The Eternal Sound 'OM' is beyond reducing physical fatigue... It is the Underlying Fabric of Cosmos

14 Year Old Anwesha Discovers the Magic of "OM" - Times of India

When I read the news of Anwesha’s discovery about the power of Pranava Naad ‘Om’, I felt that all is still not lost in India in context of our ancient culture and heritage. In my earlier post on Creation: The Big Bang and the eternal sound ‘OM’, I had signed off with the following words…

“The young India does not like to read these amazing books… We ourselves have turned the immensely practical treasure trove of our rich heritage of culture and knowledge into a straightjacketed ritualistic customs and practices, hidden behind the closed and crumbling temple walls across the country, through our fanatic religious shortsightedness.” - Click here to read the full article

But young girl like Anwesha, Mathematicians like Manjul Bhargava, Rap Singers like Blaaze are still out there, reaching out to our ancient literature and cultural heritage, studying it and coming out with innovative ways and experiments to put the ancient knowledge across the world with new and modern perspective.

Manjul Bhargava, Maths Nobel winner, was inspired by a shloka, which his grand father gave him to read, to write his PhD thesis.  Blaaze, famous MTV Idol, Rap Singer of ‘Baba Rap’, ‘Hosanna Rap’ Bunty Aur Bubbly, Slum Dog Millionaire etc. was inspired enough by a priest to create rap shloka like Dandakam Shloka, Gita Dhyaanam etc. and it gives me an immense pleasure to see that Anwesha, a 14-year-old has wowed city scientists with her discovery of the impact of the 'Om' sound in reducing fatigue.

But OM is beyond reducing physical fatigue; it’s the eternal vibration through which the whole universe is manifested. As more and more experiments being conducted, trying to find the God Particle, scientists will read a stage where they will come to conclude that “Eternal Sound” is all that is underlying the fabric of cosmos. This is what our ancient sages has said almost 5000 years ago as well.

Māndūkya Upanishad starts with solemn proposition with the following… 

“OM! This imperishable word is the whole of this visible universe.”

Chandogya Upanishad explains the origin of the universe as…

“Space, said he. Verily, all things here arise out of space. They disappear back into space, for space alone is greater than these, space is the final goal. This is the most excellent Udgitha. This is endless. The most excellent is his, the most excellent worlds does he win, who, knowing it thus, reveres the most excellent Udgitha [Om, ॐ].” - Verse 1.9.1-1.9.2

Many people say that if ‘Om’ is such powerful word then why it is not mentioned in Veda. To understand this omission, you have to have the proper context. In ancient Vedic times, the “OM” was considered too sacred to be written down. It was given to the disciple by the guru in secret manner, mostly by being whispered into his ear, since it was such potent sound, to be even heard an un-prepared disciple through study and deep reflection, to receive it.

The Key to Unlocking Our Brain

If we consider our brain as a computer, scientists are increasingly calling it a ‘Wetware’, then the software which runs it are of two types. - One is logic and the other is language. If we take our ancient literature like Kalidasa’s Meghdoot, Bhagwat Gita, Purana, Veda etc. you will realise that it not only comprise of deep thoughts, ideas or way of life but it was written in beautiful and lyrical language.

As we read more and more of our ancient literature, it slowly unlocks the obscurity of our subconscious mind and firms up certain synaptic connections, that makes one more conducive to receiving deeper knowledge. That the sage writers of these work of art and science some how knew how our consciousness works and gave us keys to explore hidden areas within our selves.

And I believe that the key to unlocking our hidden purpose and strength is the sound ‘Om’.

We can all debate, till the cows come home, whether ancient Vedic philosophy was a scientific study or just incoherent musings of village mendicant or local sadhu. But I firmly believe if you dig deeper into these ancient resources of knowledge, you will find something that will connect with you. That is the only spark you need to become what you are destined to be. That alone will give you, your purpose of life and will make you what you are.

And as I keep asking the young generation at my workshops and my book "Songs of the Mist" talks, please don’t go by what you have heard or read some one say, you read it yourself. Go back to our ancient culture and heritage, if nothing else, the language alone will change you.

