Stillness · “Stillness Reveals”
Living in Om
Chant and dwell in Om so that the felt sense of ‘I’ expands past the body into the all-pervading Self — ‘Live in Om.’
Rama Tirtha’s “Live in Om”: Sit easily and chant Om slowly and fully — aah-ooo-mmm — sounding it properly, the final m humming into silence. Feel the vibration fill you and the room. Let your sense of “I” expand with the sound, past the body into the all-pervading Self, until you “feel the limitless ocean of power within.” Rest in the silence after each Om. Then carry it: “Live in Om.”
What it is
For Rama Tirtha, Om was everything — “ This ‘OM’ is his food, drink, sleep, sagacity, talent, thoughtfulness and everything else,” he said of himself. He held that “the whole of Vedanta is represented by Om,” and made it the working key of his practice: not a syllable to analyse but a sound to live in.
The practice is to chant Om and let the felt boundary of “I” dissolve into it — to use the long, resonant sound to expand the small self into the all-pervading Self. He promised concrete effect: “ By pronouncing it properly, the heart and the mind are filled with peace, tranquillity and bliss.
You can feel the limitless ocean of power and energy within you.“ Om, he taught, “works as a key to unlock the coffer” of Nature’s bliss, and signifies “His all-pervasive universalism, which includes your own self.” His instruction crystallises in three words: “ Live in Om.“
The Method
Faithful to his teaching:
- Sit easily and chant Om aloud, slowly and fully — sounding it “ properly,” letting the aah-ooo-mmm run long and the final m hum into silence. He stressed correct, sincere pronunciation as what fills the heart with peace.
- Feel the vibration fill you and the space around. “The sound of OM, filling the entire atmosphere, gives immediate relief.” Let the resonance be felt in the body and felt to spread beyond it.
- Let “I” expand into the sound. As Om grows large, let your sense of self grow with it — past the skin, into the room, into “His all-pervasive universalism, which includes your own self.” This is the heart of the practice: Om as the carrier that enlarges the self toward the Infinite, until “you can feel the limitless ocean of power and energy within you.”
- Subside into the silence after the sound. Let each Om dissolve into stillness and rest there before the next — the bliss he describes lives in that settling (The Inner Creates the Outer).
- Live in Om. Carry it as a constant inner companion through the day — “Live in Om!” — so the expanded, peaceful sense of Self becomes your background tone, not just a sitting. (Sourcing note: “Om is his food, drink. everything,” “by pronouncing it properly the heart and mind are filled with peace. you can feel the limitless ocean of power,” “the sound of OM filling the atmosphere gives immediate relief,” “works as a key to unlock the coffer,” “includes your own self,” and “Live in Om” are short renderings from In Woods of God-Realization and his collected teaching, attributed; the step-sequence is a faithful description.)
Source & Lineage
Om is the pranava, the root mantra of the Upanishads and of Patanjali’s Yoga (the “sound of Ishvara”). Rama Tirtha, in the Shankara/Vedanta line and following Vivekananda’s example, made it the centre of his Practical Vedanta, treating Om as the whole of Vedanta in sound and the practical means of realising “the whole world is my Self.” His distinctive stamp is devotional totality and joy — “Om is everything,” “Live in Om” — rather than a technical mantra-yoga. → (existing Voice).
Common refinements
Rushing or muttering. He insists on chanting Om “properly” — slow, full, sincere. A clipped Om does little.
- Treating it as words to parse. Om is to be lived in, not intellectually decoded; let meaning give way to sound and feeling.
- Skipping the silence. The bliss settles in the gap after the sound; don’t crowd the next Om in.
- Straining the breath/voice. Keep it easy; if you feel light-headed, soften and slow.
- Refinement: end a session of chanting by sliding into his self-affirmation (“I am the Infinite”) so the expanded sense of self is claimed, not just felt and lost.