What I Wish Christians Knew About Yoga: AUM and the Cosmic Christ
By Elizabeth Engelman, Ananda Bliss Yoga
There is a sound beneath all sounds.
A vibration that was never struck, and yet resounds.
You might know it as AUM.
You might know it as the Word.
You might know it as the voice of many waters. (Rev 14:2, Ez 43:2, Ez 1: 24, Rev 1:5)
But truly, it is not something we know—it is something we remember.
As a lifelong lover of Jesus and a student of yoga, these are some of the truths I often wish Christians understood:
Underneath language and doctrine, underneath East and West, there is vibration.
There is AUM.
And Christ is there.
AUM: The Divine Word Before Words
Paramahansa Yogananda, one of the great spiritual emissaries of the East, spoke of AUM as the cosmic vibratory power behind all atomic energies. This isn’t just poetic metaphor. It is a spiritual physics. The same power that spoke, “Let there be light,” in the book of Genesis is the same sacred vibration that yogis hear in deep meditation.
Yogananda wrote:
“The Aum vibration that reverberates throughout the universe (the 'Word' or 'voice of many waters' of the Bible) has three manifestations or gunas.”
This AUM is not a Hindu chant to foreign gods.
It is not a rejection of the God of Christ.
It is the Word through which God created.
And that Word—called Logos in the Gospel of John—is AUM in yogic science. Not a concept, not a belief, but a living vibration. A presence. A current of divine sound through which all things were made.
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost — Sat, Tat, Aum
What Christians call the Holy Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost—is echoed in ancient yogic philosophy as Sat, Tat, AUM:
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Sat: The eternal Being, God the Father.
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Tat: The Christ Consciousness, the Son, immanent in creation.
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AUM: The Holy Spirit, the sacred vibration that carries God’s presence into form.
Yogananda wrote:
“The outward manifestation of the omnipresent Christ Consciousness,...is Aum, the Word or Holy Ghost: invisible divine power.”
When I first read these words, my body recognized them before my mind did.
It was like hearing something I had forgotten I knew.
It was like meeting Jesus again, but this time in stillness—inside the breath, inside the silence between thoughts.
The Sound of God is Not in a Language — It’s in You
When Elijah met God, it wasn’t in the thunder or the fire.
It was in the still small voice.
That voice is AUM. Not English, not Sanskrit—but the pure, primordial hum that animates all things. You don’t need to speak it aloud. You only need to listen. It reverberates through your spine, through your breath, through your heart’s quiet yearning.
Yoga is not a religion. It is a practice that awakens your inner ear to this vibration.
To the Christ within you.
To the still small voice of God, already whispering in your soul.
Yoga Doesn’t Replace Christ — It Reveals Him
When Yogananda wrote, “The creative voice of God I heard resounding Aum,” he wasn’t renouncing Christ. He was discovering Him in a deeper, more direct way. Christ is not confined to one culture or time. The Logos is eternal. The AUM is not a substitute—it is a bridge.
I wish more Christians knew this.
I wish they knew that to chant AUM is not to abandon Jesus—it is to commune with Him in a form older than words.
A Practice: Listening for AUM
Sit still.
Close your eyes.
Let your breath become your prayer.
Can you hear it? That subtle hum beneath the mind’s noise?
That is not imagination. That is remembrance.
Let AUM rise within you—not from your lips, but from your spine, your heart, your stillness.
Let it carry you beyond dogma, beyond fear, into the river of sound that is also light.
And there, you will find the Christ—not waiting on the outside, but blossoming from within.
Bridging East and West is Not Heresy — It’s Wholeness
To my Christian brothers and sisters:
Yoga is not a betrayal of your faith. It is a homecoming.
AUM is not another god—it is the sound of God’s breath, moving through all things.
It is the Word that was in the beginning. It is the light in the darkness.
It is the sound of Love remembering Itself.
And it lives in you.
May you come to know it.
May you come to trust it.
May you let it lead you home.
In Light, in Love, in Bliss,
Elizabeth
Ananda Bliss Yoga