The Om mantra in the morning stillness of the apartment. The daily ritual, which gradually became an integral part of my life. Attunement and unity with millions of people who were singing the sacred sound for centuries. Bead by bead on a rosary, and and as if the body goes to the background, dissolves in the surrounding space. There is only voice and a sense of deep peace of mind. It is not yet a meditation, but alreay a step to the inner silence: the mind and the ego recede, and with the every sound somewhere in the heart you experience the wholeness of something absolute, incomprehensible and undecayable. Only in the music the harmony is ...
A lot is written and said about the physical benefits of singing mantras. It would seem one needs only to take and enjoy it –and that is the ready pill from despondency and depression, helplessness and insecurity, a mean to relax, calm restore, focus and optimism. However, our blinkered mind when we first come across with mantras rebels and rejects such a strange form of self-healing. Once again, suggesting friends to send just one hour and try to join in singing the mantra Om, I get back only skeptical smiles. Even during yoga practice mantras are often perceived very cautiously – there is a willingness to listen to it, but to sing it you will always face their own excuses: "I have no voice", "it is an alien culture", "I do not understand the meaning of words." I have noticed that people begin to sing the mantras very quietly, awkwardly and tense, as if are afraid to be heard, detected, cut off from the usual normality. Perhaps this is a fear to be different, strange, to be apart from the crowd, to be misunderstood, to get a reputation of being a fanatic or sectarian.
The first time I started to sing the mantras was about four years ago. There was a difficult period in my life when structured ideals, perceptions of people, values and priorities suddenly collapsed. The usual picture of the world distorted and twisted at once the well-established view of the world. I remember at that time I could not take a deep breath: there was a clump of insult in the throat, which constantly pressured, I cried during a day and at night I awoke up from obsessive dreams. Yoga in those days became my escape from myself, from the selfish desire to wrest my big material chunk of the world and in response to go over other people's bones. Every evening I made myself practice yoga, by transfering attention from emotional pain to the suffering of the body, I learned again how to breathe calmly and deeply. To master the meditation was physically impossible at that time: too hysterically my mind was screaming and rushing and any attempts to stop the endless stream of thoughts over and over again were a failure. For about a year I repeated a single mantra - Gayatri mantra - a prayer gifting power. Later it was replaced by a Kali Durga Mantra - an appeal to the destructive power of Shiva, the prayer of liberation from suffering, the destruction of the old, obsolete, and creation of the new. Repeating this mantra, I mentally asked higher powers to transform the chaos of my life in love and harmony.
Surprisingly, the mantras are always timely, always in unison. Even without understanding the meaning of the words, a man can unconsciously feel his mantra, which responds to his inner state. Many times I was convinced in this: you hear unfamiliar words, easily memorize them, repeat and suddenly discover that the interpretation of the meaning of the mantra resounds with a worried situation. Moola Mantra, which gives an understanding of unity with the whole world, comes to mind at the moment of confusion and important life choices. Mantra White Tara Goddess, always ready to help and protect, pops up in those moments of despair when no one to rest my head. The mantra "Sat patim" - women's mantra to attract love - not just mystically implemented a long-awaited men in my personal space. Mantra Lokah Samasta Sukhino Bhavantu- «Let all beings be happy in all worlds!" - is still a daily prayer, during which I remember all the loved ones representing their smiling faces and mentally give them pieces of light.
Mantras are not just a combination of sounds and words, not just a vibration and oscillation of the air. They, like all the ancient texts read and repeated countless times, are inviolable imprinted in the atmosphere. Mantras are not visible energy, which together with the other matters build the memory of the planet, and perhaps the memory of the universe. Saying the mantras, we as if dial a sound code and open the entrance to a spiritual space which is filled with light and good intentions of people every day addressing to a higher power. That is why the mantra is always recognized only at the level of the heart, not the conscious choice the mind. After all, the mantras, as well as all the age-old messages, not once could be heard and repeated in a series of our personal reincarnation.
To a serious yoga practician mantrasinging is a prayer that allows to access to the elements, deities and energy. Mantras help in spiritual retreat and at once connect to a higher power in its various incarnations.
