Mantra stems from the root word 'manos' in Sanskrit. Manos meaning mind. 'Tra', in this context meaning tool.
Mantra - tool for the mind.
To be the wise gardener, attuned to changing seasons and winds and tides, is to understand the deeper experiences of tilling inner fertility. What seeds are sown, what seeds are sprouting, what is now coming to fruit - your heart goes BLOOM!
I have found mantra incredibly potent, healing, comforting, reviving, sonorous, resounding and a key pillar of life as a seeker, as a quester. The mantra 'Om Sri dhanvantre namaha' - the mantra to the energy of the celestial physician I have often sought solace from, during difficult and transformative times e.g when my first kidney transplant was failing and then for such soulful and present healing right after my second kidney transplant. These are changing circumstances and mantra meets us.
It is accessible as requires only the tongue and the mouth. Not even that, if our voices are not available, we can take the mantra within. A silent inner hum which also help focus the mind
Tool for the mind. Garden your mind well.
What might you need currently? Mantra helps us reclaim our connection to sound, to our voice. Our true voice. There are so many mantra to work with. To experiment. Explore!
Aham Prema - I am divine love. For when your heart needs deeper spiritual sustenance perhaps.
Om sri shukraya namaha - an invocation to the planetary energies of Venus. Which is reflected in our heart centre. Our Venusian centre. A wonderful mantra to tone and commit to during Venus retrograde which is a 40 day length. We can rewire patterns and habits in 40 days.
40 days the Buddha sat under the bodhi tree for enlightenment
40 days Jesus fasted in the desert
40 days it is said for recovery after child birth. The nurturing of the deeply feminine mother energies.
Committing to a 40 day mantra takes discipline. It also requires there to be a driving verve to want to change something. By committing to chanting a mantra for 40 days, something changes. It has to. Because a pattern is being interrupted.
We are made of light and sound. So chanting with intention, with curiosity, with openness...to just be willing to want deeper change for yourself.
The path of the seeker and quester is the harder path. It's easy to say yoga, the doing of it is something else.
Our yoga braids into the fabric of our lives. It's not something we do once a week. It's our sadhana - our psycho-spirtual practise. Sadhana meaning discipline in Sanskrit.
The Great Work. To Know Thyself
To have a plan and be willing to put it into action.
One of my teachers Sianna Sherman, shares how mantra is lovemaking. The tongue as the phallus, the mouth as yoni. The mantra as the love-child.
Let your mantra infuse your cells. Let it awaken.
It could be simply chanting Om in the shower. Cleaning your etheric body as water flushes over your skin. It could be Ram, for strengthening the manipura chakra. These bija mantras that are seed sounds for energy centres in the body. Yam for the heart.
It could also be just toning I AM - enunciating all the letters.
Let mantra be a living embodied part of your yoga practise,
In love and warmth,
Ciara
