Om Shantih Shantih Shantih

CHAPTER 1

Sound is our mind – silence is our being
26 February 1988 am in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Question 1

BELOVED MASTER,

I AM ALWAYS INTRIGUED BY EASTERN SCRIPTURES THAT BEGIN WITH OM, SHANTIH
SHANTIH SHANTIH AND END WITH OM, SHANTIH SHANTIH SHANTIH.
WOULD YOU PLEASE TALK ABOUT THIS?

Maneesha, the East has approached reality in an almost diametrically opposite way to the West.
First, the simple meaning of the word should be understood, and then all the implications. All
Eastern scriptures begin with OM, Shantih shantih shantih and they also end with the same.
OM is the symbol of the universal heartbeat; it is not a word. And as you come closer and closer
to the universal heartbeat, the by-product is a deepening silence. Shantih means silence and it is
always repeated three times because by the time you reach to the fourth, you are no more – just the
silence has remained. You have disappeared as an entity separate from the universe.
The West has not been able to begin even a single scripture with this intention. It is understandable.
They never went into the deeper communion between your heart and the bigger heart of the
universe. They have taken a wrong route, that of fighting, that of conquering, that of being victorious.
They have chosen to be extroverts.

Their world is true, but they don’t know anything about themselves.

The outside is true and the inside has not been explored.

THE BIBLE says, ”In the beginning was the word.” Now this can be said only by somebody who is
absolutely ignorant, because the word means a sound with a meaning. These sounds made by the
words are just sounds; you cannot call them words. The moment you say, ”In the beginning was the
word,” unknowingly you have accepted that there is someone who gives meaning to it, but then the
word is not in the beginning.

In the beginning is one who gives meaning to the word. And THE BIBLE says, ”God was with the
word.” Anyone who wrote it must have felt uneasy that the world should begin only with a word.
Immediately he needed someone to give meaning to it; hence the second statement that God was
with the word.

If you look into things very impartially, deeply, you will be amazed how much they can reveal. Then
he must have become aware to ask, ”Who is first? God or the word?”

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