The practice of singing the Om mantra is separate in its nature. Mantra Om - it is not a prayer, not an appeal to the gods, not a message to unmanifested entities. Muttering over and over again "AOUM," you do not ask, do not wait, do not search the connecting thread with divine powers. The Om mantra is in itself a fundamental principle, it is itself "in the beginning there was the word." "AOUM", merging into a continuous flow in japa gradually vents thoughts, questions, fears, worries and concerns. The sounds of the Om mantra as if dissolve material shell of the body and put in a state, which in Hinduism is called the Atman - the absolute, unchanging, comprehensive spirituality. That is why for the first few minutes after the end of the singing the visible reality of the practice seems a little hazy, vague and detached from the inner world.
In one of the lectures Andrew Verba said that the Om mantra comes to a human life, if "the karma allows". Initially I could not understand it. But from personal experience I followed a simple regularity – the Om mantra comes into a person's life with the appearance of the Master, which helps to enter into the unknown and frightening space of individual spirituality. During a joint Om practice your bound and closed inner world is no longer a private and individual. A voice becomes a voice, it resonates, drains and suddenly disappears. At this moment, you feel that your "ME" - is just an integral part of the overall harmony. It is a happiness to feel this harmony - this is a good potential, given to you by karma.
There is a parable about a doll made of salt and which is able to think. Onсe the doll was on the beach and thinking how great the sea was, and how deep it was. At that time, the boat sailed away from the coast, and the doll got into it, to see the sea closer. The boat was floating on the sea, and the doll was looking around and thinking about whether the water was deep underneath. Finally, she decided to jump into the water to see exactly its depth. And at the time the doll dove she immediately recognized the value and depth of the sea. Immediately- because it was created from the sea salt and it was dissolved instantly, it became the sea. It is the same with us, each of us is already a part of a single whole, trying to grasp the meaning of life while trying to detach ourselves from the unity of all living beings. The practice of mantra Om, joint or personal, helps a person to regain a lost integrity, rent on time, protective layers of selfishness, dive and disappear in a single harmony of nature. Practice Om Mantra helps us to remember that we have always been, always are and will be only a short-term relative form of absolute and eternal life.
Let's practice together for the benefit of all living! Om!
The author Anastasia Kaurova
A lot is written and said about the physical benefits of singing mantras. It would seem one needs only to take and enjoy it –and that is the ready pill from despondency and depression, helplessness and insecurity, a mean to relax, calm restore, focus and optimism. However, our blinkered mind when we first come across with mantras rebels and rejects such a strange form of self-healing. Once again, suggesting friends to send just one hour and try to join in singing the mantra Om, I get back only skeptical smiles. Even during yoga practice mantras are often perceived very cautiously – there is a willingness to listen to it, but to sing it you will always face their own excuses: "I have no voice", "it is an alien culture", "I do not understand the meaning of words." I have noticed that people begin to sing the mantras very quietly, awkwardly and tense, as if are afraid to be heard, detected, cut off from the usual normality. Perhaps this is a fear to be different, strange, to be apart from the crowd, to be misunderstood, to get a reputation of being a fanatic or sectarian.
The first time I started to sing the mantras was about four years ago. There was a difficult period in my life when structured ideals, perceptions of people, values and priorities suddenly collapsed. The usual picture of the world distorted and twisted at once the well-established view of the world. I remember at that time I could not take a deep breath: there was a clump of insult in the throat, which constantly pressured, I cried during a day and at night I awoke up from obsessive dreams. Yoga in those days became my escape from myself, from the selfish desire to wrest my big material chunk of the world and in response to go over other people's bones. Every evening I made myself practice yoga, by transfering attention from emotional pain to the suffering of the body, I learned again how to breathe calmly and deeply. To master the meditation was physically impossible at that time: too hysterically my mind was screaming and rushing and any attempts to stop the endless stream of thoughts over and over again were a failure. For about a year I repeated a single mantra - Gayatri mantra - a prayer gifting power. Later it was replaced by a Kali Durga Mantra - an appeal to the destructive power of Shiva, the prayer of liberation from suffering, the destruction of the old, obsolete, and creation of the new. Repeating this mantra, I mentally asked higher powers to transform the chaos of my life in love and harmony.
