Sacred Mantras Invoke Bliss

I've been fascinated with yoga, mantras and mudras, since I was a child and knew one day I'd travel to India. In the summer of 2003, that vision became a reality when I traveled to Pune with 15 of my colleagues from The Institute for Integrative Nutrition.

From the moment I arrived I instantly felt at home. Seven weeks later, when it came time to return to the states, I felt a gut wrenching sensation in the pit of my belly. I did not want to go back!

That trip transformed me. I experienced deep community and ‘living the now'. We experienced satsang together and went off to do our daily ‘investigation' as directed by Zen Master Dolano. We cooked and ate together, shopped for sari's and drank chai together. We navigated the dips in consciousness in our evening circles.

I was so fully immersed in the surreal experience of connectedness that days before I was to return I experienced a quantum shift of being that took years to land in my body. When I returned home, and was thrust into the surface reality and chaotic world of disconnection, I plunged into a 6-month adventure of trying to ‘ground myself' back in the physical, ordinary world. It never happened! Mantras eased my transition.

A mantra is a sound,  word, or phrase that creates transformation. According to Wikipedia, “the rishis were prominent when Vedic Hinduism took shape, as far back as some three thousand years ago.” The Vedas (sacred scriptures)  were revealed to these seers through states of higher consciousness. Rishis chose and arranged the words in mantras in such a way that they not only convey a specific meaning but their chanting also creates specific energies. In other words, mantras create shifts of being.

Whether you understand the meaning of the Sanskrit words doesn't really matter. You can feel the shift. It's not uncommon to experience joy and bliss while chanting mantras. Regardless of  their meaning, singing them gives you a direct experience of  the infinite pathways to the Divine. Chanting these Divinely infused names, your heart directly experiences what's true and your mind rests in the stillness of your expansive nature.

Wherever you are is the entry point. Kabir

When listened to or repeated, mantras will remove mental agitation and restore emotional balance very quickly. When you are feeling out of sorts in any way, if you take the time to repeat mantras, they will elevate your mood and raise your vibration.

A mantra is devotional and, therefore, inspired. Each mantra has a specific purpose to serve a higher ideal. If the intention serves this ideal and the universe, a profound and positive change can occur.

A mantra is a point of focus, a tool for transformation, to focus the mind on your true nature (enlightenment) and surrender the surface layer of illusion. Here are three of my favorites…

Gayatri

The Gayatri Mantra is chanted for the attainment of Universal Consciousness and for the awakening of intuitive powers. This mantra is most often recited at sunrise and sunset and is believed to bestow wisdom and enlightenment, through the vehicle of the Sun, who represents the source and inspiration of the universe.

om bhur bhuvah svah
tat savitur varenyam
bhargo devasya dhimahi
dhiyo yo naha pra-chodayat

“We meditate on the glory of that
Being who has produced this universe;
may He enlighten our minds.”
Swami Vivekananda

Govindam

Govinda and Gopāla are names of Krishna. In ancient Hindu texts he is described as the source of all that is and the original cause of all causes.

govindam hari-purusham tam aham bhajami
[I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord]

Jaya Shiva Shankara

Shiva is a major Hindu deity, and is the destroyer god or transformer among the Hindu Trinity of the primary aspects of the divine. Lord Shiva is symbolically known as the Destroyer. He destroys ignorance and attachment to the false sense of separate self.

jaya shiva shankara bom bom hare hare
jaya shiva shankara bom bom hare hare
hare hare hare hare bom bom hare hare
hare hare hare hare bom bom hare hare

[Victory to the Auspcious One, the Destroyer of Doubt
Hail to the Remover of Evil, the Great God]

All mantras are from the CD… Healing Mantras by Namaste.

Image: Mantra1, Mailumes