me, it was just some silly tradition.

Then one night something changed. Sometime in my early 30s I think it was, I had a weird dream experience. In the dream, I was at a place where there was a deep intense vibration. The vibration penetrated everything, and although intense, it was also strangely relaxing. It made you want more of it. In a way, the vibration was the experience but yet it was so much more than just a mere sound. Somehow, it was all the sounds of 'ohm' at once, the 'o' sound and the 'm' sound as well, all at once constantly. And forever and always was/is.

In this place/experience, I somehow just KNEW that this place, this ohm thing, was the foundation, the underneath of everything, it was that which was underlying all things. It was the underpinnings. I saw in my mind a kind of flat plane that goes on forever and a kind of gridwork that spreads out across space. The plane was flat yet it also slightly pulsed and vibrated. But I suspect this was just my conceptualization of it but not particularly how it might actually look, if it even has any real appearance to it such that light waves project to us here on Earth. I saw and experienced this for a while, and then I woke up.

Since that day, I have a new found respect for 'Aum.' Later research on the internet showed me that Aum is sometimes called 'the Primordial Vibration.' That seems a good name for it, although my only quibbling dislike about those words is that they in some ways imply that the Aum is in the past. I am sure that is not right. The Aum place is definitely in the now. I am sure it is down there right now underneath everything. You just can't quite remember it right now, but if you were to shift your consciousness just so, then you would remember it again.

In some traditions, aum is considered symbolic of this or that or whatever. I found I wanted to totally ignore all that talk. To me, Aum is the sound of that place/time/experience that underlies all things. It seems now obvious to me the word Aum is used because that is the sound you hear when you are there. There is so much more to that place/time/experience but perhaps the sound is the easiest for a couple of simple little Earth based brain cells to understand. Most of the rest of the Aum experience/place either can't really be understood well by the Earth brain cells or can't easily be put into words. I am sure that others have gone to that place/experience as well and they heard the same thing as me and Aum is such the obvious name for that place that many of them likely called it the same thing. They knew this sound was important somehow, this primordial vibration called Aum.

Personally, I don't know if actually chanting the sound really has much impact. Making the sound is not the same thing as that place. Or maybe the replicated sound could carry the tiniest little fraction of that place, a tiny influence on the psyche or a tiny reminder of what is underneath. A tiny of fraction of a very powerful thing could actually be more than a tiny thing after all.  In that way, maybe it does have some effect. And maybe you get more of whatever you focus on, even if your focus is dim. And maybe it will work if you believe it will work because belief itself has incredible power. So believe on! , all you folks who believe. Because belief has power and now that I've been there, That Place That Sounds Like Aum is, imo, a pretty darned cool place indeed!

Strange Sound (a story from waking life)

Today I feel like writing about some things that once happened in my real waking life. In between vast swaths of normality, I also have a few interesting memories of weird events. One is from my early childhood.

I remember in the first house I lived in, I would often hear a weird noise as I lay in my bed. The sound reminded me of what it would sound like if large rocks were slowly being tumbled in a dryer, like rocks that would slide along for a bit on metal, then get jumbled up, and then all tumble over the top of each other at once, and then slide along somemore. I often thought the sound came from inside one of the walls of my room, but when I tried to really localize the source of the sound, it always seemed to move and become illusive. I rationalized that the sound must be from pipes or some kind of machinery in the house, but often the sound made me nervous and scared. It was creepy!

When I was about 7 years old, we moved to another house that was nearby. I was surprised to discover the sound was also present in my room at the new house. I noticed it often when it was quiet at night, but not always. Sometimes it would stop and start. Again, is was impossible to really localize the sound but even so, I rationalized that it must come from a hot water heater in a wall adjacent to my room. I told myself probably the previous house also had a hot water heater and that is why both houses had the same noise. Although it confused me that I could also sometimes hear the sound just as loud in the daytime in other areas of the house far from the hotwater heater. I remember sitting in the living room as a child, drawing or playing quietly, and sometimes hearing the sound and wondering about it and trying to localize it but being unable to do so.

In about 3rd grade, I visited a friend some miles away and slept over at her house. That night, I was surprised to start hearing the sound at her house as well. I mentioned the sound to my friend and she became excited, saying she could hear it as well but when she had asked other members of her family, none of them could hear it at all.

That night, we took turns comparing notes about when the sound started and stopped and we always agreed. Whatever it was, we both heard it stop and start at the same times and our descriptions of how it sounded also matched. We also discussed how she could also hear it in other parts of the house but also could not localize it. Indeed on other visits to her house, both sleeping over or visiting in the daytime, I heard the sound on occasion in various areas of her house and also still could not localize its source. The two of us always agreed on the sound and she was very excited that I could hear it as well. She told me that she had made a big point of telling her brother that I could hear it as well, thus proving the sound was real and she was not crazy. She made a point of having me tell this to her brother personally so he would believe her. But her brother seemed unimpressed by this news.

I remember another time later when the hot water heater at our house sprung a leak and a repairman came over to install a new one. I was surprised to see the hot water heater was in a very different part of the wall than where I often felt the sound seemed to come from. This disconcerted me as I now knew the sound could not have come from the heater and I was now old enough to realize that no other pipes or systems existed in that wall. Now the sound was even more creepy. But again, although the sound often seemed to come from that wall, whenever I really tried to localize it, the sound became illusive and seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.

Somewhere in the course of time, I lost touch with that friend and I must have stopped hearing the sound as well, as I do not hear it now, but I don't remember exactly when I stopped hearing it. Often, I did not want to hear it as it was a creepy thing to hear an unexplained sound at night, and somewhere along the line, I must have gotten my wish.

In fact, I had forgotten all about the strange sound until about 6 months ago when the memory suddenly came back to me just as I was falling asleep. I was surprised to realize I could have forgotten such a strange memory for so long. Now I wonder how many other weird memories I have laying half dormant in my mind. And I also really wonder what the heck that sound was!