What is the significance of words like 'Om'? || Acharya prashant, with youth (2013)

Question: What is the significance of the word ‘Om’?

Speaker: No significance at all. Zero! ‘Om’ or any other word does not matter because every word is merely a sound, a product of the human mind. What do you do? You take a sound and you attach a certain meaning to it and that is it. There is a sound and the moment that sound falls on your ears, a meaning comes up, an image pops up. Obviously all of this is man-made, a product of human mind. It will bring you no silence; it will not take you closer to peace. All it can do is create an illusion in your mind that something is happening.

Words like ‘Om’ are not words at all. Till the time you keep calling ‘Om’ a word, there is no significance to it. These words came about as a technology. This is a sound alright, but don’t give it a meaning, don’t attach any images to it and only then it will silence the mind because the mind lives in thoughts and images. If ‘Om’ has become just another word then it is further activating the mind. If ‘Om’ has become just another word then it is creating more and more images in the mind.

And how does that help silence the mind? It does not. The moment that word ‘Om’ falls on your ears you know that this is something religious, probably something spiritual, whatever that means; that it is useful in meditation and a long chain of thoughts have come. Instead of moving into silence the mind has been agitated even more because nowyou have attached a lot of thoughts with the word ‘Om’. It will not help. If ‘Om’ becomes apart of all that already exists in our minds like my religion, my thoughts, my meditation etc., if ‘Om’ becomes a part of all that, then it will not be useful at all. And that is what it has become. Isn’t it? It has become a religious symbol. It is not that.

To move into silence you have to move away from the world of thoughts and images. The mind remains agitated because it is being continuously supplied inputs from outside. Someone says something to you and you are agitated. You see something and you are agitated. A thought comes and the mind is agitated. Why have you made ‘Om’ a part of all that? As it is just another external input and it comes to you and there is some kind of thought.

However, if it can be something different then it will be very useful. But then it will not be a word. It will not be a mere sound. It is a challenge to you to find out what can it be beyond a word, beyond a sound. But I assure you till the time it is just a word, just a sound or a religious symbol it is pretty meaningless and useless.

Clear?

Listeners (everyone): Yes, Sir.

Speaker: Alright!

Excerpted from a ‘Shabd-Yog’ session. Edited for clarity.

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