Enter the sound of your name and through this sound, all sounds

Bhagavan recommended repeating "I" continuously for people who are unable to take up self enquiry. A similar technique has been recommended in a Tantric text called "Vigyan Bhairava Tantra" and OSHO has given a fine commentary on the same.

Techique no - 47 in Vigyan Bhairava Tantra

ENTER THE SOUND OF YOUR NAME AND, THROUGH THIS SOUND, ALL SOUNDS.

OSHOs commentary

Your own name can be used as a mantra very easily, and it is very helpful because your name has gone very deep into your unconscious. Nothing else has gone so deep. If we are all are sitting here, and we all fall asleep and someone comes and calls "Ram," no one will listen except the person whose name is Ram. He will listen to it; he will be disturbed in his sleep. No one else will listen to the sound "Ram," but why does this man listen? It has gone down deep; it is not conscious now, it has become unconscious.

Your name has gone very deep within you, but there is a very beautiful phenomenon about your name: you never call it, others call it. Others use it; you never use it.

I have heard that in the first world war, for the first time in America rationing was created. Thomas Edison was a very great scientist, but he was very poor so he had to stand in the queue for his ration card. And he was such a great man that no one ever used his name before him. There was no need to use his name for himself, and no one else would use his name because he was so much respected. Everyone would call him Professor, so he had forgotten what was his name.

He was standing in the queue, and when his name was called, when it was asked who Thomas Alva Edison was, he just stared blankly. Again the name was called, then someone who was a neighbor to Edison said to him, "Why are you standing? Your name is being called. It is your name, Professor." Then he became aware and he said, "But how can I recognize it? No one calls me Edison. It has been so long... they just call me Professor."

You never use your own name. Only others use it -- you have heard it used by others. But it has gone deep, very deep. It has penetrated like an arrow into your unconscious. If you yourself use it, then it becomes a mantra. And for two reasons it helps: one, when you use your own name, if your name is "Ram" and you use "Ram, Ram, Ram...", suddenly you feel as if you are using someone else's name - as if it is not yours. Or if you feel that this IS yours, you feel that there is a separate entity within you which is using it. It may belong to the body, it may belong to the mind, but he who is calling "Ram, Ram..." becomes a witness.

You have always called others' names. When you call your own name it looks as if it belongs to someone else, not to you, and it is a very revealing phenomenon. You can become a witness to your own name, and with the name your whole life is involved. Separated from the name, you are separated from your whole life. And this name has penetrated deep within you because everyone has called you this from your very birth, you have always heard this. So use this sound, and with this sound you can go to the very depths to which the name has gone.

In the old days we gave everyone a name of God - everyone. Someone was Ram, someone was Narayan, someone was Krishna, someone was Vishnu, or something like that. They say all the Mohammedan names are the names of God - ALL the Mohammedan names! And all over the world that was the practice, to give a name which is really a name of God.This was for good reasons. One reason was this technique -- because if your name can be used as a mantra it will serve you a double purpose. It will be YOUR name - and you have heard it so much, so many times, and all your life it has penetrated deep. Then also, it is the name of God. So go on repeating it inside, and suddenly you will become aware that "This name is different from me." Then by and by this name will have a sanctity of its own. You will remember any day that "Narayan" or "Ram," this is God's name. Your name has turned into a mantra.

Use it! This is very good! You can try many things with your name. If you want to be awakened at five o'clock in the morning, no alarm is so exact as your own name. Just repeat thrice inside, "Ram, you have to be awake by five o'clock sharp." Repeat it three times, and then just fall asleep. You will be awakened at five o'clock because "Ram," YOUR name, is very deep in the unconscious.Call your name and tell yourself that "At five o'clock in the morning, let me be awakened." Someone WILL awaken you. And if you continue this practice, one day you will suddenly realize that at five o'clock someone calls you and says, "Ram, be awake." That is your unconscious calling you.

This technique says, ENTER THE SOUND OF YOUR NAME AND, THROUGH THIS SOUND, ALL SOUNDS. Your name becomes just a door for all names. But enter the sound. First, when you repeat "Ram, Ram, Ram..." it is just a word. But it means something when you go on repeating "Ram, Ram, Ram..."You must have heard the story of Valmiki. He was given this mantra "Ram," but he was an ignorant man - uneducated, simple, innocent, childlike. He started repeating "Ram, Ram, Ram..." but he was repeating so much that he forgot completely and reversed the whole thing. Instead he was chanting "Mara, Mara..." He was chanting "Ram, Ram, Ram..." so fast that it became "Mara, Mara, Mara..." And he achieved the goal through "Mara, Mara, mara..."

If you go on repeating the name fast inside, soon it will not be a word: it will become a sound, just meaningless. And then there is no difference between Ram and Mara - no difference! Whether you call Ram or Mara, it makes no sense, they are not words. It is just the sound, just the sound that matters. Enter the sound of your name. Forget the meaning of it, just enter the sound. Meaning is with the mind, sound is with the body. Meaning is in the head, sound spreads all over the body. So forget the meaning. Just repeat it as a meaningless sound, and through this sound you will enter all sounds. This sound will become the door to all sounds. And "all sounds" means all that exists.

This is one of the basic tenets of Indian inner search, that the basic unit of the existence is sound and not electricity. Modern science says that the basic unit of the existence is electricity, not sound, but they also say that sound is a form of electricity. Indians, however, have always been saying that electricity is nothing but a form of sound.

You may have heard that through a particular RAGA, a particular sound, fire can be created. It can be created - because this is the Indian idea, that sound is the basis of all electricity. So if you hit sound in a particular frequency, electricity will be created.On long bridges, if a military, is passing, they are not allowed to march because many times it has happened that because of their march the bridge falls. It is because of sound, not because of their weight. They will be passing anyhow, but if they pass marching, then the particular sound of their feet breaks the bridge.

In old Hebrew history, the city of Jericho was very protected by great walls and it was impossible to break those walls by guns. But through a particular sound the walls were broken, and that sound was the secret of the breaking of those walls. If that sound is created before walls, the walls will give way.

You have heard the story of Ali Baba: a particular sound and the rock moves. These are allegories. Whether they are right or not, one thing is certain: if you can create a particular sound so continuously that meaning is lost, mind is lost, the rock at your heart will be removed.