Surprisingly, the mantras are always timely, always in unison. Even without understanding the meaning of the words, a man can unconsciously feel his mantra, which responds to his inner state. Many times I was convinced in this: you hear unfamiliar words, easily memorize them, repeat and suddenly discover that the interpretation of the meaning of the mantra resounds with a worried situation. Moola Mantra, which gives an understanding of unity with the whole world, comes to mind at the moment of confusion and important life choices. Mantra White Tara Goddess, always ready to help and protect, pops up in those moments of despair when no one to rest my head. The mantra "Sat patim" - women's mantra to attract love - not just mystically implemented a long-awaited men in my personal space. Mantra Lokah Samasta Sukhino Bhavantu- «Let all beings be happy in all worlds!" - is still a daily prayer, during which I remember all the loved ones representing their smiling faces and mentally give them pieces of light.
Mantras are not just a combination of sounds and words, not just a vibration and oscillation of the air. They, like all the ancient texts read and repeated countless times, are inviolable imprinted in the atmosphere. Mantras are not visible energy, which together with the other matters build the memory of the planet, and perhaps the memory of the universe. Saying the mantras, we as if dial a sound code and open the entrance to a spiritual space which is filled with light and good intentions of people every day addressing to a higher power. That is why the mantra is always recognized only at the level of the heart, not the conscious choice the mind. After all, the mantras, as well as all the age-old messages, not once could be heard and repeated in a series of our personal reincarnation.
To a serious yoga practician mantrasinging is a prayer that allows to access to the elements, deities and energy. Mantras help in spiritual retreat and at once connect to a higher power in its various incarnations.
The practice of singing the Om mantra is separate in its nature. Mantra Om - it is not a prayer, not an appeal to the gods, not a message to unmanifested entities. Muttering over and over again "AOUM," you do not ask, do not wait, do not search the connecting thread with divine powers. The Om mantra is in itself a fundamental principle, it is itself "in the beginning there was the word." "AOUM", merging into a continuous flow in japa gradually vents thoughts, questions, fears, worries and concerns. The sounds of the Om mantra as if dissolve material shell of the body and put in a state, which in Hinduism is called the Atman - the absolute, unchanging, comprehensive spirituality. That is why for the first few minutes after the end of the singing the visible reality of the practice seems a little hazy, vague and detached from the inner world.
In one of the lectures Andrew Verba said that the Om mantra comes to a human life, if "the karma allows". Initially I could not understand it. But from personal experience I followed a simple regularity – the Om mantra comes into a person's life with the appearance of the Master, which helps to enter into the unknown and frightening space of individual spirituality. During a joint Om practice your bound and closed inner world is no longer a private and individual. A voice becomes a voice, it resonates, drains and suddenly disappears. At this moment, you feel that your "ME" - is just an integral part of the overall harmony. It is a happiness to feel this harmony - this is a good potential, given to you by karma.
There is a parable about a doll made of salt and which is able to think. Onсe the doll was on the beach and thinking how great the sea was, and how deep it was. At that time, the boat sailed away from the coast, and the doll got into it, to see the sea closer. The boat was floating on the sea, and the doll was looking around and thinking about whether the water was deep underneath. Finally, she decided to jump into the water to see exactly its depth. And at the time the doll dove she immediately recognized the value and depth of the sea. Immediately- because it was created from the sea salt and it was dissolved instantly, it became the sea. It is the same with us, each of us is already a part of a single whole, trying to grasp the meaning of life while trying to detach ourselves from the unity of all living beings. The practice of mantra Om, joint or personal, helps a person to regain a lost integrity, rent on time, protective layers of selfishness, dive and disappear in a single harmony of nature. Practice Om Mantra helps us to remember that we have always been, always are and will be only a short-term relative form of absolute and eternal life.
Let's practice together for the benefit of all living! Om!
The author Anastasia Kaurova