My Year of Discovering How Weird the Mind Gets, Pt. X [Chanting]

Some people swear by the mind-altering properties [and other benefits] of chanting mantras. I've been reading a review copy of Kulreet Chaudhary's "Sound Medicine," a book whose play-on-words title says it all. It's about the way sound is either shown or speculated to have health effects. (Full-disclosure: Some of the speculation gets a bit out there.) Chaudhary is both a medical doctor and an Ayurvedic practitioner, and has an outlook akin to that of Deepak Chopra.

Chanting has never been my thing. I've learned about it and done some in yoga training, but I can't say it ever resonated [no pun intended] with me. However, in the spirit of investigation, this month I did a few one hour and half-hour sessions of chanting. I kept it very basic, chanting AUM as I was taught with equal parts of A - U - and - M.

While I can't say that I'm sold that chanting is the ultimate practice that achieves outcomes unachievable through other means, I will say that after these sessions I do feel a sense of calm and clarity. I can certainly see why mantra chanting has appeal for so many people, even though I also believe that, sadly, it's sometimes oversold as something supernatural and the discussions about it are needlessly complicated.

This entry was posted in Altered States of Consciousness, Consciousness, Meditation, mind, yoga and tagged Altered States of Consciousness, Chanting, Consciousness, Mantra, meditation, mind, Sound, Yoga by B Gourley. Bookmark the permalink.