‘Om is the inner music of the soul… Become yourself through OM.’

Ravi Shankar, the famous Indian composer and musician explains,

Our tradition teaches us that sound is God. Music is a spiritual discipline that raises one’s inner being to divine peacefulness and bliss… our music reveals the essence of the universe it reflects. Through music, one can reach God.   (Ashley-Ferrand, 2000)

     The Power of Chant

‘OM  is the inner music of the soul… Become yourself through OM.’

Chants are used to raise energies and alter ones level of consciousness in order to connect with higher powers. When people chant they are using their own voices to purify their physical being, their hearts and minds, bringing an aura of joy and radiance into their lives. When people chant the vibration of their voice not only resonates through the physical being of others, but through their own body, their own cells, their own DNA. Through this connection, Divine light and wisdom is brought into our own being on an extremely deep level.

 Zacciah Blackburn, co-founder of the World Sound Healing Organisation, explains;

     Chants are doorways or portals to unlimited resources of awareness, energies, ecstasy, bliss, and joy, doorways to unfathomable love, in its purest form, compassion, wisdom, insight, and understanding. As we chant, our thoughts become focussed and purified, and the words of the chant connect us to the energy of the being to whom it is directed, and it is this desire to connect with this Divine nature allows inter-dimensional portals to be opened.

A fortnightly Chanting Group  - £5 –

Open to those who wish to reconnect or to those who just simply want to sing.

To reserve your place contact Evelyn Whitebear: 07729-503008 / 01672-511357

or through HeartSongTherapy@aol.com

The Power of Mantra and Chant

The original use of song and chant was devotional, used to praise God, for as sound created the Earth and all manifestations upon it through sound, so all sound returns to the source, it is the echo of creation.

The Egyptians believed that Tehuty (Thoth) created the world by repeating his ‘laughing word’ seven times, mirroring the Chinese Buddhist tradition, where Kwan Yin, often referred to as ‘the divine voice’, calls forth the illusive form of the universe out of the seven elements.

The Greek philosopher and mathematician, Pythagoras believed;

The seven heavens sounded each one vowel down to earth and became the creation of all things that be on earth.

In the Jewish mystical tradition of the Kabbalah, vowel sounds are regarded as divine in nature. This is reflected in many traditions, for example, the Indian rishis believe that the use of the five vowels correspond to the five inner planets:

In the East, the ‘magic word’ known as ‘mantra’ It is the primal sound that created the world, the voice of God. Each single syllable, the magic component of a mantra, has creative potential. Mantra and chant are deeply spiritual, their powerful sacred sounds used to create change in day to day life. The word ‘mantra’ means ‘tool of the mind’ or ‘divine speech’. According to Sufi Master Vilayat Inayat Khan;

The practice of mantra actually kneads the flesh of the body with sound. The delicate cells of the elaborate bundles of nerves are subjected to a constant hammering, a seizure of the flesh by the vibrations of divine sound.

The sound of the mantra creates a specific vibration that affects the energetic vibrations of the physical and subtle bodies. Each sound relates to each chakras, finely tuned to different each petal of that chakra. When the energy of intent is combined with the energy of the mantra, it is possible to increase the power and direct the energetic effect of the mantra. Intension can be focussed and strengthened by visualisation, for example, a mantra may be chanted while visualising healing energy or light around a specific area of a persons’ body for a more powerful effect. Although there are many mantras available and safe to use by the novice, there are many powerful mantras that are secret, safely guarded and taught only by those qualified to do so. Any mantra used should be treated with reverence and respect, as reciting these sounds one is communing with the ultimate source, God.

To become effective, a mantra needs to be repeated 108 times in order to awaken and activate the 108 channels or cords of energy that lead from the subtle energy of the heart to the rest of the subtle body. According to Vedic traditions, these cords are likened to astral veins along which the power of the mantra will flow, filling and energising the entire subtle body. Could they be referring to communication wormholes? Each mantra is counted using a ‘mala’ consisting of 108 beads. The final bead, the meru, meaning ‘mountain’, retains the accumulated power invoked through the use of the mantra. This practice was adopted by Roman Catholics, who use a rosary of 54 beads, half the amount of the mala.

In 2005 I was taught a sacred healing mantra by a Tibetan Lama. The mantra was fairly complicated and no matter how many times I repeated it I just couldn’t remember it in its entirety. On retiring that evening I placed the symbol of ‘AH’ under my pillow and asked Rinpoche to help me remember the mantra.  I woke during the night to find the whole . mantra, word perfect,  being repeated over and over in my mind. I returned to my sleep, waking in the morning with the mantra still circulating my mind, and filling my whole being. I now find that I do not consciously choose when I recite this mantra, the mantra, or the consciousness of this mantra within me, tells me when I should recite it. Often, when I go to bed at night, it is already repeating in my mind.

Tibetan symbol 'AH’

Where the OM is the sound of creation, the creative God force, ‘AH’ is the breath of God, the intent for creation. It is the sound of perfection, love and joy. Using this sound you are speaking the name of god. ‘AH’ is the vowel associated with the Heart Chakra, in Sanskrit known as Anahata. As devotion is love, and ‘God is love’, it is reasonable to find the sound ‘AH’ contained within the name of God in various languages, thus showing clearly that this sound is universal in context. It is the sound that the word produces that is important:

According to the bible, and from personal experience, God often refers to himself as;

‘I AM that I AM’.    In Hebrew it translates into;      ‘Eyeh, Asher, Eyeh’.

