Chanting or invocation… 

The first time I heard about yoga and chanting ohm I didn’t mind, I thought it was cute. “OM OM OM ” and a few Shanti 😀 

The moment I got to India in the first “Non studio- Non Gym” environment and they started the ritual of initiation I knew I was in a cult! They chanted for an hour putting stuff on your forehead, giving food to imaginary gods, thread around your wrist, I’ve said to myself “oh my god I will be here for 50 days, with this crazy people.”

But what are we rejecting? What are we afraid of? Do we believe or not in the effects of chanting? Is there something to it, we don’t know?

If it is a matter of belief, what is the big deal? If it doesn’t work, you can do it, anyway it is harmless, if it works, good for you.

Resistance to the unknown, putting yourself in a weird situation, because you cannot say the words, because they need a specific pronunciation.

At least use it as a mean to grow your self confidence, only those who have a strong confidence can do strange things, or act stupid, because they don’t search the approval of others.

The fact that you may lose that false image that you created about yourself, that you are a big man, we all know you’re not. Strong people don’t mind doing stupid stuff, only the weak, are worrying about their image.

But it is all mainly ignorance, we don’t know, so we reject. – like this you will never know anything in your life, a book may be knowledge, false knowledge. But Experience is wisdom.

So let’s look deeper into it.

Every vibration takes a form, conversely every form has a vibration.

When the vibration ends, the form deteriorates. When the form starts decomposing or it is damaged, the energy also get’s distorted.

Let’s take an apple. If you damage the form, the apple will dry faster, if you alter the vibration, the apple will die faster. So you can use bot either physical force or a certain vibration to increase or decrease the deterioration of an apple. There are many experiments around this, done on water, plants, food.

For every action there is a certain sound that is conducive to that action.  If it is war you need a certain music, if it disco another, if you want to relax another sound, for sport a different sound, for every state a sound may be conducive or unfavorable.

https://www.ted.com/talks/julian_treasure_the_4_ways_sound_affects_us

Now you go to the gym and you are lazy, a way to push yourself is to listen to 50 cent or put some active music, this will give you a boost. You are lazy and you put some nature music, you will go to sleep.

So it’s mantra and specific sounds in yoga. They generate energy, or direct energy, or invoke something which is dormant in you.

Sound gives you power over others. 

Imagine there are 1000 people. Somebody says

“You! Clean the toilet.”

Nobody wants to answer that. But once he says your name, it is like you have no escape. Giving your name, you give power to others over you. Because you where thought to answer or obey. What if you don’t understand the words? What if words are just sounds to you, whenever you experience another language. Can anyone affect you? give you orders?

But still there is a universal language, tonality pitch which can shake you, relax you etc. Somebody screaming at you, or somebody whispering in your ear different effects no matter the language.

You hear a lion roar in the night 10 m away from you, you will freeze. You hear some fish playing in the water you relax. So sound it is definitely a big impact in your life. You just never analyzed in that much depth.

If you chant “I want to go to hell.i want to die. May we all die” you will feel very weird about it, so because of that, they had to change the words to something that may engage your emotions positively.

“May there be light. May we create energy. May all be happy”

But the real important thing is the reverberation you create in your body by uttering those sounds.

So OM is not om but AUM, A – U –M every sound is producing a specific vibration to a specific part of the body, uttering this you generate a pathway for the energy. Which in Hatha is from down to up.

Another aspect you are 73% water, water and everything in creation changes its attitude physicality by thought, sound, intention. There are many experiments done on water, how sound is affecting water. How different particles take geometrical shapes for every vibration, unique and different, more and more complex.

So mantra may arrange geometrically your whole body, to become more receptive, to clean, to be as creation made you perfect, not distorted how you made yourself.

There is a whole system, as there is for asana, Nada yoga, the yoga of sound, if you want to know more, try learn experiment, see the facts and then form an opinion.

It is a shame to be an ignorant directly, at least get interested before, when you know nothing about anything, to form an opinion is pointless.