-Patanjali--who wrote the Yoga Sutra and is considered to be the father of classical yoga--taught that when we chant this sacred syllable and simultaneously contemplate the meaning of it, our consciousness becomes "one-pointed: and prepared for meditation. In a commentary on the Yoga Sutra, the ancient sage Vyasa noted that through chanting om, "the supreme soul is revealed.". Chanting om may be the easiest way to touch the Divine within your very self.

Yogis often meditate on the four parts, of om. Though commonly spelled om, the mantra actually consists of three letters, a, u, and m. (In Sanskrit, whenever an initial a is followed by a u, they coalesce into a long o sound.) Each of these three parts has numerous metaphysical associations, which themselves serve as meditative seeds. For example, a (pronounced "ah") represents our waking state, which is also the subjective consciousness of the outer world; u (pronounced "ooh") is the dreaming state, or the consciousness of our inner world of thoughts, dreams, memories, and so on; and m is the dreamless state of deep sleep and the experience of ultimate unity.

By contemplating the meaning of each of these letters as we chant them, we are led through the three states of our ordinary consciousness to the mantra's fourth part, the anusvara (after-sound): om. The vibration slowly dissolves into silence, symbolic of the transcendent state of consciousness, equated with the Divine. This silence is the crown of the mantra; it is described as "tranquil, soundless, fearless, sorrowless, blissful, satisfied, steadfast, immovable, immortal, unshaken, enduring." -