The sound ‘OM’ can also be used in thanks giving. ‘OM’ or ‘AUM’,  developed  into  the  word  ‘Amen’.  As  it  is  now thought  that  the roots of Christianity originated in Egypt, it also seems possible that ‘Amen’ is derived from the name ‘Amun’, the Egyptian God of creation. The name Amun means ‘ending and beginning’. The word Amen is stated at the end of a prayer, as it means ‘so be it’, or ‘let it be so’, so when said following a prayer, or mantra, the words is bring the energy of the words into creation, into being. Many people use the incorrect pronunciation ‘Aimen’ rather than the correct ‘Ahmen’, lessening its power and original use.

However, it is said the word OM vibrates most effectively. When used in the correct manner, the vibrations can first be felt in the head, gradually moving down into the chest, then the stomach, and finally the whole body will begin to vibrate. 

In the Upanishads it says,

…the essence of man is speech,

the essence of speech is sacred knowledge,

the essence of sacred knowledge is word and sound,

the essence of word and sound is OM.

Also in the Upanishads, Brahma says, ‘…you are the power of life, you are the holy call to Vashat – sound is your essence.’

Swami Sivananda Sarasvati says, ‘Om is the inner music of the soul… Become yourself through OM.’

The Sri Yantra is an ancient Indian symbol depicting the vibrational form that rishis saw during mediations using the tone OM. More recently the sound OM was toned into a ‘tonoscope’, a machine that translates sound into form, resulting in the same pattern. The circle is produced on the initial ‘O’ sound and the triangles form on the ‘mmm’ sound.

Ravi Shankar, the famous Indian composer and musician explains,

Our tradition teaches us that sound is God. Music is a spiritual discipline that raises one’s inner being to divine peacefulness and bliss… our music reveals the essence of the universe it reflects. Through music, one can reach God.

It is a relatively new conception in the west that the repetition of words, phrases, affirmations or mantras can have a lasting, healing effect on the body and soul. The western nations have forgotten many of the sacred traditions, always putting science before ancient techniques that have been tried and tested for millennia. World cultures have used the power of chant since the beginning of time. If their techniques were not valid, why would they continue to use them? Buddhists repeat their mantras a few thousand times a day, and the Hindus, Zoroastrians and even Christians sing their mantras in meditation and praise. The Jews also hold many chants sacred, and the Muslims recite verses from the Qur’an for hours on a daily basis. The first Nations of America chant to obtain powers for use in healing and in other sacred ceremonies.

Chants are used to raise energies and alter ones level of consciousness in order to connect with higher powers. When people chant they are using their own voices to purify their physical being, their hearts and minds, bringing an aura of joy and radiance into their lives. When people chant the vibration of their voice not only resonates through the physical being of others, but through their own body, their own cells, their own DNA. Through this connection, Divine light and wisdom is brought into our own being on an extremely deep level.

Zacciah Blackburn, co-founder of the World Sound Healing Organisation, explains,

     Chants are doorways or portals to unlimited resources of awareness, energies, ecstasy, bliss, and joy, doorways to unfathomable love, in its purest form, compassion, wisdom, insight, and understanding. As we chant, our thoughts become focussed and purified, and the words of the chant connect us to the energy of the being to whom it is directed, and it is this desire to connect with this Divine nature allows the inter-dimensional portals to be opened.

Zacciah describes the effects of what the Russian scientists have discovered regarding DNA’s ability to create microscopic wormholes, or inter-dimensional portals. Through chanting, these portals are opened, and on raising our energy, awareness and being to a higher level, we invite the Divine Source into our being.

Creation and Manifestation Through Sound

Gary Zukav states;

Not all forms are physical. A thought, for example, is a form. What is a thought formed out of? Thought is energy, or light, that has been shaped by consciousness. No form exists without consciousness. There is Light and there is shaping of Light by consciousness. This is creation. 

The Sanskrit words, Nada Brahma mean the ‘sound of the source’, the ‘sound of God’. It is the Primal Sound. Hazrat Inayat Khan writes,

     This sound is the source of all manifestation, the knower of the mystery of sound knows the mystery of the whole universe.

Manifestation is the creation of the material. The word ‘material’ stems from the word ‘mater’, meaning mother. However, the word mater also resembles the Greek word ‘metra’ meaning meter, and also uterus. The mother giving birth from her uterus, manifests life, birthing a soul into the ‘material’ object of a physical body.

But what is a material form? It may take on a visible, solid appearance, but is that reality? Material objects of the third dimension are simply energy masses that vibrate at a rate that we are able to able to perceive through our visual stimulus. They appear solid to the touch because of the energetic forces that surround each and everyone of our atoms, fiercely repelling anything that is alien to its own individual form. The molecules of our human being are made up of billions of atoms, each one taking a huge amount of space in relation to its nucleus. It would take a thousand trillion atomic nuclei to fill out the entire volume of one atom. Yet, the nucleus of an atom is not solid matter either. If all the empty spaces within the atoms of a human being were removed, the actual solid matter remaining would total a mass the size of a single grain of sand. So, even on a scientific level, our solid form primarily consists of energy bonds. We are energy, and energy is constantly vibrating, and according to the law of resonance, ‘Everything that vibrates, responds to vibration’.

References:  Ashley-Ferrand, 2000.   Berendt, 1983.