Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
What is the connection between the Cosmic life that is infinite ocean of Being and to individual life? How does the creation start? There is a set cycle of day and night. When the day comes we get up, when the night comes we go to sleep.
With the day we come out, with the night we go into sleep, the cycle of creation and dissolution is like that. Dissolution means all the manifested life goes into a state of unmanifested existence.
It is like a calm and quiet ocean, no ripples, no activity, just like a silent ocean, that is the time of dissolution. How does the individual life start from that deep silent ocean of life? It starts in the most automatic manner, as the day starts.
Sometime of the night is gone and then the day starts, the sun comes up, it comes up automatically. Similarly, the time of creation and the time of dissolution, that is, the day of the creation and the night of the universe come on automatically.
When the time of creation comes, it is held: almost in all religions, that the great Lord wishes the creation to be, desires the creation to be. Vedas also say, “I am One, maybe I become many.” Eko-ham bahu-ssyaam.
In almost all religions they say, In the beginning was the Word- and- the Word- was ‘with God”; that is, God wished and with the wish of God; with the will of god, the creation started. Now how does, “with the will of God,” the creation start?
The will means an impulse, the desire has not yet become very gross, but the impulse of a desire. When God desires or in other words when it is time for creation to begin, then in that silent unbounded ocean of life a stir is created. If you take water in a big flat dish and the water is all still and then you give a push from one side, with one little jerk the whole water moves, one wave goes over the whole water, hum-m-m-m, like that. That means the first subtlest vibration starts and that is the start of the creation, that is the start of the unmanifested state of life to come into manifestation. But manifestation means several individuals, innumerable, all creation. ‘You give a push to the dish and one wave goes through. This wave is a hum-m-m-m-m. And. what is that hum like? If you strike a bell it produces a hum-m-m. (From that eternal silence a hum starts and this hum is called OM.)
You may have heard of the glory of OM and the greatness of that OM. That OM Is everything and that from OM the creation comes and into OM the creation dissolves, that OM is the sustainer of life, that OM is the beginning and end of all creation.
All this is OM, that hum, which is the first silent sound, first silent wave that starts from that silent ocean of unmanifested life.
If you keep on moving the dish then that one wave breaks into many waves and you find a wave here and a wave there and a wave there. That basic sound of OM, that one hum of OM is divided into different vibrations. And what is that one hum? This is how we express sound: in waves.
Excerpted from Meditations of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The 102nd birth anniversary of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was observed on January 12
