Pranava or Omkara is the Primordial Sound! It is declared as the Absolute Brahman or Supreme Reality! According to the Upanishads “On ityekaaksharam Brahma”! All sounds, it is believed, have emanated from this original Sound! It is a very holy and sacred sound. Pranava is a combination of three important letters, A, U, M. The first letter A stands for Vishnu. The sounds included in the word Vishnu indicate the letter A in AUM. The Lord has declared already that He is A among the letters! “Akaraha Vishnu vachakaha”. In other words, the letter A stands for Vishnu. Thus placed at the first stage of Pranava, Maha Vishnu protects the entire world. It is rare quality of Vishnu to protect everyone in all places and at every time! The next letter is 'U'. This letter represents Mahalakshmi! In Chandogya Upanishads they sing about' UD, which represents Mahalakshmi herself! She the presiding deity of the letter 'U'. Another meaning is that the letter 'U’ actually belongs to letter 'A'. It stresses that the letter 'U' can never belong to any other letter. After the two letters ‘A' and 'U' that stand for Vishnu and Mahalakshmi, the third letter 'M' stands for Manas or mind that represents intelligence!
Who is it that has intelligence? In Vedantic parlance it is Jivatma or the Individual Soul! He not only has intelligence but is intelligence itself similar to the sun radiating light rays and at the same time the center of heat and light. There is another proof to establish that the letter ‘M' represents Jivatma. We notice the important tatwas namely Prakriti, Mahat, and Ahankara or Ego. From these three tatwas emerged “ Pancha tanmatras”. From these came the “,Panchabhutas” or the Five Elements! From them the “Karmendryas”5, Jnanendryas 5 and above all ‘Manas' came in to being! Altogether they are twenty four in number! Apart from all these and the twenty fifth entity is the ' Jivatma'! Entirely different from the twenty fifth, the twenty sixth entity is the “Paramatma”! That is why the famous Nammazwar says, “Yennilum varum” in one of his pasurams. We have to think of the Lord in our mind. According to Adi Sankara the power of a material does not expect the mind of the other person. Fire injures the child as well as the adult. It doesn’t cool itself for the child! Its power and nature is to burn!
The letter A includes both Narayanaa and Mahalakshmi! Wherever we speak of Narayana there is Mahalakshmi also! The three letters of Pranava teach us that we should dedicate all our actions to God! In his” Paramartha Sthuthi” Swami Desican says, “ To protect us well, you have stood in the front in two places, in the Pranava, or Omkara and at the front of Arjuna's great chariot!” As Rama enters the forest he is in the front. Sita follows Him and is in the center. Lakshmana is behind her. This resembles the position of the Pranava always in the front! In the same way, Krishna, sitting in front and driving Arjuna's chariot is none other than this Pranava!
Valmiki describes Rama moving in Dandakaranya as Pranava moving about! Why does Pranava move about? It is to destroy evil represented by Ravana and his train as well as Duryodhana and his company! These are the external enemies. What about the inner adversaries hiding themselves in us? These are called “Arishadvargas”! Ari means enemy. Shadvarga means band of six. They are very powerful but invisible to the mortal eye! They have man in their terrible grip and bring him untold miseries. The six enemies embedded in ourselves are Kama or Desire, Krodha or anger, Lobha or miserliness, Moha or attachment, Mada or Arrogance and Matsarya or contempt! It is to destroy these inner enemies that Paramatma sits in the front!
Those who chant Pranava can reap a lot of benefits! But they have to desist from temptations and dresires! Omkaara or Pranava is the panacea for all the evils that accrue on account of desires or Kama and Lobha or miserliness! Mukkur Lakshmi Narasimhachar gives an illustration of a great scholar who was honored with gold and other presents! There were entry and exit points separately. He was tempted and wanted to get more gold and money from the king! There was no entry for him since he had already received the presents. But this powerful desire couldn’t be controlled. He hid the presents in a bag and climbed up on the wall to gain entry! All his erudition, character, were destroyed by this desire for more money and gold!
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