om

Om is a flower

Submitted by jkmrao on Thu, 06/18/2009 - 07:17
There are no Hindu prayers that do not start with the praNava mantra Om. Buddhists and Jains too use Om in their prayer mantras. Of late, Om is a part of all yOga rituals. In fact the word Om is a combination of a, u and m sounds (the conjunction of a and u gives rise to O, called guNa sandhi). Another word that has these sounds is umA. The Om sound has a resonance associated with it and that may be the reason it is used in yOga and also at the beginning of mantras. Lord Krishna in bhagavadgItA says that among the single letters He is the OmkAra.