“Now that light which shines above this heaven, higher than all, higher than everything, in the highest world, beyond which there are no other worlds, that is the same light which is within man” —Chandogya Upanishad 3.13.7

Flames of devotion

Sculpts darkness of mind into

Beauty of our souls

__

Shashi 

ॐ नमः शिवाय

Om Namah Shivaya

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The Big Bang and the Eternal Sound Om              

My book "Songs of the Mist" journey across India...

One of the reasons, I am writing the three book series, "The Monk Key" of which "Songs of the Mist", is the first part, is to share the story of one young man's journey to 'find the divinity within'. As the series was conceived on the banks of holy river Ganges, in 1987 and firmed up across my travels to Rishikesh  Varanasi, Ganga Sagar. So it has been my deepest desire to offer it to that divine sources from which it draws its stories, energy and its blessings. 

The another purpose of writing this book has been to reach out to the young generation who, in my opinion are alienated from the deep source of our culture, heritage and thoughts - our ancient scriptures. When asked, if they have read our Vedas, Purana's and Upanishad's etc., they typically reply "What is the point of reading them" due the certain biases rooted in modernity. The book "Songs of the Mist" is one such attempt to share the knowledge and thoughts of Karma Yoga, based on Bhagwat Gita; in order to inspire them to connect proactively with our cultural heritage. At the book's launch at Chennai's famous book store, I shared my thoughts on the same.

My book "Songs of the Mist" was published in Dec, 2016 and within 9 days it reached two thousand ranking amongst millions of books at Amazon. In April 2016, it breached double digit ranking. Within a period of 6 months, I have been blessed with opportunities to fulfil my desire to dedicate the book to its sources of inspiration. From the Himalayas to plains of India, I have had few opportunities to dedicate the book to Holy Ganges, at Rishikesh, Varanasi, Kolkata; Goddess Durga of our ancient temple in the eastern UP village and Buddha Shrine at Kushinagar - a place where Buddha attained Nirvana. Through book readings and launches, I have also been blessed to reach out to the readers of young India.

It gives me a great pleasure to share some of the images and few video clips, chronicling my book's journey across India. Hope you will enjoy it.

Parmarth Niketan - Rishikesh

Sivananda Ashram - Rishikesh

Varanasi

Durga Ji, Buddha at Kushi Nagar and friends from Varanasi...

Book Reading at Leela Palace Hotel organised by
Apparao Galleries

Here is an introduction to my book by the Famous Author, Journalist and Writer, Timeri N Murari at the Leela Palace Hotels, organised by Apparao Galleries in an event called "An Evening of Art, Music and Writing".

"Many of us here yearn for something more in our life. Shashi has provided a spiritual release in beautiful book, Songs of the Mist. It’s unusual and thought provoking book. The book answers questions that we struggle to frame in our daily lives. Shashi’s descriptive beauty of the mystic nature of Himalayas interwoven with sufferings and the heartaches, and struggle of each protagonist, provide eloquent and thought provoking read. Not a book to browsed at glance and to reach books full potential demands commitment and investment of time to savor its subtlety and do grows." - Timeri N Murari

 

Odyssey Book Launch

At the Odyssey Book Launch, the popular Rapper - Blaaze (Baba Rap, Hosanna Rap, Slum Dog Millionaire, Delhi 6 etc.) and Keshav Ji - The Famous Cartoonist of the News Paper Group Hindu, who is foremost Krishna Bhakta echoed my thoughts about our ancient Indian Heritage and culture...

“When you just listen to it (Shlokas etc), …the sanskrit syllables are enough to get you positive energy, without knowing anything about it. … it can only bring peace in a world like this”. – Blaaze

“Our Purana’s (Ancient Vedic Scriptures etc.) give you how to deal with life, how to deal with situations and predicaments, as they have already analyzed and laid it out on platter so that you don’t have to think.” – Keshav ji

Chennai and Kolkata Book Fair

Hope you have enjoyed the journey with me amongst holy places of India as well as my thoughts shared within the video clips. If you would like to read my book "Songs of the Mist" it is available at the following places.

Amazon.in || Amazon.com || Amazon.UK || Flipkart || Google Play || Kindle ||

__

Shashi 

ॐ नमः शिवाय

Om Namah Shivaya

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Hindu Lit for Life 2016                                    

On Vedic Culture - Hindu Phobia is not the right way to look at it....

