The supreme state to which all Vedas refer, which all austerities declare, desiring which students practice the life of spiritual celibacy — that state I summarize briefly for you: it is Om.

The absolute synthesis: all the complexity of the Vedas, all practices of tapas, and the ideal of brahmacarya converge in a single symbol: Oṃ. This mantra is not merely a sound but the essential vibration of Reality, the pada (state/foot) of Brahman. In our yoga practice, when we chant Oṃ, we are not pronouncing just another letter, but aligning ourselves with the fundamental frequency of the universe. It is the mantra that contains all mantras, the gateway to the transcendent dimension of our own being.