Chant Your Way Out

Imagine your mind being a fresh batch of playdough when you were born. As you experienced life, various incidents marked the play dough and left impressions on it. When still young these impressions could be made as well as changed easily. But as you got older the play dough hardened, and the impressions became hard set.

According to Yoga teachings, 'samskara's are mental impressions i.e. patterns of thinking, feeling, behaving that are deeply ingrained in one's being due to former conditioning. These are the patterns that often feel as if we just can't stop ourselves from. It can seem out of our control or our 'nature' to behave in these ways. Samskaras can be rigid patterns that can pull us back and keep us from living our best life.

What to do about these patterns and how do we modify them?

Yoga teachings indicate that the way to make the mind (i.e. playdough) malleable again, is through developing mental flexibility. Yoga poses get this process started. Slowly the flexibility has to be transferred to mental processes through breathing exercises, and stages of meditation. When one progresses to the level of deep meditation, the playdough begins to receive positive impressions including love, self-worth, and deep trust/ faith in the process of life.

Where does chanting sit in this process?

Chanting is a method of working directly with the subconscious mind by inducing a trance state and releasing adamant patterns. Chanting works through what can be called 'brainwave entrainment' and 'self-hypnosis' put together. Through the power of clean language, chants directly instil positive beliefs into the mind that can counteract and loosen up negative impressions. Within the 8-limb yoga, chanting sits in the fifth limb called pratyahara or sense withdrawal. You only need to experience the power of chanting to become a believer of it and how easy it can be to experience peaceful states of mind.

In my upcoming day retreat, Break Through - Break Free, at Supre Yoga Studio in Rockhampton, we will be using the power of chanting combined with breathing, meditation and philosophical introspections. I am excited to share this experience with you!

Check out the event page here and book your spots if you wish to embrace this opportunity.

Love, Prabha