Lying under the piano and relaxing as a child, I listened to Tchaikovsky's "Dance of the Sugarplum Faeries" from The Nutcracker Suite, which is sampled in Sat Kartar's version of the Laya Yoga mantra. I love it! It is so soothing. Looping this track 3 times gives me the 31 minutes I need to practice it. I tried this meditation months ago, and many, many obstacles came up to prevent me from completing it. I did not succeed. It was too hard then. We'll see what happens this time. These words are powerful, and like the practice of Morning Sadhana, which is shaky for me, they work on the ego.
The passage below from "The Aquarian Teacher", from which my previous quotes were taken, really stood out to me as a concise explanation of what chanting of any mantra does:
"The greatest challenge is the practitioner's own subconscious. The mind is not trained to base itself in it's relationship to the Infinite. It is based in ego. It is filled with reactive thoughts that try to maintain the attachments of the ego and try to avoid pain. When you repeat the patterns of sound and thought in a Shabd, thos thoughts counter the direction and intensity of the habitual thoughts. The Shabd provokes a release of the stored subconscious patterns of thinking and feeling. If, under the torrential flood of subconscious feelings and thoughts, you persist in repeating the pattern of the Shabd Guru, then the new pattern establishes itself. Your mind clears, and you awaken dormant inner capacities or enhance existing ones." (p. 71)
This has been my experience with chanting mantra since I began with Sanskrit mantra in 2005. It is a powerful practice, that has wrought deep changes in my life. It soothes the savage beast within me, the one that Bound Lotus and other practices are dredging up to be healed. Sometimes I feel a little like Tolkein's Golem, still afraid to trust, but this mantra soothes me.
Underneath the flood, I feel the calmness of the ocean floor, and then momentarily rise above the surface. I love this meditation! I feel like a thousand buzzing bees around a lotus blossom! What an awesome day and and awesome way to have a 43rd birthday! Sat Inder Singh Khalsa's class began my day, I got a free lunch, a cupcake, a chocolate chip cookie and a smile...then my energy waned from the high mold count, and this lovely meditation left me vibrating intensely! Then I had dinner with my fabulous father, and now I am finally home to do Bound Lotus before bed. What a wonderful and beautiful birthday with all the kind wishes from friends on the phone, through e-mail, in person and on facebook!
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