The ancients knew how mantras awaken the Divine within. Scientists are just now catching up. UNITYMAGAZINE.ORG

18 By Kulreet Chaudhary, M.D.

he form of God is energy. The structure of state of oneness, within which they found the wisdom of energy is vibration,” my spiritual teacher Sri the secrets of this universe—one being mantras. “ Sakthi Amma once expounded in a discourse Mantra, in the literal Sanskrit translation, means aboutT mantras. “The cosmic force, or universal force, or “through the mind.” Through chanting mantras, a what we call God, is just in the form of energy that exists person is able to stop the mind from leaping in many everywhere in creation, including within humans.” Most different directions at once and begin to find a profound important, this energy, and the vibrations held within it, inner stillness. But the mantra is also considered to can be engaged through sound. Throughout history and be a numinous sound, a hallowed utterance that is the world today there are traditions that use distinctive simultaneously able to open the mind and body to the phrases and chants to invoke physical, emotional, and boundaryless, shared energy of the universe, while also spiritual states: the Gregorian chants of Christianity; the locating the divine energy within. Egyptian use of sound for clearing the chakras; the mystic The earliest mantras were directly perceived from nature syllables of the Hebrew alphabet in Kabbala; the Shamanic by enlightened masters in a state of awakened listening and healers’ prayers; Islam’s call to prayer; Tibetan Buddhist then were later composed in ancient Tamil and Sanskrit. monks’ chants in preparation for meditation. In every one These masters became highly attuned to the natural world of these traditions exists a vibratory pattern imbued with in order to decipher the various tones that resonate within wisdom and spirituality that can be accessed by sound. the vibrations of the universe. Because they derive from

Modern science, particularly within the field of nature, mantras provide a primal form of communication NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020 quantum physics, has reached a similar conclusion that with a vast body of knowledge that outstrips language and waveforms—in the form of sound or light—carry an thought, allowing a person to directly perceive the Divine. unimaginable quantity of information, delving into how The ancient mantras were also used as the foundation the subtle material of space might contain and transmit for the four yogic paths. In fact, the oldest yogic texts and energetic vibrations. spiritual teachings, collected in the Rigveda, are primarily The Siddhas were among the first to intuit that this a teaching of mantra as a path toward obtaining union. universal energy and vibration could be tapped by sound. The mantras of karma yoga, for instance, were seen as These were the ancient sages and the rishis, or the mystic powerful tools for reducing or negating past bad actions. seers, who, more than 8000 years ago, discovered they were If every action or thought has a vibratory component, it able to transcend consciousness, connecting to universal was believed, harmful behavior would result in negative energy, once they were able to train their emotions and vibrations held in the Akash—or, in our modern minds to stay still. These enlightened souls attained the understanding, the zero point field—which reverberate

