The So-hum Mantra-ta

The So-hum Mantra

The practice of So-hum Mantra before a Silent session will greatly enhance peace, cheerfulness and tranquillity. Our breath goes in with the sound “ So” and comes out with the sound “Hum”; we naturally repeat once the So-hum Mantra each time we breath in and out. The meaning of So-hum is I AM THAT; thus, we contemplate our oneness with the Supreme Principle while practising the So-hum Mantra. Universal Consciousness becomes the Prana, the vital force, within us and then through the Mantra, it regulates the breathing process within the human body.

Every moment we are engaged in breathing air. We are sustained by oxygen in the air. Man inhales and exhales air 21 000 times a day in 24 hours. While inhaling, the sound “ So” is produced; in exhaling, the sound “ Hum” is produced. Together, they make up the term So-Hum, meaning “He is I, proclaiming the inherent divinity of man.” Initially, children can repeat the syllables along with their breathing; it will gradually synchronise with the breathing. All that one has to do is to maintain rhythmic breath and become aware of it. Soon, they will begin to hear the sound naturally.

When we give work to mind that keeps it ever busy, then, the mind doesn’t trouble us. Sometimes people catch a monkey which has a tendency of going up and down, up and down and so on, a tree. If we keep the monkey in one place, it keeps performing such monkey tricks. Therefore the monkey trainer who goes to beg in front of every house and commands the monkey to go up and down the pole. In the same manner, the mind is like a monkey. Therefore this “monkey” must be entrusted with some absorbing work. If we sit in meditation as a first step, this monkey mind will not be in our control. So, we must sit in meditation and give the duty of a watchman, who watches who is going in and who is going out, to this monkey mind. If we entrust the duty of a watchman to the mind, and this “monkey” sits there at the tip of the nose, and goes on watching the breath, “So” as we inhale, and “Ham” as we exhale, this process goes on and the monkey is kept busy watching the breath going in and coming out.

[Sri Sathya Sai Baba – Excerpts from discourse on: 05-25-1979]