A Sanskrit mantra is a repeated, specific pattern of the Sacred within the fabric of the Universe—in the form of vocalized sound. 

The chanting of Sanskrit mantra is a Sacred practice of energy medicine through voicing the vibrational forces of the Universe.

(This is technical, precise and physiological. You can learn more about what a mantra is and how it operates in my book, This Again? Untangle the Root of What Distracts & Derails You from Your Life’s Work, available here.)

Sanskrit is a vibrational language.

The sound of a Sanskrit letter or a Sanskrit word—and the experience you have by creating that sound—is its meaning. There is no abstraction like there is in English—where our words point at the thing rather than create an experience of the thing itself. In Sanskrit, the word, the sound, is the thing—in its sound energy form. (The sound, the word, the mantra is what it does.)

During states of deep meditative listening, ancient yogic sages (ṛṣī) perceived vibrating energy arising from a universal field of potentiality. They discerned both discrete vibrations and repeated patterns of vibration. And they witnessed that each performed a particular function, created a particular result, or gave rise to a particular form. 

They listened, in other words, at a very deep level, to the forces in operation in the Universe—and found that each had its own, unique vibration. They then replicated these vibrations with sounds they could make with their voices—as a tool for us to communicate with—and utilize—the fabric of the Universe. 

They taught us to speak the language of the cosmos. The 50 letters of the Sanskrit alphabet express the entirety of the Universe in the form of vocalized sound: It’s creation, preservation and dissolution. It’s concealment and revelation. It’s infinite and patterned manifestation into form.

The most subtle, inaudible, unstruck vibration of these letters are the building blocks of the Universe: Elements—like fire (र, transliterated as r) and water (व, transliterated as v). Fundamental forces—like movement (य, transliterated as y) and limitation (म, transliterated as m). The vocalized sound of these letters are the audible, densest expression of the vibrational energies that create, sustain and destroy every function and form in the Universe. 

Sanskrit is not only the sound of the Universe. It is the sound of your energy body. The 50 letters of the Sanskrit alphabet not only hold and vocalize the energetic interplay of the entire Universe. They express how your prāṇa flows through your energy body—when it is clear, uninhibited and harmonious.

Where the bioenergetic currents of your energy body intersect, your nāḍī create a vortex. These are your cakras. Each of your cakras has a specific vibrational frequency at its center and a harmony of frequencies at its edges.

The frequencies of your primary cakras—from your root to your third eye—are the same frequencies as the letters of the Sanskrit alphabet (in their subtle energy form). (This is intentional, not coincidental. Sanskrit was discerned and constructed this way—and for this use.)

That vibrational expression is unique to sacred languages—which were discerned for the purpose of bringing us into communion with the Sacred (and an understanding of the operation of the Universe). 

And it is potent. 

(This is excerpted from my book, This Again? Untangle the Root of What Distracts & Derails You from Your Life’s Work, available here.)

The practice of chanting a Sanskrit mantra reaches beyond where your other practices have been able to reach—to work precisely with what the root of it is (a karmic knot) where it is (in your energy body) and untangle it in exactly the way you need to untangle it to attune you to what is calling and create the circumstances for your work to come through you with clarity, depth and power (which is why it is as gentle as it is powerful). 

How?

You are a particular energy pattern. 

And your karmic knot—the root of what distracts and disrails you—is an interference, disruption or block in your energy pattern. 

A mantra discerned specifically for you will untangle it—by bringing that disruption into harmony, so that your energy frequency is clear.

It will vibrate off everything that is not you—and attune you to everything that is you.

(This is technical, precise, and physiological as well as energetic. You can learn more about how the practice of mantra works in my book, This Again? Untangle the Root of What Distracts & Derails You from Your Life’s Work, available here.)

When I listen for the mantra that will untangle the root of what distracts & derails you, I listen to your subtle energy vibration for:

(1) your clear, resonant energy; and 

(2) what’s in the way—where and how is there interference? 

I then ask what mantra will harmonize that interference—so that your energy will resonate clearly and cleanly, without the interference.

And your mantra presents itself to me. 

I then listen to your subtle energy vibration and the mantra side by side. 

The right mantra for you resolves the interference that I perceive in your subtle energy vibration so that it resonates cleanly and clearly.

I use seed mantras and root deity mantras with clients.

A deity is a specific energy pattern of Sacred qualities that exist both inside of you and outside of you—and its mantra holds and expresses that pattern in sound form. (This is technical, precise, physiological—and the vibrational fabric of the Universe.)

I use root deity mantras with clients because they are simple, powerful, and personal. They are elegant for the task. (They are only one syllable or one phrase.) And I know them intimately—and they me.

Because I have been chanting them for 20 years, we have a relationship that I can trust to extend to my clients (and that they trust me to extend). I know the effects, the impacts, the characteristics, the rabbit holes, the trickery, and the composting that they offer up. I can meet them—and they can meet me—in the moment. And that means that the container of your practice is always going to be safe—and one that I can navigate with precision.

These mantras are beloved throughout the traditions of the Hindu diaspora, which means they are both potent and safe. They are appropriate for everyone’s practice. They hold you in a container of practice that is both wide and deep. And they guide you along a path and process that is well-trod. (You are not going to get lost—however many times it might feel that way.)

A mantra is a specific energy pattern of the elements and forces of the Sacred (the Universe itself)—that exist both inside of you and outside of you, for example, compassion, perspective, protection or justice—in sound form. (It is technical, precise, physiological—and the vibrational fabric of the Universe.) 

The sound of the mantra resonates at the frequency of that particular pattern of energetic qualities and elemental forces—to give you an experience of those qualities and forces and to attune you to their vibration.

It also resonates at the frequency of specific chakras in your subtle energy body, where your karma has created an interference pattern to shift, transform and dissolve that interference pattern. This is how mantra is so effective (gentle and precise) at untangling the root of what distracts and derails you.

(You can learn more about what a mantra is and how it works to untangle karma in my book, This Again? Untangle the Root of What Distracts & Derails You from Your Life’s Work, available here.)

I share this practice with you from my adopted tradition of spiritual practice, Śaiva tantra—through the lens of my practice, lineage and experience with clients. But you do not have to be my teachers’ student—and you do not have to take up my lineage of practice—to benefit from it. 

If you practice or identify with another spiritual tradition, know that tantra is a system of experiential spiritual practice—a way of understanding and working with the fundamental elements of the universe as sacred. 

And it does not ask you to give up your belief system. 

You do not actually need to believe anything. You only need to practice—and see what you experience.

If you want it to, your practice of mantra will show you your own lineage of spiritual, or even professional, practice (and how they might be intertwined within you). 

It is not attached (and neither am I) to what that is—or whether you’re seeking one at all. 

It is simply here to guide you home.