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The Power
of Chanting
by Savitri Simpson, Clarity Magazine Summer 2002
Chanting has
the power to bring all who practice it with deep attention and feeling
a divine response. Singing, Yogananda said, is a divine art; and
devotional chanting is the highest form of this art because it leads
to attunement with the Cosmic vibration. In devotional chanting
you learn to attune the "receiving station" of your heart
to pick up the channel of communion with God through sound.
Devotional chanting
can take your negative energy and turn it right around into positive
energy—flow toward, rather than away from God. Ten years ago,
I decided that Ananda was the place of all places where I truly
wanted to live. But personal circumstances forced me to return to
my home in Texas for a long time. It seemed devastating to me—a
very dark period in my life. And so I indulged in some really black
moods about the unfairness of life.
I wanted to
talk to somebody about Hong-Sau or Lahiri Mahasaya or something
along those lines, and there wasn't anyone around to whom I could
relate. My attempts at meditation weren't going very well either.
But I learned that by chanting I could change my black moods into
joy and put myself into a space where I really wanted to upgrade
my meditations. I didn't have a harmonium, or even the Cosmic Chants
book, but I did have a cassette player and a few tapes from Ananda—"Songs
of the Soul," "O God Beautiful," and the Joy Singers
Christmas tape.
I would put
on these tapes and listen and, eventually, sing along as I learned
the words and the melodies. Over and over and over I played them,
and they became part of my consciousness. I learned that they had
the power to pull my heart out of sadness and loneliness and into
a place of real joy. I chanted with Swami, I chanted with my Ananda
brothers and sisters—and I was transported through the power
of this devotional music to the blessedness of Ananda and the joy
it represented to me.
Chanting
for Protection
Chanting can
help you to overcome temptations and attachments and help you to
realize Gods presence within even under the worst of circumstances.
Swami tells of going to the nightclub district in San Francisco
on a Saturday night to meet someone in the music business. It was
not a place for a devotee to be on a Saturday night! So Swami began
to chant very softly or mentally: "Sri Ram, jai Ram, jai, jai
Ram Om." Instead of feeling dragged down by the low and worldly
vibrations all around, he felt totally uplifted and joyful.
Chanting has
the power to remove obstacles and to help you overcome fear. Fear,
particularly, fear of failure is the "Great Paralyzer,"
often causing us to freeze into immobility or sin into pits of inertia.
One time I had to drive 150 miles alone at night in a broken down
car with no money. The car was acting weird and it was dark and
I was scared. |So I started chanting. I tell you, I chanted as well
as I've ever chanted in my life, for I was motivated! I made it
to Austin and back safely, and then the car broke down. To this
day, I truly believe that God and I "chanted" me and my
car all the way down that lonely Texas highway to my destination.
Chanting
Can Heal You
Master tells
in Cosmic Chants how thousands chanted, "O God Beautiful"
in Carnegie Hall in 1926 "in a divine atmosphere of joyous
praise...The next day many men and women testified to the God-perception
and the healing of body, mind, and soul that had taken place during
the sacred chanting...
...and Give
you Devotion
Often we feel,
"I want to love God more, but how do I do it?"
Sri Yukteswar says in The Holy Science that we can't put one foot
in front of the other on the spiritual path without "the natural
love of the heart." If you remember nothing else about chanting,
remember this because it will help you tremendously in your efforts
to cultivate devotion. Always remember why you are chanting and
whom it is that you are chanting to. Don't sing to the person sitting
nearby, or to the trees, the sky, or the walls. Don't even sing
to yourself. Sing to God. Sing to the God within you. That's Who
you're singing to, with a prayer in song, with the power of increasingly
focused, one-pointed devotion.
Back to: How
to Chant
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Techniques to Enhance Your Practice
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