Your mantra is the metabolic fire that untangles your karmic knot. 

Your intention is its fuel. 

The practice of chanting Sanskrit mantra is a call and response with the Sacred—from its expression inside of you to its expression outside of you (and back again) through its expression as the mantra.  

A cosmic tuning, in a dance of breath and sound.

In the simplest terms: 

You are a specific and unique pattern of vibrating energy. (You have a sound.)

Your karma is a pattern of interference in that energy. (It distorts your sound.)

When you chant a Sanskrit mantra, you use breath and sound—and the rhythmic, alternating repetition of breath and sound—to untangle that pattern of interference at its root. 

Your mantra itself will catalyze change. 

When you chant, the sound of your mantra has an immediate and direct effect on you. 

Because it is phonetic, prosodic—and vibrational: it bypasses the language processing and meaning-making part of your brain. 

And it communicates directly with your amygdala, your autonomic nervous system, your tissue, bones, organs, and hormones—at a cellular level. 

It regulates your nervous system. 

It synchronizes your heart rate, your brain, and your breath. 

It stimulates your vagus nerve. 

It metabolizes your emotions. 

And it creates the physiological conditions that allow you to break habitual and addictive patterns—(in part) by desynchronizing the wave-state of your posterior cingulate cortex from that of the rest of your brain. 

It does all that on its own—even if you have no conscious awareness of it. 

(You receive sound—you understand sound—with your entire body and being. You don’t need to understand it, analyze it, or make meaning out of it for it to work.)

But your intention is the fuel for this metabolic fire. 

Your intention shapes how you direct the energy of your mantra—and the energy of your mind—by giving it focus. 

It brings you into the present moment, and it marries the unconscious operation of your mantra with the conscious aims of your heart and mind. 

Your intention makes you an active participant in the untangling of your karma—which is essential because karma is a spiritual law of action. 

And it has the power to direct the energy of your mantra—and call upon the forces of both your psyche and the Universe—in a way that will either perpetuate your karma or untangle it.

We will be crafting intentions that will untangle your karmic knot in the 3-part workshop series, Intention, Sacred Practice & Strategic Precision, beginning April 10. 

I am gathering a seasoned group of 8 for this experiential arc of skill development. You can learn more by clicking the button below.