Integrating Mantra Into Your Life - Deepening Your Understanding Of Mantra

This module explores the deeper meaning and experience of bhakti or devotion while chanting. Different ways to think of bringing a devotion mind to practice are considered in order to connect to compassion, joy, humbleness, love, and bliss while chanting.

Japa meditation with a mala is a foundational mantra practice. There are four kinds of Japa practice and all will be considered in this module: Vachika Japa, Upamshu Japa, Manasik Japa, and Likhita Japa.

This module explores the many ways mantras can be integrated into your daily life - adding chanting into your morning sādhanā practice, chanting in the evening before bed, reciting mantras when cooking food - these are just a few ways to integrate mantras more fully into your day. Mantra practice is only fully realized if it is fully integrated into the lived life. This module is meant to seed ways for you to deepen your connection to mantra practice and also to act as a springboard for you to welcome your intuition as to the best ways to bring mantra more fully into your daily life.

It is part of traditional Saguna Mantra practice (deity-based) to picture the deity while chanting and/or to place the deity in the body while chanting. This module explores the reasons why you may want to bring visualization into your practice and also the possible benefits of doing so.

Nyāsa practice is the tradition of placing mantra, the Sanskrit alphabet, or bīja syllables in the body while chanting. This practice is connected to what was explored in the visualization module. Bringing the mantra directly into the body is powerful, has healing benefits, and deepens the practitioners understanding and experience of mantra.

As we consider the embodied practice of mantra it is powerful to add the practice of employing drishti points while chanting. Drishti is the art of focusing the eyes in a certain way during contemplative practice. The three common drishti points are explored in this module. These drishti points are traditionally used while chanting, while practicing yoga, and while meditating.

Mudra is a profound and varied practice of different hand and/or body positions used to optimize practice, whether it be yoga, mantra, or meditation. In this final module, we explore several different mudras and consider the combination of mudra, drishti, and chanting as a way to bring mantra practice into full focus and potency.