Sunday, June 1, 2008

Daily Meditation

On my trip to Costa Rica last year, I met a very wise shaman who helped me start to focus on where my life should be. One of the things I brought home from that experience is the Sa Ta Na Ma meditation. He said it had helped him change his life at a time he needed to and recommended doing it for 40 days straight, before sunrise if possible. I figured, what the hell?


What strikes me as AH-mazing in this is that it completely, totally, 100% change my life. So much so, that I still wake up ready to great the day with the Sa Ta Na Ma. If I am short on time, I even do it while I am driving to work (minus the closing your eyes part...:) While I have no idea if it will work for each of you, I thought I would pass it on as a tool I know to be profoundly life changing.


Namaste.


*************SA TA NA MA MEDITATION**********************

Posture: Sit in easy pose or in a chair with your spine straight. Relax your hands on your knees.

Focus: This is called the ?L? form of meditation. With each syllable you chant, imagine energy flowing in through the top of your head and out through your third-eye point. The eyes are closed.

Breath: Your breath will come automatically as you chant.

Mantra:

Sa = Infinity, cosmos, beginning.Ta = Life, existence.Na = Death.Ma = Rebirth.
This is, literally, the cycle of creation. From the infinite comes life and individual existence. From life comes death or change. From death comes the rebirth of consciousness to the joy of the infinite through which compassion leads back to life.

Mudra: On ?Sa,? press the index finger pad to your thumb pad; on ?Ta,? press your middle finger pad to the thumb pad; on ?Na,? press the ring finger pad to the thumb pad; on ?Ma,? press the little finger pad to the thumb pad. Continue moving your fingers through this meditation, even through the silent part.

Time: 11 minutes total. Chant in a normal voice for 2 minutes; chant in a whisper for 2 minutes; go deep within yourself and chant in your head for 3 minutes. Come back to a whisper for 2 minutes, then your normal voice for 2 minutes.

End: Inhale completely, and then exhale all the air. Stretch the arms up as far as possible, stretching your spine. Spread the hands wide. Do not exhale. Take another breath before you bring your arms down to your sides in a graceful arc to end the meditation. Think of pushing down all the negativity / negative people in your life out of your aura, out of your consciousness, as you lower your arms.

Benefits: The physical benefits of the mantra are that ?Sa? evokes a sense of emotion and expansiveness, ?Ta? creates a feeling of transformation and strength, ?Na? stimulates a sense of universal love, ?Ma? evokes the quality of communicativeness. The Sa Ta Na Ma meditation actually balances both hemispheres of the brain. As you vibrate on each fingertip, you alternate your electrical polarities. The index and ring fingers are electrically negative, relative to the other fingers. This causes a balance in the electro-magnetic projection of the aura. Chanting Sa Ta Na Ma is the primal or nuclear form of ?Sat Nam.? It has the energy of the atom in it since we are breaking up the atom (or ?bij?) of the sound, ?Sat Nam.?

2 comments:

La Lunatique said...

I totally know this mantra!!! weeeerrrd
who's the shaman?

Queen of the Universe said...

His name is Tim and he's at the Pura Vida Spa in Costa Rica...crazy good, I am hoping to get to go back every year or that life brings him our direction.