Lords! inspiration of sacrifice! May our ears hear the good. May our eyes see the good. May we serve Him with the whole strength of our body. May we, all our life, carry out His will.
Peace, peace, and peace be everywhere.
Welcome to the Lord!
The word Om is the Imperishable; all this its manifestation. Past, present, future—everything is Om. Whatever transcends the three divisions of time, that too is Om.
There is nothing that is not Spirit. The personal self is the impersonal Spirit. It has four conditions.
First comes the material condition—common to all—perception turned outward, seven agents, nineteen agencies, wherein the Self enjoys coarse matter. This is known as the waking condition.
The second is the mental condition, perception turned inward, seven agents, nineteen agencies, wherein the Self enjoys subtle matter. This is known as the dreaming condition.
In deep sleep man feels no desire, creates no dream. This undreaming sleep is the third condition, the intellectual condition. Because of his union with the Self and his undecided knowledge of it, he is filled with joy, he knows his joy; his mind is illuminated.
The Self is the lord of all; inhabitant of the hearts of all. He is the source of all; creator and dissolver of beings. There is nothing He does not know.
He is not knowable by perception, turned inward or outward, nor by both combined. He is neither that which is known, nor that which is not known, nor is He the sum of all that might be known. He cannot be seen, grasped, bargained with. He is undefinable, unthinkable, indescribable.
The only proof of His existence is union with Him. The world disappears in Him. He is the peaceful, the good, the one without a second. This is the fourth condition of the Self—the most worthy of all.
This Self, though beyond words, is that supreme word Om; though indivisible, it can be divided in three letters corresponding to the three conditions of the Self, the letter A, the letter U, and the letter M.
The waking condition, called the material condition, corresponds to the letter A, which leads the alphabet and breathes in all the other letters. He who understands, gets all he wants; becomes a leader among men.
The dreaming condition, called the mental condition, corresponds to the second letter U. It upholds; stands between waking and sleeping. He who understands, upholds the tradition of spiritual knowledge; looks upon everything with an impartial eye. No one ignorant of Spirit is born into his family.
Undreaming sleep, called the intellectual condition, corresponds to the third letter M. It weighs and unites. He who understands, weighs the world; rejects; unites himself with the cause.
The fourth condition of the Self, corresponds to Om as One, indivisible Word. He is whole; beyond bargain. The world disappears in Him. He is the good; the one without a second. Thus Om is nothing but Self. He who understands, with the help of his personal self, merges himself into the impersonal Self; He who understands.