As one of my favorite Czech Author, Milan Kundera once said that every act of creativity, writing or novel should have a purpose. I had decided to write my story in year 1987, when I first visited Rishikesh, finished writing all three parts of "The Monk Key" in 2010 Nov. But still had no reason to get it published other than my ego, I.e. to get to be known as an author, which was actually not on my priority list. But last year, one day I asked my son, have you read Bhagwat Gita and he said, no - what’s the point of reading it. This gave me a purpose, i.e. to make our Vedic / Upanishadic / Poranic scriptures come out of obscure depths of dogmatic beliefs and rituals and become main stream and interesting for young generation. This book "Songs of the Mist" and "The Monk Key" series is my one small step towards that goal.

You see, our conscious mind works on only two things - logic and language. And our ancient books and scriptures are treasure troves of both Language as well as knowledge and the extremely deep thought processes. Reading these ancient books can easily ignite a spark a new idea, a new search for meaning in your mind, specially young minds. Yes there are things written in these books that usually don’t go with modern and prevalent scientific thoughts. But the fact is that some people cherry-pick only the negative things about our culture and heritage, and in the process creating a narrative, which is not actually in the sync with the grand reality of our heritage and culture. This ultimately has created a bias against our vedic heritage and culture and alienated young generation. This saddens me to a great extent and with this post I am trying to put things in certain perspective, with hope that it will inspire you to reach out to our heritage and culture.

Almost 3000 years ago, Pythagoras came to India, (Albert Burk in his book Das Apstamba Sulba Sutra 1901 says he came to Kanchipuram) to learn from Indian sages, masters and went back to his city. Apart from the Pythagoras theorem that he is famous for, which is now proven to be the direct takeaway from Shulabha Strotra, he also took our methods of teaching, which was famous at the time. - The Gurukul system of learning. The alumni were the likes of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle.

Image curtsy Wikipedia

Let me tell you another story, which I have talked about in my blog post earlier discussing the Big Bang (Click here to read). Lemaitre - An ordained priest in 1931 observed the night sky over the years and realised that the nebulae’s he was observing are going farther away. He then proposed that the Universe must be expanding. Then as he retraced this expansion back in time as thought experiment and proposed a theory that as the Universe in the past must have started from a single point. In a BBC interview in 1949, George Gamow another scientist, gave this theory a name - The Big Bang Theory. In 1970, Stephen Hawking and his colleagues proved mathematically that the Universe indeed started from a single point with the Big Bang.

Now the reason I am telling you this story is that almost 3K years ago, in Mandukya Upanishad, it is also said that the Universe was formed from a point with the Pranava Naad which literally means A deep Sound, and if I may paraphrase - from the Big Bang. But if we go out and say this to a scientist, they will laugh.  Though this is exactly what the priest Lemaitre proposed in 1930s too. Why?

Because some one took Georges Lemaitre’s words seriously and did continuous research over decades and finally Stephen Hawkins proved it. But unfortunately in India, we don’t do it. We don’t take the thought experiments of our ancient sages to its logical conclusion by research and experiments. Almost 3K years ago we had abandoned the experimental part and only took forward the ritualistic part of our Vedic culture. I feel sad about it.

But slowly things are changing now. There are people still working on those obscure knowledge somehow or the other to make it acceptable to the world. Yoga is one such example of our knowledge being embraced by the world now.

There are people who do get inspired by those ancient shloka, for example a young mathematician of Indian origin in USA- Manjul Bhargava. He is a fields medal winner - which is considered to be a noble prize for mathematics. His grand father in Rajasthan gave him a set of ancient shloka’s. The Fibonacci sequence embedded in the shloka triggered his curiosity and he developed a method that won him his PhD in an US University too.

And I am happy that there are people like Manjul Bhargava from USA, and still more closer to us in Chennai cool people like my friends here, the youth icon and Singer Blaaze and a great Krishna Bhakta, Painter and famous Cartoonist of Hindu Sh. Keshav and music director Paul, with whom I am trying to bring out Songs of the Monk from my book. When I hear them collaborate and sing ancient Shloka’s, I feel that all is still not lost.

__

Shashi 

ॐ नमः शिवाय

Om Namah Shivaya

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