So-Hum Meditation: Breath, Sound, and the Dissolving of Ego

So-Hum Meditation In So-Hum meditation we sit quietly and watch our breath, as in the Empty Bowl meditation, but we add the sound So on inhalation, Hum on exhalation. (Only silently; we don’t speak the sounds aloud.) When sound, breath, and awareness come together, it becomes light. We have seen that every atom radiates light and heat energy, which is a quantum wave. The moment we pay attention to our breath and start feeling So-Hum, So-Hum along with the breath, our breath becomes a quantum wave and radiates light.

You may see that light of life at the third eye. Inspiration (breathing in) is living; expiration (breathing out) is dying. When a child is born, with its first breath life expresses itself with inspiration. When someone dies, we say he has expired.

The breath has gone out. Hum means “I” or “individual ego”; So means “He, the Divine.” So in the natural course of So-Hum meditation, when So goes in, life energy goes in and Hum, ego, our limited individuality, goes out. That is the significance of So-Hum meditation. When you inhale So, you are inhaling life.

When you exhale Hum, you are exhaling ego and limitation. So-Hum meditation properly practiced leads to the union of the individual with the universal Cosmic Consciousness. You will go beyond thought, beyond time and space, beyond cause and effect. Limitations will vanish.

Your consciousness will empty itself, and in that emptying it will expand and peace and joy will descend as a benediction. Double-Arrowed Attention (Witnessing) In Vedic science, witnessing is called samyag darshan. This is a process of looking outward and inward simultaneously. When we look at a tree, a star, a mountain, or a flower, something goes out from our eyes, touches the object, and comes back to us.