Mantra

Let me just start out by saying, I cannot sing.


Okay, that is a complete lie. Let's put it this way: I tell myself that I "cannot" sing, because I'm not good at it and who wants to do anything they're not good at, right?


Right? A little habit I have that doesn't really serve me so well is my habit of avoiding things that I do not excel at. As fabulously ego-enlarging it was to only do things that I could do well, so that I would always appear on top of things and recieve praise, there is just one (in the ballpark of one) problem with this model. Aside from the trouble of my ego becoming terribly bloated and swollen, I also was not learning anything new. I was stagnant because I would not put myself out there and risk failure. The upside was that I DID NOT fail-ever. Unfortunately, I did not succeed either.


So, when my yoga instructor Syl Carson introduced us to mantra and chanting, I effectively closed my throat and refused to open it. In public. But one mantra in particular got stuck in my head and I found myself singing it in the car, naturally in the amazing accoustics of the shower, while vaccuuming and anytime that I thought no one could hear me.


This particular mantra goes as follows:
"Om Namah Shivaya"


There is no direct translation of this mantra. There are several ways of looking at it:

"Om and salutations to that which I am capable of becoming."


It is an invokation of God, calling God into your life and at the same time, moving toward the Lord. Therefore, it is a bowing to the Divinity outside of oneself and to the divinity and potential for divinity that is inside of oneself.


There are many mantras, with many meanings. I think of mantra and chanting as singing prayer and praises. It is devotion out loud.

The progression from my refusal to EVER sing or even chant in public to singing mantras and kirtan in front of groups of yoga students was so slow that I didn't even know it was happening. I just knew that it felt so good.