OM

Ancient knowledge of naming                                                                                                                                        

 Why do we need names?

The simplest answer might be to differentiate one from another.

 Are names self - contained?

 What is ‘self’? And 

 What is 'Self'?

How far can we go, or how much can we penetrate our identity?

Up to Darwin?

Or Socrates?

Or Monet?

Or DH Lawrence?

Or Shakespeare?

Halaku Khan?

Mahatma Gandhi?

Penicillin?

Atom Bomb?

MacDonald?

James Watt?

Let me not be bothered much with anachronism.

A very popular quote from William Shakespeare is, ‘What's in a name? that which we call a rose
by any other name would smell as sweet,’ (Romeo and Juliet).

Also, we cannot choose our name when we are born, unless opt for affidavit

Yet, one commonality of naming is, it is often ceremonious. Priests look up the scriptures and calculate the influence of stars and moon, the whole constellation, month of the year, assumed roles of the children in family trees, expectations of parents and grandparents from the children. In some other societies, names come straight from the ancestors.

Speaking generally, a name invokes an image of a person or an object and connects it with the related background. Such a background is already formed in our mind and once we hear a name we immediately connect our mind with the object that the name summons.  For example, the word ‘Jazz’ will invoke certain sounds and orchestral beats and the history of musicalisation, sociology of audience and many more about Jazz.

Every name has a form and a meaning attached to it; it has a relation with other forms, as well. The association between ‘nama’ (name) and ‘rupa’ (form) is significant.

While naming children is diverse in the world, let me think of nature. I am in Japan now.

In Japan nature is a great source of names; many of the stations, market places, plazas as well as people’s names are named after flowers, trees, lakes, rivers; for example Azalea( flower) station, Dog Wood plaza, Meguro ( fish) station, Kampachi ( fish) dori, ‘Sakura ( flower) Machi’, Shizu ( calm) oka ( hill), Roppongi ( six trees), Akiha ( Autumn leaf) etc. People want to preserve those flowers, creatures, and states of nature in the names of modern concrete establishments. Humblest way of naming!

We may not think that names are apolitical. Many past colonies, their streets, avenues still bore the names of their colonizers. I will leave here the legacy of politics VS history in naming in time’s hand.

Sometimes, names may be antibiotics that people keep to prevent anticipated premature deaths of their children. Therefore, some children are named ‘Mritumjoy’ (in Sanskrit, means the person who defeats death; ‘Mritum’ (death) ‘joy’ (conqueror).

In open world cross cultural names might be a good mesh. Sometimes gender conflict might squeeze off family names. No scope for misogyny or chauvinism among the parents! Om Shanti!

Many of our ancestors bore the names of gods and goddesses from the Ramayana or the Mahavarata. Their parents used to call them by those names on their death bed. O Rama! O Krishna! Oh Gonesha! Killing two birds with a stone! I guess they were smarter without smartphones.

These days, names are sometimes, ping pong ball, small and light to fly and be trendy. Names may come straight from popular TV serials. Superstars in the world of art, film, music are dominant sources of naming. My neighbor was from Greece, settled in Melbourne, then living with a journalist from Australia. I used to chat with her in the afternoon in her garden. She shared that renowned Sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Sankar once visited Melbourne and performed at a huge concert where she was introduced to sitar. She was then a carrying mom. The instrument moved her so much that she kept the name for her son, ‘Ravi’.

Thanks God! Naming is exempted from plagiarism.

True that in the world of extremity of options; we often fall prey to differences of names while the substances may be almost similar behind the names. How we chose so quick while the wheel of new products passing by would never come back in the next tern, because the next moment would bring another flow of new goods and more lure of offers, and eventually, another challenge of choosing. So, in the world of extreme materials, we are constantly judging objects by their names. Aren't they important?

One basic disadvantage of each name is its limit.

It cannot be everything, because it is not everything. It is codified with priority. Such a priority is based on time frame  cultural affiliation, religious or geographical entity, anthropological attachment, past history of the family, future expectations, sense of loss and many more. Therefore, they are limited by their own merit.

At this very idea of limit and form, of an entity, the ancient sages encountered the challenge of naming God, the Supreme Soul, Atman, Self. The very concept of God in their mind was formless, again exists in forms of the world, it’s not moving anywhere again exists in all the movable and non-movable things, it is unfragmented, one finite whole, that pervades all movable and immovable.  Finally, they came up with the solution from how sounds are formed from our mouth.

We open our mouth and say ‘A’, the mother of all sounds, and when close the mouth we make sound ‘M’. In between we create another sound ‘U’ which is the middle of these two. All three create OM; all sounds lie in this OM and any name may be created from this syllable OM.

OM is God!

The Ultimate Self!

Veda oh Veda!  

I'm so mesmerized !

The knowledge of the Upanishads elaborated these sounds in comparison with the four stages of consciousness.

Awake, dream, sleep, complete quietness!

The first sound ‘A’ is the waking state because it encompasses all. The second is U. This contains the qualities of the other two, also has the ability to connect A and M. M is the third state, the state of deep sleep, and all enter in it. In this field of dreamless sleep, one becomes undivided, an undifferentiated mass of consciousness, consisting of bliss and feeding on bliss. The fourth is soundless: unutterable, a quieting down of all relative manifestations. OM is the Atman.

Knowing this, the Sages, gave to the Supreme Lord the name A-U-M (OM). Om stands as the root of all languages. Om is the mantra of peace, realization  surrender, and emancipation of self in the whole of the universe, the supreme Self. This feeling makes one more in love with the world, the universe, and be kind and connected to all its beings.