Om is made up of three sounds: a, u, and m. Try creating the sounds individually, and notice how the vibrations move up from the heart center to the throat and all the way up to the top of the head. When we chant Om, we are combining these three sounds that we may otherwise perceive as different and experience them as a whole.

Yoga is just like that-- we put together and experience as a whole elements that we perceive as different or even separate. In asana practice, we put together our breath and movement, our gaze and our intention. We experience that the quality of our breath guides the ease in which we move, and that our gaze and intention determine how we show up in the present moment. It is a practice designed to help us become acquainted with re-integration.

Who or what do we feel separate from? Is there someone in our life we are still holding ill feelings towards? Are there people we resent because they are different or think differently or act differently than us? Do we feel we are "better" or "worse"? Do we feel we are "right" and others are "wrong"? Do we constantly wish that "others" would just "get it"?

The word yoga means union, its root word yuj means to yolk. It means that if we seek yoga, then the work for us to do is not to get attached to getting others to see our point of view. Instead, the work we need to do is see that they are not "others". However separate we feel from them, however triggered we are by their choices or words or actions, they are connected to us as a whole. We belong to one cosmic body. Just as an injured right foot is not separate from the rest of the body, the person who triggers negative emotions in us is not separate from us. The way to heal-- whether the physical body or the total cosmic body-- is to accept each other as part of the whole and treat our pain as if it were part of a whole.

The sound of yoga, the sound of Om, is about putting things together and healing separation. The a, u, and m sounds are not that separate. The breath, movement, gaze, intention in asana are not that separate. The people who trigger our anger or fear or jealousy are not that separate. The other beings who look nothing like us or speak nothing like us or who live nothing like us are not that separate. Our environment which we have mistaken as something "outside of us" is not that separate. The sound of yoga is the sound of Om is the sound of healing our disconnection. If it is a tall order to embrace this cosmic wholeness all at once, then we can start at the beginning. We can start with Om.

There are words we say that we sometimes end up regretting. On some occasions, it takes us a while to realize we could have chosen our words more carefully to mean the same thing, or even that we should not have said anything altogether. On other occasions, the moment the words come out, we immediately regret it. Such is the weight of the words we carry. They mean so much. They are loaded with emotions and implications, both explicit and subtle. On the opposite end of the spectrum-- where words are neutral and weightless-- is the sound of yoga, or the sound of Om.

When we chant Om, we practice neutrality, equanimity. We prefer neither this nor that. We stop separation. In those moments that we chant Om, it does not matter that we come from different backgrounds and have different beliefs, that we were raised with different religions or no religion, that we hold different roles in society, that imaginary borders divide us. When we chant the word Om, we meet in the place of equality, no one better than the other. And it is this lightness that shows us that much of our struggles are self-inflicted and unnecessary. It is this lightness that we can take with us in our practice, whether it is lifting up in our inversions, dealing with our personal relationships, or finding our way in the world. In the sound of yoga, in the sound of Om, we find neutrality, equanimity, and lightness.