The Symbology and Meaning of AUM

In the Beginning was the Word:

1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2. The same was in the beginning with God.
3. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
4. In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

The Word was ॐ, AUM or Amen, the physical world is the result of the resonance of the sound when it,  in the beginning, was recited.AUM represents Brahman-Atman, and the three roots of the syllable are A + U + M.

The sound is the body of the soul, and it manifests in three, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, the three Logoi. See more on the Three Logoi here: The Logos Walks the Earth.

The universe is the resonance of the word, a standing wave. Here a two dimensional standing wave:

The resonance is created by the First Logos, Brahma, and the Third Logos, Shiva. The Second Logos, Vishnu, is the Equilibrium, it gives content and form to the resonance of First and Third Logos. See more on standing waves and matter here: Matter is Made of Waves One and Two.

Here the Three Logoi, Shiva to the left, the body with the Three Gunas, in the top middle Vishnu, the soul, and to the right Brahma, the spirit.

Shiva is the 3, the trident and Tilak, symbolizing the three Gunas, Tamas, Rajas and Sattva. Vishnu is the U and Brahma the o in the top. To the right we have the I AM, Atman.

The serpent connected to the trident is also a symbol for the Third Logos, the Kundalini powers, the connection between Earth and Heaven. The infinity sign is also connected with reincarnations into the physical, the development in time.

  

Here the Bengali AUM in different forms. In the second the bull symbolizes Shiva. The third eye symbol has the symbol of Shiva (3) inside the triangle, and the triangle is the symbol for the Holy Grail, the third Logos.

  

The Trident within various culture as symbol for the Third Logos:

Below I have taken the symbols on the left from a page calling themselves Scientific Research on “Hinduism Kamasutra”; they have many interesting views, although my conclusion differs. The symbology is the same as the grail.

The symbol for Christ is interesting, A symbolizes the First Logos, the Father, the First Creator. Omega is the symbol for the Third Logos, the Holy Spirit, the third and future creator. P symbolizes the Second Logos, the Son and current creator.

Brahma uses the Tilak of Shiva and Vishnu as he usually works through them. He may have a more circular Tilak, like the circle of the First Logos:

Krishna’s Tilak, the symbol on his forehead, is like the U in AUM, the symbol for the Second Logos.

Krishna is the incarnation of Vishnu in the Etheric world, so Vishnu have also the U Tilak, and Hanuman have too.

   

Krishna is the archetype of man, his body is Shiva, his soul is Vishnu and his spirit is Brahma, or in christian symbology, Christ has the Holy Spirit as body, the Son as soul, and the Father as spirit. Third Logos as body, Second Logos as soul and First Logos as spirit.

“The world rests as the lotus in the palm of my hand, the cosmos revolves around my finger like a discus. I blow the music of life through my conch and wield my mace to protect all creatures.” – Krishna Upanishad

See more on Krishna Krishna and the Holy Spirit and Krishna as Teacher of Love

ॐ is the whole reality

AUM is the whole world. It’s also said to be fourfold, A + U + M + stillness or without an element, the I AM. It’s the past, the present and the future, and the fourth transcends time.

Everything is Brahman, and Brahman is Atman (the Soul, the Self), and Atman is fourfold. It’s seeking the physical, seeking inner thought, seeking the causes and spiritual consciousness, and the fourth state is realizing oneness with the Self, the Eternal, the I AM.

The AUM means

• A is from Apti (obtaining, reaching) or from Adimatva (being first), Brahma, First Logos.
• U is from Utkarsa (exaltation) or from Ubhayatva (intermediateness), Vishnu, Second Logos.
• M is from Miti (erecting, constructing) or from Mi Minati or apīti (annihilation), Shiva, Third Logos.
• The fourth without an element, is without development, beyond the expanse of universe, the I AM.

Brahman exists in two forms, the material form and the immaterial form, the left and right side.

For the Sanskrit AUM we have for the trinity the “I” of the soul, the inner trinity of man.

