illustration of young man in mudra pose with O around him

Belief is a tool. Thoughts, feelings, impulses—we’re made of tools and (with tremendous, lifelong effort) we get to choose how we use them. The Upanishads are tools. OM is a tool. Truth is built rather than found.

 

By Johnathon Lee

Chanting OM was my first spiritual practice. 

I learned that it was the sound of God, the word within all words. It was creation, progression and conclusion. It’s the Self, and by focusing on it, I could know my True Self firsthand. I could know God and find everlasting bliss. 

I really needed to believe that. I was an angsty teen who had just left the Church, unable to reconcile my own values with Catholicism’s. “Animals don’t have souls? Well, that’s messed up.” It’s also convenient for faithful butchers who might donate some lamb chops to Father McFatherton each Sunday. No soul means no guilt. Serial killers think like that too. 

The Upanishads seemed to offer a way out of that thicket. Not only do animals have souls, but they’re all really the same Soul. We are all one, and love is the answer, the solution to every problem.  

I needed that, but I couldn’t keep ahold of it. Newness is magical, but the magic usually breaks under a mass of familiarity. It fades quick for me, so I’m always idea and sensation-seeking. I accept that now, and I’ve stopped wanting to change it. 

Religion is a stopping point.

“This is it,” the sacred scriptures say. “There’s no more, no greater truth or state of being.” That’s… so boring to me. Conclusions aren’t what I really needed. I needed practical possibility. Belief is a tool. Thoughts, feelings, impulses—we’re made of tools and (with tremendous, lifelong effort) we get to choose how we use them. The Upanishads are tools. OM is a tool. Truth is built rather than found.

“Universal Self” made me build a world where death is an illusion, love is impersonal, and kindness is mandatory. 

That’s not the world I want to live in or the me I want to be. I want to limit my love, so that the ones who love me feel special to me. I want to grieve, to feel the life of loss and learn its language. I want to punch Nazis and tell cruel people to fuck off. 

That’s a better world-building tool for me because it keeps me active in the world. Each ideological deep dive I went on always ended with nihilism. I blamed myself and mental illness for a long time, but in my opinion, nihilism is the logical consequence of most ideologies. If we’re all one, then why should I even be here? 

Even science brought me to the same result, so, now I’m all about engaging with the senses and grounded thoughts. Why do I even need to think about how many light years away Deneb is? I don’t have the gas to get there, and it hasn’t even looked at my birthday party e-vite. 

This sudden pragmatic shift neutered a lot of my depression and anxiety. Poof: gone. My new saying is, “Practical in action; lyrical in vision.” I guess that’s a more pretentious form of, “Feet on the ground, and head in the clouds,” but it’s fine. I’ve gone too far to backpedal. 

Strangely, this got me back in touch with things I used to love; like OM. 

I sat and chanted it. “Ahh-ohhhhhhmm.” Deep breath. Then again. Deep breath. Again. Harmonizing the pitch with my surroundings. 

I’m usually thinking several things at once, so I also have to give my thoughts something to chew on. While chanting OM, I started thinking “Shanti” timed with my pulse. Shanti means peace, and the mantra is “OM Shanti! Shanti! Shanti!” I decided to just think shanti instead. 

After a few repetitions, I felt something. It’s like I was chanting OM from my marrow. I embodied it, and it enveloped me. This was far deeper than before since it was naked, stripped of all my beliefs. OM wasn’t God to me. It wasn’t the sound of the universe or my True Self. 

OM is just OM. There’s a profound, simple beauty to that. The same feeling I get when I’m in nature, at rest among the meadows and trees. That’s where I feel like myself. 

Now that feeling is here. In the kitchen. In the bathroom. At work (sometimes). I can feel it anywhere and the ease of it affects my actions by building an open, vibrant, flowing world where I am me and you are you, yet we’re all in it together. 

My world isn’t an illusion, and neither is yours; it’s just private.

Each being is emplaced in a unique point in space and time, discrete sensoriums that fill the physical with feeling, purpose, and meaning. These aren’t illusions. They’re the realest truths we can ever know firsthand, and it’s okay that they’re always changing. That’s what keeps the magic alive. 

This is important to me because I’ve always been spiritual, but allergic to spirituality. I couldn’t figure out how to approach it practically without the whole thing falling apart. The answer was a series of ridiculously simple questions: What does this do? What kind of world does this make? Can it be made right now? 

Those little questions are revolutionary. “We’re all God,” helped me ignore my smalless and isolation. That’s one of its practical actions. It also made me forsake my own world and uniqueness. That’s a price I’m unwilling to pay because it convinces me to throw you out right along with me. 

You, yes even you, amaze and fascinate me. I’m curious about everyone I meet, and I want to know who they are in themselves. Not as little pieces of God, but as persons; as unique selves. 

Without that, gosh, everyone’s pretty boring. “Hi! I’m God!” “Hi God, I’m God too!” “Nice! See ya in the mirror!” 

One little shift, a single tiny turn in perspective can change everything. It’s all about what we ground ourselves in. For me, that the senses, and sometimes the senses go, “Ahhhh-ohhhhm.”

 

Photo: Pixabay

Editor: Dana Gornall

 

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Johnathon Lee
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