The mmmmm in aum

The sacred syllable aum is said to be composed of three sounds in the Upanishads. That is why I chose to write it with three letters (aum) instead of two (om). 

This conscious awareness of the source of sound creation in the mouth is important in Sanskrit. Chanting aum begins with the mouth in the position of an 'A' and slowly rounding and puckering the lips into the 'U' sound which creates the sound of 'O'. 

The conscious movement of the mouth in speaking Sanskrit is one of the major  foundations of the path of sound (vag yoga). The 'm' at the end of aum is not an actually the English letter 'm'. When you say the English letter 'm' your lips (ostha) close and the lips vibrate. When this happens, it is called a labial (osthya) letter (as opposed to a dental letter like 't' which comes from the teeth, or 'k' which comes from the throat). There are five labial (lip originating) letters used in Sanskrit: pa, pha, ba, bha, and ma. If you chant the labial letter 'm' at the end of aum then you are vibrating your lips.

The letter at the end of aum is a nasal, not a labial. English does not put emphasis on the nasal spectrum of letters, but we can learn; if you start to make the 'n' sound you can feel the nasal passages vibrate (to a dental nasal sound). Or if you chant the word 'English" and stop before the 'g' sound, you will be aware of a gutteral nasal sound. The word 'inch' will let you feel the sound of a palatal nasal, and the word shnoop will let you feel a cerebral nasal. They are all written the same in English but in Sanskrit have distinct letters. Sanskrit has five consonant nasals: guttural, palatal, cerebral, dental (n), and labial (m). The letter at the end of 'aum' is actually considered a nasal vowel, not a consonant.  

The nasal vowel at the end of Sanskrit words is called Anusvara. There is no correlation in English. Some write it with an 'm' and others write it with an 'ng'. The proper transliteration is an ṁ, which is an 'm' with a dot (bindu) above it to indicate the nasal sound. But that is rarely utilized as it is not easy to insert nor are most people trained about the difference unless they have studied Sanskrit. 

Mantras written like aim or aing are properly transliterated as aiṁ. The sounds of the chakras do not have a labial 'm' in them, they all end with the nasal Anusvara. It is not 'lam' for the root chakra, it is laṁ. 

Labial 'm' is a consonant which means you need a vowel either before or after the letter to pronounce it. Anusvara is a vowel, which means it can be said with no other vowel, and therefore it can be spoken/chanted in a continuous way. To understand that statement; take the vowel 'a' and chant it as long as you can. Then take the consonant 'b' and do not add the vowel sound 'e' on the end, just the pursed lips of 'ba': the sound last only an instant without a vowel to carry it. In this way, when you write the bīja mantra for the root chakra as 'lam' it has two consonants, while if you write it as laṁ, it has only one consonant and a vowel. 

So how do we pronounce Anusvara? It is hard to describe without sharing it. But the the key to get it, is to make the 'm' sound without closing the mouth, that way the lips don't vibrate. The vibration should come from the upper palate and the nasal passages. When you do this, your cranium vibrates instead of your lips. After you have acquired the ability to make the Anusvara sound, then you can close your lips when you say it, but make sure that the lips aren't the vibratory point. 

Most bīja mantras that are often written with a labial 'm' at the end or a guttural 'ng' are correctly spoken and chanted with an Anusvara. There are variations of Anusvara.

Aum is written with a sound called Anunasika which is also a nasal vowel (m̐). The Anusvara has a half moon and a dot (chandra bindu) above it. The Anunasika is a nasal sound just like Anusvara that comes through the nose and mouth at the same time. When you chant this way, the sound can go upwards into the head.

In my printed books, I write aum with an anunasika above it. Online, at this moment, there is not an English transliteration unicode character that works everywhere for the chandra bindu symbol, so I can only write aum. 

The Upanisads teach that Aum is composed of the vowel 'A', the vowel 'U' and the vowel Anunasika, representing the creation, maintenance and destruction, as well as the waking, subtle and causal levels of consciousness. 

Chanting aum with anunasika and other bīja mantras with Anusvara will allow you to get the most effect from chanting. They will work no matter what, but they will be much more powerful when chanted correctly.