The story at the banks of the river Ganga

 

That morning, with some of my family members, I had come to Garh Ganga, which is a small town at the banks of the River Ganga. We had come there for the holy bath, an annual ritual, but due to shortage of time, instead of going to Haridwar, we had come here because it is the closest point for us, where we can dip in Ganga. 

Ram, who is my uncle’s son, lives there, and though we had not met in years, he remembered me and was addressing me as Didi, big sister. He was guiding us around the town, and was quite protective of us, especially around the banks of the holy river, which were teaming with priests and pandas waiting for pilgrims like us for their daily business, getting their clients to recite Om, while washing off their sins in the holy water. There was a lot of Omkara, recitation of Om everywhere. 

We finished our holy bath, and a short puja, a special morning religious ceremony, in which we recited Om, quite a few times. (1).

Ram started by explaining how Om is to be recited, and why:

Om - pronounced as ō - ə - 'm…, is a syllable, made up of four sound components; you can hear the first three, but there is a fourth one too, the turiya, the Silence!

You need to recite Om correctly!

Recite it with me… ō - ə - ‘m, ə!

Hear how, ō merges into ə and ə merges into 'm and ‘m merges into – nothingness, an empty space, silence – and in the silence the sound of Om remains reverberating.  

Did you feel it? He asked me. 

Dumbfounded I nodded.

And he said: This resounding silence, that you are hearing in Om, is the primordial sound of the universe! The Brahmmanaad! (Brahmman means the universe and naad means the sound)!

He kept explaining, how the recitation of Om is the realisation of the absolute truth – the universal connectivity, an understanding of this existence as one reality!

"It is actually the state of being without being – Sat Chit AnanD, existence, consciousness bliss! 

"We are made of the same five ingredients- panchbhootT - that the universe is made up of –prithvi, vayu, agni, jal, and the space, the antriksh!” He pointed to the sky!

"Do you know the silence in Om is the space within us here, that we need to have, to make the connection with the space there!”

 He said with his hand on his heart and a beatific smile on his face.

"And that is where resides our breath, Pranav, what keeps us alive and, healthy, and through which we exit to our next life! Our bodies dissolving in Earth, moving from gross to subtle to finally merging in Om!"

We had, by then, started walking towards the tea stall where we had some hot breakfast waiting for us, and I was looking forward to getting into my comfortable dry shoes that were in the car. As I hesitantly started to walk on the sand with my wet slippers, which kept slipping, Ram said to me, 

"Didi, don’t be afraid of touching the earth with your bare feet, as it is through this touch you are completing the whole panchbhuT experience, your body is connecting to its universal elements, and is at peace”.

I laughed and making an excuse, about having hurt my big toe or something, started to walk more steadily.

 “No Didi, I’m serious, how many people actually put their bare feet on the earth anymore! And how many are actually deprived of the experience of having that space their antriksh within themselves?”

“Yes,” I thought, as I took my slippers off . “How many of us actually get to touch the river water or even look at the sky every day, or feel the sun on our skin even, not many?” 

As if understanding the whole dialogue taking place within me he said, “Isn’t it why people are sick, sad, suffering, isolated and alone, and isn’t that why our physical, emotional or social balance is out of kilter? We don’t have that space within us, that Antriksh - that silence!"

"Yes, we are too full up!”

“no wonder we are disconnected, and we are disempowered”! I thought.

We have lost “that God particle!!!”  I said it and we both stopped and looked at each other intensely.

This story is about this experience, in which Ram had taken me through this process to realise, how everything is connected and contained within Om!

Om, through its sound of silence connects human mind and body, and then it also unites us to the vibratory energy in the universe. The power of that moment, when one knows without knowing is the key to pure consciousness - 

In this “Anubhava", that I experienced that day, what I had felt was perhaps my direct connection with Brahamm, the ultimate reality, the merging of atmah, the ‘self’ into param-atmah, the universal ‘self’!(2). 

(A version of this story has appeared in my book, in 2018). (3).

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(1).  Omkara, recitation of Om, Gayathri mantra, Shanthi Mantra, all start with Om. 

(2). “Anubhava, or experience, is the “higher domain of spiritual vision. The task of philosophy in the widest sense, is undoubtedly the rationalisation of the experience” (Brahama, 1993, p. 11).

(3).  Handa, N. (2018). Education for Sustainability Through Internationalisation: Transnational Knowledge Exchange and Global Citizenship. U.K.: Palgrave 2018