Sing to the LORD, all you godly ones! Praise his holy name.
Psalm 30:4 (New Living Translation)
Therefore I will give thanks unto thee, O LORD, among the heathen, and I will sing praises unto thy name.
2 Sam 22:50
Let them praise the name of the LORD: for this name alone is excellent.
Psalm 148:13
The wording of these passages is very odd. After all, why is God’s name always being praised? It’s like saying to someone, “you must be a wonderful person because you have a lovely name,” or “the LORD must be great because ‘he’ {sigh} has such a great name.” Actually though, as I began to go deeper into my own personal practices of spirit work and chanting, I found that there is a profound truth to this use of praise. Most, if not all, of the ancient names of deities are made up of power syllables. By this I mean certain sounds that have a vibrational essence which not only resonate within our bodies but connect us with all the vibrations that surround us. Sounds made by these syllables are a bridge between worlds created by our breath.
Mystically speaking we could say that the breath of creation and our own breath interfuse. We can experience this through the vibration of power syllables. The most common syllables in the west are familiar ones – AL LA HA AH YA LO WAH and the mighty HU. Think of all the names of divinity that can be created by experimenting with these syllables.
I’ll focus specifically on the multi-powerful, cross-cultural, timeless syllable HU:
- Hu was one of the names of the Sphinx: “When speaking of the Sphinx, the Ancient Egyptians frequently made use of the Harranian [Mesopotamian] derivation Hwl, but they also knew it by many other names; HU, for example.”[1]
- Another Egyptian deity with Hu was Tehuti, a god associated with wisdom. “Tehuti brought forth the cosmos through the power of his voice.”[2] Notice the connection between wisdom, breath (voice) and creation. Tehuti is known as the Greek Thoth.
- The Mayans had their “only god,” Hunab Ku, “who was the Heart of All Beings and each of us is connected through our own hearts.”[3] Hunab Ku was a deity of “measurement and movement.”[4]
- Huehuetcotl was an Aztec god of fire, one of their oldest divine images.[5]
- Hum is the seed syllable of Ashuku Nyorai, the Immovable Buddha. A seed syllable contains all aspects of power and meaning for a particular Buddha. Ashuku is connected with “all-encompassing wisdom.”[6]
- This passage is from Tibet: “From the breath which streamed out of the creator there emerged two syllables HU HU, and progressively, the entire universe.”[7]
- In old Europe, Hu is “the all-ruling Divinity of Western Celtic mythology.” The god Hu was married to the great goddess Cerridwen best known for her cauldron of life. Druid acolytes would invoke both deities in their spiritual mystery initiation.[8]
- Ahura Mazda meaning light wisdom is the supreme deity of Zoroastrianism.[9]
- A common word of praise in English uses HU – Hallelujah. It literally means praise “ya” with “ya” used as a shorthand for YHVH, the sacred Tetragrammaton or LORD. A phonetic breakdown would be: HA-LA-HU–YA
For more on HU go to: