Meditation can take many forms. You can focus on your breath or focus on a candle. You can sit in one place with your eyes open or you can stand in one place with your eyes closed.
You can repeat a mantra or you can be silent. You can sing, you can dance, you can meditate on a Hershey’s Kiss and eat mindfully (see previous post -M is for Mindful Munching – Making the Most of a Moment of a Meal).
Simply put, meditation is taking time out to focus – on something, on anything – to the exclusion of everything else. To slow down one’s breath, shut off one’s thinking – paying attention to one thing and one thing only.
Hindu chanting, or Kirtan, is a singing meditation. Many different faiths use chanting to put the believers into a trance like state from repetition over and over of a sound. The sound of the mantra “Om Namah Shivaya,” which literally means “I bow to Shiva” or to one of the highest of the Hindu deities. Shiva also refers to the divinity within, and chanting this mantra is done to waken the highest that we might become.
This particular version of “Om Namah Shivaya” is being sung by Deva Premal. Others that I really like are sung by Donna De Lory or Krishna Das or sung during a Siddha Yoga event. All of them are soothing, soulful and life enriching! OOOMMMMM!
