Interconnection | Urban Street Forest
Channel: Raymond Brouwers
Date: 03/09/2011

Alan Watts talking  about interconnection.

Om or Aum (also Auṃ, written in Devanāgari as ॐ and as ओम्, in Sanskrit known as praṇava प्रणव [lit. "to sound out loudly"], Omkara, or Auṃkāra (also as Aumkāra) ओंकार (lit. "Auṃ form/syllable"), is a sacred/mystical syllable in the Dharmic or Indian religions, i.e. Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism.

Aum is pronounced as a long or over-long nasalized close-mid back rounded vowel, [õːː]), though there are other enunciations adhered to in received traditions. It is placed at the beginning of most Hindu texts as a sacred incantation to be intoned at the beginning and end of a reading of the Vedas or prior to any prayer or mantra. The Māndukya Upanishad is entirely devoted to the explanation of the syllable. The syllable consists of three phonemes, a Vaishvanara, u Hiranyagarbha and m Iswara, which symbolize the beginning, duration, and dissolution of the universe and the associated gods Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, respectively. 

The syllable aum is first described as all-encompassing mystical entity in the Upanishads. Today, in all Hindu art and all over India and Nepal, 'aum' can be seen virtually everywhere, a common sign for Hinduism and its philosophy and theology. Hindus believe that as creation began, the divine, all-encompassing consciousness took the form of the first and original vibration manifesting as sound "AUM". Before creation began it was "Shunyākāsha", the emptiness or the void. Shunyākāsha, meaning literally "no sky", is more than nothingness, because everything then existed in a latent state of potentiality. The vibration of "AUM" symbolizes the manifestation of God in form ("sāguna brahman"). "AUM" is the reflection of the absolute reality, it is said to be "Adi Anadi", without beginning or the end and embracing all that exists. The mantra "AUM" is the name of God, the vibration of the Supreme. When taken letter by letter, A-U-M represents the divine energy (Shakti) united in its three elementary aspects: Bhrahma Shakti (creation), Vishnu Shakti (preservation) and Shiva Shakti (liberation, and/or destruction). 

The word nature is derived from the Latin word natura, or "essential qualities, innate disposition", and in ancient times, literally meant "birth". Natura was a Latin translation of the Greek word physis (φύσις), which originally related to the intrinsic characteristics that plants, animals, and other features of the world develop of their own accord. The concept of nature as a whole, the physical universe, is one of several expansions of the original notion; it began with certain core applications of the word φύσις by pre-Socratic philosophers, and has steadily gained currency ever since. This usage was confirmed during the advent of modern scientific method in the last several centuries.