Edward’s Diary Entry 150: Aaaaa.... a sudden insight?

Now the root sound of all sounds is Aaaa, as in AUM. Not surprisingly, this is the first letter of the alphabet in most languages: A, aleph, alif, alpha, etc. When pronounced, this sound vibrates from a point just below the navel and spreads up throughout the body. We just open our mouths, gently, mouth relaxed, and press out a vowel sound using the diaphragm and out comes the basic sound Aaaa…(in picture, right). If we started gently closing our mouths with this sound, the next sound Uuuu comes out, and when we completely close our mouths, there is only the Mmmm sound left. These are the three basic sounds that we can make without using the tongue. In other words, even if you had no tongue, or your tongue were cut out, you could still say AUM.

When a dog or cat stretches and opens its mouth and then closes it, it also makes something like the sound AUM. Sheep start the sound production process before opening their mouths, and therefore use an explosive B in front of the Aaaa, when they baa. Cows prefer the M at the beginning, followed by the Uuuu and then maybe an Aaa, when they moo. So, the basic process of expelling air from a cavity of the body through a tube creates the Aaa sound, a universal sound, a primary resonance from the root of preceding silence. And therefore we can say that the root of the 3 root sounds is silence itself.

Now as I was pronouncing the “big inner question” about the “I”, I realised that the pronunciation of “I” in English is actually just an Aaaa followed by a tensing of the middle/front part of tongue upwards to end in “ee”, the diphthong [ai]. English has preserved, so to speak, the original Sanskrit “I”, “Aham”, and the root sound “Aaa” is common to both. “I” is “’ana” in Arabic as well. The root sound Aaa is common to the personal pronoun “I”. Why is this?

Look what happened to the scholar-poet Ganapati Muni in the early 20^th C, brought to my attention in Facebook today:

”The Muni approached the Virupaksha Cave where Brahmanaswami lived on the 18th of November 1907. Prostrating before the young Sage, he pleaded with a trembling voice: "All that has to be read I have read. Even Vedanta Sastra I have fully understood. I have performed japa to my heart's content, yet I have not up to this time understood what tapas is. Hence, have I sought refuge at thy feet. Pray enlighten me about the nature of tapas."

For fifteen minutes Sri Ramana Maharshi silently gazed at the Muni. He then spoke:

"If one watches where the notion of 'I' springs, the mind will be absorbed into that. That is tapas.”

“If a mantra is repeated and attention is directed to the source where the mantra sound is produced, the mind will be absorbed into that. That is tapas."

Upon hearing these words of the sage, the scholar-poet was filled with joy and announced that this upadesa was entirely original and that Brahmanaswami was a Maharshi and should be so called thereafter. He then gave the name of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi to Brahmanaswami, whose original name had been Venkataraman.

Now the “Who am I?”-question takes on a new significance. It is not just a thought in so many words. Now it becomes a sound. When walking, the “Who” and the “am” are two footsteps, say using the right foot, repeated silently, and then the “I” can become a long sounded “Aaaaaaiii” for 3 more footsteps. And since there is so much going on in the city streets, with pedestrians on cell phones and vehicles coursing through the streets, no one notices the soft vibrant sound as I walk along… And if they did, perhaps in Spanish they would just think I am complaining about something, as people do here, saying “aaaaayyyyy”, or “woe is me!”. But no, no complaints, just perseverance, that’s all.