“So wie man im Sanskrit das AUM für die Trinität hat, haben wir für das Innere des Menschen das Zeichen ICH.” (Rudolf Steiner, GA 93a, S. 30)

Brahma, the Father Logos is the creator of the past. Vishnu, the Son Logos is the creator of the present and Shiva, the Third Logos, is the creator of the future.

The old adepts expressed this briefly in the sacred word AUM.

1. A is the past that sounds loud and clear.
2. U is a dull vowel and represents the present. It has something of the clarity of the past and of the freedom of action of the present in it.
3. M is the indefiniteness of the future, to which every vowel or this or that action can still add something.
Rudolf Steiner 1-20-1907

AUM represents the Three Logoi, A the First Logos, the primal truth, U the Second Logos, the primal beauty, and M the Third Logos, the caring love.

“High spiritual beings whom we call masters stream down to us.
We should realize that it’s mainly they who guide us and are near to us in meditation.
We should also know that they walk on earth incarnated in a physical body.

… Every formula has the greatest effect in the original language. When an East Indian wants to give the highest expression to his reverence for the Godhead who reveals himself in three Logoi, he summarizes his feeling in three times three words that describe the activity of the three Logoi:

Primal-truth, primal-goodness, immeasurability, O Brahma
Primal-blissfulness, eternity, primal-beauty
Peace, blessing, undividedness
Aum, peace, peace, peace.

But the whole wealth of spiritual strength is only reproduced if the words are said in Sanskrit, the original language. Then one hears how even the air resonates:

Satyam jnanam anantam brahma
Anandarupam amritam bibharti
Shantam shivam avaitam
Om, Shantih, shantih, shantih.

The same applies to the Lord’s Prayer. Spoken in German, practically the only thing that’s effective is the underlying thought. The Latin Pater noster has a better effect, but the whole power and fullness only come to expression in the original Aramaic.”

From the Contents of Esoteric Classes, Berlin, 1-29-’07

Standing gravity waves. and 2.

Where A is Atma, the Father, U is Buddhi, the Son, and M is Manas, the Holy Spirit, dharma.

Vishnu or Krishna is often shown with seven serpents above their heads, or Krishna dancing on the heads of serpents. It’s the seven bodies of man, the Seven Planetary Powers or Hierarchies as shown in the above diagram.

 

In Arjuna’s vision of Krishna we see the myriads of beings that are part of the full reality who Krishna really is. The picture illustrates the above diagram, the two sides of the bottom up U.

“AUM. One wards off bad influences when one says it in the right way; it connects man with the creating Godhead, the three Logoi.
The evil beings who want to tear men away from the Godhead can’t stand it.
AUM must be spoken with the awareness:

Primal Self from which everything came
Primal Self to which everything returns:
Primal Self that lives in me
Towards you I strive.
Peace-peace-peace = AUM.
A is atma, U is buddhi, M is the wisdom that directs the higher self to AUM.”

Rudolf Steiner, From the Contents of Esoteric Classes, Berlin, 1-29-1907.

AUM symbols from different traditions:

Lord Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita:

Khrisna is the Word, AUM:

vedyam pavitram omkara

 

What is to be known, that I’m the purifier and the syllable OM.

In John’s Gospel Christ is the Word. This is Not a contradiction!

The Sound of AUM.

OM is a matrix of all sounds. These three sounds can be said without the tongue, all other sound can be said with these three sounds modified by the tongue.

Linguistically, all audible sounds are produced beginning at the root of the tongue and ending at the lips.

• A is the throat sound, symbolized through the lower lip, sitting on the lower jaw, not connected to the rest of our skeleton. It represent the powers from the spirit.

• The U sound starts at the root of the tongue, continuing until it ends in the lips. Symbolized through the line between the lips, the Word. The tongue is free of the skeleton, represents the soul between body and spirit, creating the reality by using the powers from body and spirit.