19 back to the one who set them in motion in the first place, “activated.” This happens in one of two ways: An like a karmic boomerang. Anandamaya, the bliss sheath, enlightened spiritual teacher, someone like Amma, can which is related to the element Akash as well as to speech activate a mantra at the time it is given to a student. Amma, and sound, is believed to hold the seeds of our karma. Vedic indeed, had activated the chakra mantra when she taught philosophy proposes that mantras can pierce and transform it to me on my pivotal visit to India—after which I felt a this field, modifying those vibrations and, consequently, sudden expansion in my practice and I began to feel more altering the karmic imprint. fluid, less like skin and bones, and more like energy. With In raja yoga, and more extensively in hatha yoga, where this method, a guru, typically associated with a particular the asanas, or poses, were devised to build discipline yogic tradition, has received a mantra through a lineage through the body, mantras were engaged to do this of previous teachers and shares it with someone who will mentally—creating greater focus, flexibility, and stability in bring it forth into the world for healing the body, mind, the mind. Once mastered, every asana, and every mantra, and spirit. In this day and age, however, this is a rare becomes a conduit for a greater flow of energy. occurrence—more often, the path toward activating a Additionally, each of the ancient Sanskrit mantras is mantra is taken by someone who is establishing a practice constructed to address specific health issues—ranging from without a spiritual teacher. anxiety and depression to digestive issues—depending When someone needs to activate her own mantra, it is on how the syllables of the mantra stimulate the brain necessary to establish a regular practice, of course, but, and body, directing prana to particular organs. Medically more important, a feeling of love and devotion must infuse prescriptive mantras can be given by a qualified practitioner the mantra as it is being chanted. This is what my patient and are often accompanied by specific and complementary Tim did when he began to practice bhakti yoga—chanting herbs to be taken for the ailment. the chakra mantra I’d taught him while looking at a The ancient science of mantra has, indeed, proved to picture of Mother Mary, who had served as a symbol of be both comprehensive and complex in its design and maternal warmth for him as a child. It is, as Tim learned, ability to convey subtle information. There is a musical the opening of the heart chakra that ultimately connects and mathematical precision inherent in these mantras us to the Divine. This is, in fact, depicted graphically in that has been carefully preserved through history. Yet the the Vedic illustration of the heart chakra, which shows beauty and advantage of the mantra practice is that it is not the heart symbol sitting in the core of the crown chakra, necessary to be a Vedic master to resonate with nature and emphasizing the role of unconditional love as a necessary the universe and to affect the body and mind. Amma gives quality to achieve the higher intelligence, and divine a wonderful analogy that Indian masters have cited about energy, within us. the bija mantras: She explains that the seed of a banyan With bhakti yoga, once a person awakens what the tree is very small, half the size even of a mustard seed, but Vedic sages call the “Shakti” of the mantra—referring all of the information needed to grow into an enormous to Shakti, or the divine feminine energy that underlies banyan tree—which sometimes reach one hundred feet—is nature itself—the mantra connects to the universal contained in that seed. Similarly, the existence of the whole consciousness, or Brahman. “Since it [the bija] is the seed, universe is hiding in the letters of the bija mantra—fittingly when you sow the seed in the soil, it grows,” as Amma also known as a seed mantra. once eloquently put it. “When you sow the seed mantras Remember, though, that a mantra needs to be coupled in your heart, it grows as a tree with the Divine.” She also with an emotional force for it to be fully awakened or rather specifically and reassuringly explained that an UNITYMAGAZINE.ORG

20 A feeling of love activated mantra, whether chanted by an experienced practitioner or a newcomer, needs to be practiced for and devotion only thirty minutes and “by the thirty-first minute, he will find peace within himself and, when he does it nine days regularly then he will enjoy the bliss.” Once must infuse the we have reached the point of activation in our mantra practice, we can achieve resonance with the vibrations of nature—this energizing of the body, this enlivening of mantra as it is every cell, lasts far beyond the meditative state. “When someone awakes the divine energy,” Amma says, “he cannot go back to being negative.” Beyond the extensive clinical research about mantra, being chanted. there is also a broader body of theoretical research on how sound more generally may affect our biology. It seems the use of sound—both audible and inaudible— and its impact on electromagnetic fields may be a fundamental form of communication within the body that has been, until recently, overlooked. If, indeed, sound shares quantum information capable of altering electromagnetic fields and producing shifts in the body, this would offer a modern biological model for the science of mantras, not only revolutionizing medicine but also completely changing the way in which we view life itself. For the great, enlightened masters, in particular the Siddhas, consciousness and energy meet in the realm of vibration. The vibration that shapes and transforms the physical world is called sound, whether it is audible or not. The Siddhas understood life as a system of resonance—finding a synchronistic chord not only in NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020 nature but also with the Divine. Sound was the key to connecting with this energy. As such, they created self- generated vibrations in the form of mantras. These were drawn from the infinite field of vibrations held within space—what they called the Akash and what a quantum physicist would call the zero point field. Our modern scientific discoveries in quantum physics and the biofield Adapted from Sound Medicine by Kulreet seem to be consistently leading us back to what these Chaudhary. Used with the permission of Harper ancient masters already knew: The universe is singing. Wave. Copyright © 2020 by Kulreet Chaudhary.

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