Today we talked about "aum."
Aum is one way that Hindus express and talk about the difficult-to-define concept called Brahman.
Brahman is frequently described as the "universal soul", inside of which we all live. It can be difficult for people not raised within the Hindu tradition to understand the idea of Brahman, because many non-Hindus are more familiar with the idea of "God" or "gods."
** Brahman is not the equivalent of God. OK, so what is it?
Here are some helpful descriptions of Brahman that were written by a couple of my previous students:
- Brahman is not a person but an invisible force that is everywhere. Brahman is something everyone wants to be part of. Not a God, but a force.
- Brahman is the universal soul. It is neither a person or a god. It is the unchanging reality behind the physical illusions of life.
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Hindus do, however, believe that there are many (thousands!) of gods and goddesses within Brahman.
Three of the primary Hindu gods are Brahma the Creator (try not to get confused between Brahman and Brahma; it can be tricky, since the two words are so similar to each other), Vishnu the Preserver, and Shiva the Destroyer.
And thank you to your classmate who came up with a clever way for us to remember the Sanskrit form of "aum":
