---
title: "Om Tat Sat & Friends · Triads of the Absolute (WD020)"
heading: "Om Tat Sat & Friends · Triads of the Absolute (WD020)"
subheading: ""
updated: "2026-04-19T11:26:00+00:00"
words: 1350
url: https://ananda.icu/talks/wisdom-drafts/wd020-om-tat-sat-friends-triads-of-the-absolute
description: "Friends asking about mantras. Practice to cultivate attention and rise beyond the clutter. Do I know a thousand mantras? Sure. But we'd rather work with something free of bias — a simple baseline chant. Leading us nowhere else but straight into the truth of present actuality, and onward back home, reuniting with the unified field of potentials. Then: Om Tat Sat."
...


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**Words:** 1350 ⁘ **Length:** 09:53 min ⁘ **Created:** 2026-04-19 


 Friends asking about mantras. Practice to cultivate attention and rise beyond the clutter. Do I know a thousand mantras? Sure. But we'd rather work with something free of bias — a simple baseline chant. Leading us nowhere else but straight into the truth of present actuality, and onward back home, reuniting with the unified field of potentials.

Then: Om Tat Sat. "Om" the active unified field. "Tat" the fabric of existence as it is. "Sat" the calling of the present truth. We look at the classic source (Bhagavad Gita 17.23) and then enter the essence of this reference — the timeless core and principles in this simple mantra — beyond priests and scriptures and sacrifices of ancient times.

In extended digs: Touching the other classic triad, "Sat Cit Ananda" — the absolute as present actuality, as clear cognition, and as harmonic bliss. Where "Om Tat Sat" is the descendant expression, into the "land of truths" — "Sat Cit Ananda" is the ascendant return statement, as we unveil, witness, and engage the truth of what is. 

 [#Dharmas](/q/Dharmas) [#Mantras](/q/Mantras) [#OmTatSat](/q/OmTatSat) [#BhagavadGita](/q/BhagavadGita) [#Vedas](/q/Vedas)



_Cat #Dharmas._ We open a new chapter, a new sub-stream in our "Wisdom Drafts". So there's plenty of worthy material in classical Dharmic traditions, both on the Buddhist and the Hindu side of the stream. And it deserves to be leveraged in our today's context of cultivation. I obviously have a significant background dabbling in all of that for decades, and it would be bizarre if it were not to resurface. I have been digging all of that for good reason, right?

Then some friends, digging into all of this for a while, they were asking for a mantra. What would be an appropriate mantra? And certainly there are thousands upon thousands of possible mantras. Many of them taking you on a particular spin. To a particular deity or to a particular aspect of your being. Left me pondering, what's a good baseline? And the good baseline that came to me is **"Om Tat Sat"**. We'll get to that.

Before we get to the core substance, in due homage, tribute to the origins.

From Bhagavad Gita 17.23:

> _oṁ tat sad iti nirdeśo brahmaṇas tri-vidhaḥ smṛtaḥ |_
>   _brāhmaṇās tena vedāś ca yajñāś ca vihitāḥ purā ||_

Then in a literal rendering.

> "Om Tat Sat", thus referenced.
> The Brahman, absolute, in three ways recollected.
> As the _brahmanas_, the spirit-bound priests; 
> the Vedas, scriptures of knowledge; 
> and _yajnas_, the reconciling sacrifices.
> This is how it was operationalized in the ancient days.
Here the "ancient days" is a back-reference of thousand years ish, not a reference to what the priest next door was doing. And today we are taking that reference a couple of thousand years into the future, into our present day. And again looking at the heart of it, the core principle that gave rise to all of these cultures of enlightenment.

Doing my due home work over a morning coffee, I did take a skim at what's being said out there in glossing or interpreting the simple **"Om Tat Sat"**. And do the interpretations abound. All sorts of spins, all sorts of cobblings together of references, stories being told, and how veiled the simple essence of it all becomes. Even looked at the classical commentaries, Shankara, Abhinavagupta, Madhusudana, Sridhara, the rest of the lot — and they do little more than go into a technical explanation of the verse.


### The Core Basics of "Om Tat Sat" ¶

So let's get back to the baselines, to the core basics. First of all, of **"Om Tat Sat"**. **"Om"** in itself. Also called _"pranava"_, the vibration of the breath of life. We have the unified field that is active. A field with potential vibration, resonance, that gives rise to all of these formations. That's the ground of being, **"Om"**. 

