Om Shantih, shantih, shantih: The soundless sound, peace, peace, peace

Pages: 290

From the Jacket
All Eastern scriptures begin with Om, shantih shantih shantih and they also end with the

same.

Om is the symbol of the universal heartbeat; it is not a word. And as you come

closer and closer to the universal heartbeat, the by-product is a deepening silence.

Shantih means silence and it is always repeated three times because by the time you reach

to the fourth, you are no more just the silence has remained. You have disappeared as an

entity separate from the universe.

The end and the beginning are the same.
That's why the Eastern scriptures begin

with the declaration, Om the sound of the soundless, the very music of the heart of the

universe. And as they go deeper, silence becomes the only reality. They want to declare

silence to the world, but nobody has been able to go beyond the third because each time

they say silence, it becomes more of a whisper.

Silence is the beginning and silence is the end, and if you are a meditator,

silence is the middle.
Silence is the whole fabric of existence.
This is not a hypothesis, nor is it a philosophical idea. It is the experience of

thousands of mystics who have entered into their own being. First they have heard Om, and

as the Om becomes overwhelming, silence follows. We are made of sound and silence.
Sound is our mind and silence is our being.
Sound is our trouble and silence is our liberation.
Introduction
In This book Osho Rajneesh clarifies in a new and expanded way His world vision. It is an

unsettling reminder of how far we haven't come as a humanity which continues to declare

itself as civilized.

"If all the crimes that have been committed in the world are