The Word That is God

forever. All mantras come out of Om. No mantra exists without Om.”
The bindu of Om is the increasingly subtler sound that we experience in meditation, that
arises eternally from the depths of God and of us.
Maharishi Dayananda Saraswati
“Om is the highest Name of God, and comprises many other Names of God. It should be
borne in mind that Om is the Name of God exclusively–and of no other object material or
spiritual–while the others are but descriptive titles and not exactly proper names.” (Satyartha
Prakash)
This is an extremely important point: all “names” of God are really descriptive titles, and
essentially do not designate God in a “proper” or exclusive manner as they all have meanings
of their own, such as almighty, universal, and such like. Om, on the other hand, has no
“meaning” at all, but is a direct name or indicator of God.
Gaudapada
“Having known Om, one should not think of anything whatsoever.” (Mandukya Karika 24)
The idea is that nothing else should be utilized in meditation or japa but Om, for It is the
source of all and the means to attain all.
“One should concentrate one’s mind on Om, for Om is Brahman beyond fear. For a man,
ever fixed in Brahman, there can be no fear anywhere.” (Mandukya Karika 25)
“Om is surely the lower Brahman; and Om is considered to be the higher Brahman. Om is
without cause, and without inside and outside; and It is undecaying. Om is indeed the beginning,
middle, and end–everything. Having known this way indeed one attains immediately. One
should know Om to be God seated in the hearts of all. Meditating on the all-pervasive Om, the
intelligent man grieves no more. The Om, without measures and possessed of infinite dimension,
is the auspicious entity where all duality ceases. He by whom Om is known, is the real sage,
and not so is any other man.” (Mandukya Karika 26-29)
Mahamahopadyaya Sri Gopinath Kaviraj 55
“The mystic Pranava is the essence of revealed literature and of human sciences, and is
the creator of the world, the fount of all vidyas and mantras, and the matrix of all names and
forms.” (Aspects of Indian Thought, pp. 17,18)
“Jnana Shakti [the power of knowledge] is the faculty by which God as well as the liberated
souls eternally enjoy the infinite joy of their beatified nature and which is indeed no other
than the Shabda Brahman or Pranava.” (Aspects of Indian Thought, p. 29)
In a footnote he adds: “Srikanta in the plainest language asserts the identity of Uma or the
55 Sri Gopinath Kaviraj is considered to be the greatest scholar of modern India, so much so that many Indian book catalogs
devoted an entire section to his books alone. I was fortunate to know him when he lived at the end of his life in the
Anandamayi Ashram at Varanasi.
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