Mantras are sonic metaphors, sounds and vibrations that call upon the energy to us, that we are grateful for and often seek for in ourselves and in our lives. Your yoga practice is an offering to something sacred to you and in you. Some of us call that God, some the Universe, and some the Highest Energy. So replacing ‘om’ with ‘God’ is the purpose of many mantras.

Like ‘om’ mantras don’t always have an exact translation or meaning. Some mantras are for a specific deity and when that is the case, repeating the mantra aloud or silently will fill us with the quality of this deity. So, it is not to worship some god from the Hindu religion, but to evoke the quality that the deity represents, f.ex. devotion, love, courage, the ability to let go, and so on.

You can sing mantras any time you feel like it. Some mothers and fathers sing them as lullabies for their children because of their calming and soothing energy. Usually you sing mantras before your yoga practice (before asana, meditation, paranayama etc.).

Mantras are like an invocation to the practice. When you start singing mantras before your practice or as a practice, you start slowly and really softly, then louder and faster and in the end again slowly and quietly. This is to wake up the energy, to which the mantra is being sung for.

You can find mantras from the Gotta Joga “Mantra” collection from the Yoga Programs tab.

 

Text and voice by Anu Visuri

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Anu Visuri is a Finnish yoga teacher living and teaching in Munich, Germany. She has studied Sivananda Yoga in Austria, Yoga with Children with Thomas Bannenberg. She is a certified Anusara(TM) yoga teacher (200 h) with Barbra Noah. She has also concluded a teacher training of 300 hours with Noah Mazé.

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