• M is the lip sound, symbolized through the upper lip, connected to the whole skeleton, representing the powers from the body.

See more on the Three Logoi here: The Logos Walks the Earth.

The Holy Grail

The Holy Grail is a central symbol known up through time under different names.

The Holy Grail

The grail is symbolized with the triangle pointing down, it’s the microcosm we develop in. Its the lower three hierarchies known as angels, archangels and archai in the Christian terminology.

Here more traditions are combined into one drawing. The ego is the old center of the body from when we were animals, here symbolized with a caterpillar. The day the ego accepts the new center, the ‘I’ of the soul, as a co-worker and not an enemy, the caterpillar dies and resurrects into a butterfly.

In the drawing we have the 4 lower bodies of man. Here the
ages the bodies typically are developed are written for each period. Each period corresponds to a chakra. After 28 we begin developing the higher bodies, the higher chakras.

The grail goes long back, the following picture is an example from a vast Cetho Temple complex  that is located on the western slopes of Lawu Mountain, precisely in Gumeng Village, Jenawi District, Karanganyar Regency, Central Java Province.

The Lingga Yoni have strong similarities with the Ankh, the Tree of Life and the Grail, all describing the same reality.

The Lingga Yoni shown in the upper pictures look very much like a chalice when seen from the bottom, but seen from the side the symbolism behind the chalice is more clear. The chalice top is the uterus from where the new universe will grow, fructified by the old spiritual world symbolized by the stalk of the chalice.

Kali is also connected to the lower triangle, the Grail is symbol for the feminine.

In the lower and middle right pictures the Lingga Yoni looks like a chalice with the Sun as the hostie.

Artemis gives prana to all living beings in the physical world, ie that have an etheric body. The Grail is the Life Force behind the created.

From Anna May Triptychon where Joseph of Arimathea fils the Grail
with the blood coming from Jesus.

Artemis symbolizes the Mother, the creator of mankind, but the mother is hidden in most religions, as it was the masculine power that was needed to get man down into the physical. In this figure Apollo, the sun god, is shown hiding the moon god Artemis, mother nature, but she is the main power behind of our development.

Here a number of forms we know the Grail, including the human soul, up left:

The Crown Chakra is also the chalice of the etheric world in which we as physical being lie, as an inverted plant.

The Soul’s Infoldment into the Physical World

According to Steiner, human beings incarnate by infolding the higher bodies into the physical universe/body, so that, instead of permeating the spiritual worlds, they become enclosed in a little fold into the physical universe. It seems to be a standard procedure within the biological world:

Neural Crest

The illustration below shows how Steiner describes it, with each enclosure representing a human being, Animals would not have the group soul in the enclosure: it would be outside.

When we sleep, our astral body and soul leaves the enclosure and when we die the ether body unfolds too.

See more at Esoteric Earth History.

Here some examples of the aura, kind of egg-shaped, resembling the Grail, especially the open one in fig. 8. where the folding has been opened and the cocoon is empty. At initiation the cocoon will open at the top, at the crown chakra, but without the soul leaving the cocoon.

The more pure our soul, the more it is filled with light and the more connected it is at the top. I believe that it opens fully at initiation, when the crown chakra opens.

These drawings are by Eli Wamberg of his students auras, from his private diary.
Fig 5. a male student, fig. 6. same student, four month later, fig. 7. a female student
and fig. 8. a male student after death.

The following table shows the bodies we had in the four Earth-incarnations we have had until now, how much had been infolded into the physical in each period.

In the old Saturn incarnation we were as today’s minerals, at old Sun as today’s plants and on the old Moon as today’s animals, and today the soul are incarnated too, with the I.

The infolding may be connected to the morphogenesis:

“We all start life as a small ball of cells. These cells proliferate and organize into tissues, which in turn grow and fold into the complex form that defines a human being. The process that leads from a formless ball to a functional organism—known as morphogenesis …”

Morphogenesis.