What's the Deal with Mantra?

Hello and welcome to another episode of What's the Deal with Yoga? Today I thought we'd talk about mantra. What is it? Why is it so great? All that stuff. So on a personal note, when I first practiced yoga, I have to admit I was very turned off by mantra. I would go to this studio in San Francisco, Yoga Tree, and they used a lot of mantra. They probably still do in their classes, and I just thought, That is the strangest, weirdest stuff. I can't even deal, you know. I didn't understand it. I thought it was like strange and cultish. But what's funny is now that's like one of my favorite things about yoga. So sometimes when something is weird to you, it means that you might like it. So anyways, mantra. What is it? You know, it's an ancient yogic technique. It's a tool really for expanding your consciousness. And for working with your mind in different ways. So we'll talk about that. It's not, you know, a lot of times these days in the West especially, we hear people say, oh, you know, my mantra is work hard, play hard, or, you know, quitters never win, or whatever. And we're talking about— we're not talking about that. We're talking about, you know, these typically Sanskrit words or phrases that you use for certain benefits, basically. We'll talk about the benefits too. So the word mantra is a Sanskrit word that means a tool. It means, you know, mind expansion. So basically it's like a tool for expanding the mind or for working with the mind. So it's like I said, it's a very effective tool for that. Now mantra is a very ancient tool that was first put in use at least, you know, 2,000-3,000 years ago, possibly longer. It's, you know, goes back to the ancient yogis Who were experimenting, you know, with these different techniques for basically stilling the mind, you know, meditation, yoga, different rituals, that kind of thing. And this is one of them. So you'll find mantras in the oldest yogic text, which is the Vedas. You'll find them in the Upanishads, which are also quite old. And in fact, in the Vedas, it says mana trayate iti mantraha, which means Mantra is basically great for, you know, calming the mind, essentially. So, so you've probably heard some mantras. You know, the most simple and the original mantra is Om, or Om, and it's said that That mantra is the sound of sort of like the nature of the universe, or it's the sound of the origin of the universe, that kind of thing. So pretty, pretty powerful stuff. And that mantra is actually contained as a seed sort of within all other mantras. And you know, you can work with that mantra. That mantra alone is very powerful. You could just, you know, repeat that to yourself and it could be very effective. Probably the most popular mantra in the world is the Tibetan Buddhist mantra Om Mani Padme Hum, which translates to something I love. It's just so beautiful, such a beautiful intention. May the sacred jewel of my lotus heart shine forth and bring light and joy to the world. Gotta love that. So that's Om Mani Padme Hum. You go to Tibet or you go to the Himalayas or any Buddhist area and you'll see the mantra inscribed on stones and buildings. I went to Dharamsala last year where the Dalai Lama lives and has his temple, and there's all these temples that have the prayer wheels, you know, where you can kind of chant the mantra and turn the prayer wheels. So it's a very, very powerful mantra. And of course there's other mantras you've probably heard. There's Om Shanti Shanti Shanti, which just is a mantra for peace. Shanti means peace. There is the infamous Hare Krishna mantra. Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Ram, Hare Ram, Ram Ram, Hare Hare. Very famous mantra, perhaps for the wrong reasons. But, you know, that's just them. That's the bhaktis. They chant that mantra for Krishna and for Radha. And to them, you know, it's a very holy mantra. And it can be very effective for certain things. And then beyond that, there's Loka Samastha Sukhino Bhavantu, which just says, you know, may all beings be happy and free, which is a great intent. So again, these mantras, you can work with them, and they help— they have various benefits. So we'll say that. So there's 4 ways to work with the mantra. You can chant it out loud, which has a lot of benefits. It can impact sort of your nervous system. It can impact the cells of your body, and in a group setting especially, it can be very powerful. So it can, you know, it can have an effect on the space around you and the people around you. So chanting out loud is very, very effective, and especially for beginners, it's a good way to sort of entrain the mantra and get it sort of kind of get it going, get it started. And then from there, you can chant a mantra quietly. So maybe Om Mani Padme Hum, Om Mani Padme Hum. Something like that. And then there's also just thinking the mantra, having the mantra be silent and just in your mind. And then eventually, when you work with the mantra long enough, it just starts to kind of go on its own, and the mantra kind of like chants itself, you know. That's very powerful as well. So those are the 4 ways to work with mantra. And so part of the benefit too is that, um, I'm sure for anybody, if you've observed your mind, if you've tried meditation, if you've watched your thoughts, the mind is just— and this is something that ancient yogis observed as well— the mind is kind of designed to just go around and around and around. And so part of the idea of mantra is why not give the mind, you know, something positive, a positive vibration to work with, rather than these sort of obsessive thoughts about, you know, I can't believe my boss said that to me, or, you know, what am I going to do about this thing tomorrow, or these things that, you know, are just kind of your mind just wants to kind of like chew on, why not give it a, you know, why not give the dog a bone that is good for it, you know. And so that's part of what mantra does too, just kind of, you know, acknowledges the nature of the mind and gives it something to work with. And so part of the benefit there too is that by working with mantra, it over time can sort of reprogram your mind in a sense. It can override old samskaras, which are the old kind of grooves that have been created Old patterns, old habits, you know, bad behaviors that you want to get rid of, habitual thoughts, you know, it can override those, replace those with something positive. And through that process, you can enhance your awareness, you can expand your consciousness. That's a huge benefit of mantra too. And yeah, so the more you work with it, the more it can work on the subtle body as well. So you can use mantra to increase the energy flow, you can use mantra to, you know, shift your state. Awaken Kundalini. There's mantras for that, and there's mantras that are sort of designed for each chakra. Each chakra has its own sort of bija mantra, its own seed mantra. So there's chakras for that. Yeah, and all these things ultimately the whole endeavor of mantra is is part of a practice that will enhance and expand your consciousness. So it's very powerful for that reason too. And you can work with mantra in different ways. There's There's mantra for meditation. I do part of my meditation practice uses several mantras. And there's japa practice, which is where you commit to doing a mantra, let's say 11,000 times, and you use the mala beads, you know, something like one of these, and you count. It's 108 on the mala beads, and if you do about 100 of those, it's 11,000 repetitions of the mantra. That's japa practice. You can do mantra as part of kriya. Kriya is a big part of our practice in sattva, which I've talked about in a recent blog post, so check that out. And you can do mantra as part of kirtan. Kirtan is sort of like musical mantra. It's using these different mantras in Sanskrit to chant in a group setting, and usually sometimes call and response with music. You've probably heard yoga music with mantra in it. So that's a different— uses of mantra. So yeah, so very effective, very, very, very powerful practice, mantra. And I think you'll find if you work with mantra that you'll, you'll notice the benefits immediately. And it's one of those things, you know, I can tell you about it, but it's ultimately like anything in yoga, something you have to experience. And I highly recommend trying it out, working with mantra. And if you're curious to read a book about it, I recommend a book called Healing Mantras by Thomas Ashley Ferrand, I believe. And that can kind of get you started, but you know nothing beats working with a teacher as well, of course. So that's mantra. Hope you enjoyed the talk, and I will see you next time. Hadi om tatsat.