Meditation Techniques: Chanting The Mantra 'aum'

Aum is one of the most popular chants in India. From time to time Osho has suggested many ways of doing it; if done properly, it can be a door to silence.

A caution from Osho: A mantra has to be chanted and then dropped. A mantra is complete only when you can drop it. Do not cling to it!

Here we discuss one of the ways of chanting the Aum mantra.

First stage

Sit down relaxed, either in a temple or in your room and repeat AUM as loudly as possible, for one hour. Use the whole body to repeat it, as if thousands of people are listening to you without amicrophone, and you have to be very loud so that the whole body trembles, shakes with it. Let the body be saturated with the sound of Aum.

For almost three months, you should not bother about anything else, and only practice this first stage. The first stage is very important because it gives the foundation.

Second stage

After three months, when you feel your body is completely saturated, when you can feel deep down inside you that the word has entered into the body cells, as if your whole body can repeat it; then you are ready for the second step. The second step is to close your mouth and repeat and chant the word Aum mentally. The throat, the tongue, the lips, everything should be closed, the whole body locked, and this chanting should only be in the mind -- but as loudly as possible: with the same loudness you were using with the body. Now allow the mind too to be saturated with Aum.

Third stage

When the mind feels saturated... it is just like eating: you feel full, when it is enough; so also the mind will feel full when it is enough. Then starts the third step. Neither the body has to be used nor the mind has to be used at this stage. Just listen, and you will hear a sound coming to you from your own heart of hearts. The Aum will be there inside you, as if somebody else is chanting; and you are just the listener.

This is the completion of the chant mantra.