Then **"Tat"**. **"Tat"** is a simple pronoun, this or that, indicating an expressed object. And that's all. Recognize, it's there. We have a manifest world, whatever that it is, that's what it is, **"Tat"**. Then **"Sat"**, truth, actuality. It is what it is, beyond your projections, beyond your illusions. What is, in its living essence, in its dynamism, as it is. Simply.

**"Om"**, the unified field of potential emergence. **"Tat"**, whatever the formations that have come into being. And **"Sat"**, their persistent, perennial nature, beyond your opinions and reactions. As they are, we engage them.


### Bhagavad-Gita and Ancient Expressions ¶

Then to reference the Bhagavad Gita, the **"Om Tat Sat"**, threefold gloss of the absolute, as the Brahmanas, the spirit-bound priests, as the Vedas, the scriptures of knowledge, and the yajnas, the sacrifices, oblations of reconciliation. It's a clear lay of the land there. We have the conscious human embodiment, instance of the universe. **"Om"**, as it resonates in a human frame.

Then **"Tat"**, or that. We have the corpus of descriptions of "what is", delineating the knowledge inherent to all things. Their axioms, their principles, their dynamisms, their nature, as it is. Veda, the innate knowledge in all things, not theorems, not hypotheticals. At times, yes, symbols and paintings to make it more accessible, but born of the "what is", the form itself, as it was born, created, as it became. That's the baseline, and that is the scripture, the book of life.

Where **"Tat"**, or that, a simple pronoun, is more of a neutral baseline, fabric of being. **"Sat"**, truth, actuality, ships with more of a connotation. It has an active presence. We are present in "what is", and the "what is" indicates the direction of things to come, prompts us into action, into acts of reconciliation, harmonization. The truth, calling upon us. Will we engage?

Then **"Om"**, the unified potential field, and **"Tat"**, the formations that come to be, and **"Sat"**, their presence in your field of experience, their invocation, the truth, calling for you, will you engage? Be a _sadhu_. Or will you turn from _sat_ to _asat_, the unreal, your illusions? That's the choice we land in, with **"Sat"**, drawing from the **"Tat"**. The **"Tat"** is a neutral base, and the **"Sat"** is our abiding in truth.


### Related Triads of Essence in the Vedas ¶

In other classics, related. _"Asato mā sad gamaya"_, away from the illusions, into actuality. _"Tamaso mā jyotir gamaya"_, from the darkness, into radiance. _"Mṛtyor mā amṛtaṃ gamaya"_, from the morbid into immortality. 

Then, _sadhu_ is not a fellow with funny robes and a long beard. _Sadhu_ is the one who is bound to **"Sat"**, the present actuality that leads us back to **"Om"**, the potential unified field. Through **"Tat"**, whatever that is, that's all there, and all of it we engage in our reconciliation, in our convergence, returning back home.

There's another triad that relates. "Om Tat Sat", that's the core baseline, And "Sat Cit Anandam", that's the fluffing out of the absolute, when engaged. **"Sat"** the present actuality, **"Cit"** the clear recognition, the conscious power, and **"Anandam"**, the unified bliss, returning to the field of all that is, as a complete whole.

**"Om Tat Sat"**, from the unified field, into what is, into the present calling of truth. And again from that **"Sat"**, into **"Cit"**, the radiant cognizance, and **"Anandam"**, the reconciled bliss, in returning to the unified field. **"Om Tat Sat"** is the descendant, and **"Sat Cit Anandam"** is the ascendant. 

One might bundle these together into a five-part recitation, **"Om Tat Sat Cit Anandam"**, "Om Tat Sat Cit Anandam", "Om Tat Sat Cit Anandam". So it's not a rhyme that I intend to drop for anyone. **"Om Tat Sat"** is plenty. How awkward, given my name, the conflict of interest — not really, but awkward.

Beyond that, the whole practical cultivation, philosophy, and methodology of mantras, how it churns your brain toward higher and higher level interpretive models, creates nexuses in your awareness that help in the rewinding of your entire phenomenal reality, back home through clarified windows of more and more subtle grades, that's a tale for another time. Plenty for now. Be well.