How often do you actually notice your breath?  It flows in and out, in and out, and gives us life.  But so often we don’t even notice it!

​The most ancient spiritual text of India, the Rig Veda, describes Brahman as the “giver of breath.”  Brahman, remember, isn’t to be confused with Brahma, the Hindu deity.

Brahman is without beginning and without end.  Brahman is cosmic spirit and eternal truth, the universal principle.  The divine source of all that exists and does not exist.

And the giver of breath, in the Hindu tradition.

We can work with our breath to increase our life force. As we calm our breathing, our mind will calm. Thought and breath are connected.

We can exhale and release our breath, letting go of our troubles and worries in our mind from the day.

When we turn inward and focus on calming our breath and mind, we can connect with our inner self that often remains hidden.  That which is one with Brahman, the Divine Source.

There we find the wisdom that runs deep within us, the origin of our higher self from which we birth new ideas and find solutions to what is needed in the world.

​One technique that is used in Hinduism to calm the breathing and the mind is mantra.

Mantras can be a way of focusing a sound within ourselves.We know that sound is a form of vibration and everything within the universe vibrates.

By continuously repeating a mantra, we can introduce the vibrational frequency of that mantra into ourselves and sustain it for a period of time.  Since mantras have sacred and deeper meanings, you resonate at the vibrational frequency with the Divine, with healing power, with your Higher Self.As you come to resonate at the same frequency as the mantra, over time, the mantra gains its own strength and momentum.  At this point, you shift from chanting the mantra to the mantra having an effect upon you.  This is the space in which a mantra can be deeply transformative.Nowadays we rely so much on our visual sense that we don’t often attend to sound.  We spend most of our time attending to the visual aspects of our lives.Yet, sound healers know that we can use toning and chanting to bring about transformation and healing to the body and mind.  The sound we create is powerful.

It creates harmony and balance in ourselves and the world.Shamans have known this for years.  Sound was a vehicle for shamans to channel healing energy and intentions into the sick or distressed individual.

​Want to try sounding a mantra?

One of the best ones to try is the sacred syllable of OM.

OM is sometimes written as AUM to facilitate the sounding of it. It contains three sounds, A (“aaah”), U (“oooh”) and M (“mmm”).  Give them a try now.

Each of the three sounds corresponds to a different aspect of the Divine – as creator, sustainer, and destroyer — without which nothing exists, everything is sustained, and all things dissolve back into the void.

In Hinduism, these are the gods Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva.

​Try now-   A-U-M and repeat for 5 minutes and see how you feel afterwards.  More harmonious?  More balanced?

Ready to bring this transformative work into your spiritual practice?  Check out my guidebook and audio recordings: How to Bring Life to Your Chakras: 7 Healing Mantras