Both yoga and neuroscience understand that the things we oft repeat are incredibly powerful.
It is the understandings of science that make me appreciate the value of mantra or repeated sound as part of the wider yoga experience. Whilst part of me appreciates and cleaves to the beauty of sound and the way my tongue wraps around sanskrit, the stories of gods and goddesses behind the mantras, the narrative power, the musicality - I would never have been drawn to mantra if there wasn't a kind of logic behind it.
Nāda yoga (नादयोग) is a form of yoga that's both a philosophical system and a medicine, based on the idea that the entire cosmos and everything in it is based on sound vibrations called nada - that sound is the building block of everything that is rather that matter and particles. Whether we hold that to be true or otherwise, it's a reverential way to interact with sound, giving it a spiritual weight and meaning beyond the way we normally interact with the senses, and thus gives us a way to achieve a deeper unity with the inner and outer cosmos. Jivamukti yoga, founded in the 1980's, has nada as one of it's five pillars, and if you've ever been to a class, they use music (chanting and some awesome tunes including, here, a beautiful dub version of Lokah Samastah Sukinho Bhavantu, which I can't find anywhere!). Music is thus used as an important tool in the quest for bliss, enlightenment, yoga - the union of the body, mind and spirit.
I was never really drawn to mantra in the past. However, what I did understand was the power of music and sound to bring me deep, unbounded joy and bliss, and a feeling of connection to all things - a kind of divinity, although it wasn't the name I would have given to it back then, as I twirled in the dust of a bush doof dancefloor or raised my hands to the light show at a rave. All I knew was that there was something cracking open in my heart that was beyond any rationale, a deep, felt sense. It returned to me listening to slide guitar in the dark, or dub reggae, or even the sophorific sound of the ocean waves or the drift of the wind through trees.
In The Hatha Yoga Pradipika, an old yogic text, it is said that this kind of bliss or samadhi occurs when the anahata nadam, the unstruck sound, is heard. It is unstruck because when everything began, there was nothing to strike against - no dualities, no divisions. It's the most subtlest of vibrations that is still resonating throughout each and every vibration throughout time. This soundless sound is 'OM' - the dissolution of all sound and the music of the cosmos. That's the aim then of a meditation practice - a deep, deep listening to this original and all pervasive sound, to be able to percieve it deep within ourselves.
Beautiful eternal oms - if I ever can't sleep, this is how I withdraw from an overworking mind
How beautiful it is to me that nada in sanskrit means 'river' or 'stream' or 'rushing' or 'sounding' - and that nadis are the channels throughout which all awareness, all conciousness, flows. To me, sound taps me into that flow of awareness, a beautiful flowing stream of sound that is unbound, free. Once you shut out all the other senses as much as you can (pratchyahara) it's possible to start getting an inkling of what this flowing river is or can be.
It's hard to access this and of course one practice asks us to attend to the breath, and only the breath. I love this too, but music and deep listening to sound is another way to do it that really calls to me, allowing me to feel that pulse with the inner pulse of all life itself.
Mantra, therefore, is a way to access the anahata nadam. We can think of mantra as a covering of the fire of the unstruck sound, as if the letters of the alphabet forming sound has concreted or solidified the unboundness of the original nada. By constantly repeating mantra (this is called japa, and is commonly done with mala beads, each recitation one bead, 108 beads on a string) begins to melt the sound until there is just a continuous flow of sound that, for the aspirant, can allow one to access pure consciousness.
Still, though, for me, I needed the science to help me really understand the power of mantra. It's that happy balance that draws me - between the spiritual, felt, emotional understanding of the world and the logical, rational, scientific side. In this way I gain a fuller understanding of life. It's just who I am - I envy those who don't need this.
Mantric chanting has been proved by science to help affect our parasympathetic nervous system - our rest and digest response. This in turn helps us prompt our bodies to release chemicals and brain signals to relax, our breathing to slow, and our blood pressure to drop. No wonder mantras are touted as healing practices! For me, it helps regulate my breathing, and sometimes I'm forced to take concious breaths or the sound doesn't work - for example, 'omming' forces me to breath in through the nose between each om otherwise I become breathless.
Research into mantra has also postulated that it can enable the tongue to stimulate acupuncture meridians in the mouth, help release melatonon (benefiting sleep and reducing tumours), oxygenate the brain, calm brainwave activity, and cause left and right hemispheres of the brain to syncrhonise. Again, this makes sense to me - one hemisphere is felt body senses, emotional, and the other is narrative based, language driven. Mantra crosses these two areas, thus, connects both parts of our brains.
It's not just mantra that does this of course - prayer and other forms of religous chanting has similiar effect:
This also helps me understand and meditate on those wonderful archetypes of humanity, the Hindu gods and goddesses. By studying this mythology I can understand more about myself and the world. For those who've been following my posts, I'm a bit in love with Lakshmi at the moment, the goddess of abundance, so I'll leave you with this mantra as it's very beautiful.
The Gayatri mantra is the mantra above all mantras, and when it's added to other mantras, makes them even more powerful:
"Om Mahalakshmyai cha vidmahe Vishnu patnyai cha dhimahi Tanno Lakshmihi prachodayat"
I really love this version but can only find it on Spotify. The sound of the drone and the waves complete it for me.
However, there's another mantra here that's quite beautiful, albeit a different version of the Lakshmi mantra: "Om Hreem Shreem Laxmibhayo Namah"
Mantra practice is new to me, and there is much to learn. However, it works so deeply on me that I can only be grateful for it, and share my enthusiasm here. I could not possibly write here everything there is on mantras - it's an incredibly vast tradition and there's so much I dont know about it, and don't pretend to.
However, I'd love to hear your experiences and understanding - please do comment or resteem.
Many om and much love, @riverflows xxx
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