"Meditation Mantras Podcast - Ancient Chants from India by Mahakatha" by Mahakatha is an immersive and enlightening journey through the ancient chants of India. The podcast delves into the rich history and origin story of these powerful mantras, which have been used for centuries to promote sound healing and personal transformation.
Each episode features a different mantra, such as Shiva mantras, Buddha mantras, Krishna mantras, and devi mantras, with an in-depth exploration of the lyrics and meaning behind each one.
The host, Mahakatha, is an expert in the field, and provides valuable insights and guidance on how to incorporate these mantras into your own meditation practice.
Whether you're a seasoned practitioner or new to the world of meditation and mantras, this podcast offers a wealth of knowledge and inspiration to deepen your understanding. Additionally, it will enhance your spiritual journey. Discover the ancient wisdom and transformative power of these sacred chants from India through the "Meditation Mantras Podcast" by Mahakatha.
Heard a lot of reasons why people don't meditate, and
yet the most common one of them, whether people say it out
loud or not, is this.
We are not comfortable listening to our own
thoughts. Let's talk about why this is
and where this comes from in today's episode. Before I
introduce you to today's mantra. So hello and welcome
back, dear listener, to this week's episode of the
Mahakatha Meditation Mantras podcast. I'm your host,
Preeti, and today we are talking about our
discomfort with our own thoughts.
We don't like a lot of our thoughts. A lot of our
thoughts are not positive. They are not uplifting. They are not
constructive. Instead, many of them
are dark thoughts. We may find that our thoughts tend to go in
some really dark places, so much so that we may be
embarrassed or ashamed of those thoughts. We might be
shocked by our own ability to think thoughts on
topics that might be taboo, or think thoughts of
hatred or anger or resentment,
or play out scenarios that are unimaginable
and too dark for an innocent heart.
We might secretly be ashamed of this side of our
thoughts. And some of us fear that as soon as
we sit down doing nothing else but observing our
thoughts, as soon as we close our eyes and
turn our attention inwards, within the
next few seconds, these
uncomfortable thoughts will begin to pop up.
We fear that our ability to think
uplifting thoughts, to think joyful
thoughts, helpful thoughts, bright thoughts, is
overpowered by our ability to think
dark, negative, or even destructive
thoughts. Many of us struggle with
this imbalance that we perceive within. And
as we speak about this today, dear listener, we are
indirectly, unknowingly, speaking about the
symbolism behind the very special, very
powerful weapon that is seen in Lord
Shiva's hands. That is the threshula,
the trident that Lord Shiva holds in his
hand, the one that stands tall with three
sharp edges, that threshula and
those edges symbolize,
symbolize the three states of energy
and thought that our mind is constantly
shuttling between. These three states
are also known as gunas in
Sanskrit. And the first of these gunas, the
first tip of Shiva's trident, and the
first state of our energy and our thoughts
is Sattva. Sattva
represents complete purity and
harmony. Sometimes our thoughts are full
of sattva. They are bright, they are
happy, they are peaceful. They are well
wishing towards others and to ourselves.
They are thoughts of patience. They are thoughts of
kindness. And they are those thoughts of
extreme spiritual calmness that we sometimes
show even in the most difficult situations.
That unusual wisdom that we experience
coming from within from our own minds, that
state is sattva. And you and I
know that Satva somewhere
exists and thrives within our minds.
The second state, the second guna, the
second tip of Shiva's trident,
is known as Rajas. Rajas is
passion. Rajas is activity, is
effort, is movement, is constant
creation. Rajas is that figurative
fire within all of us that gives us our
ambitions, that gives us our desires, our
drives, and allows us to dream and go
after our dreams, despite whatever gets in the way.
That energy, that focus, that determination,
is known as Rajas. Whether you are extremely
driven and you're always trying to create something new and you're
always moving, always doing things, or
whether you generally feel a lack of energy,
whether you feel lethargic, whether you feel lazy or
confused or directionless, a lot of the times.
This tells you how much Rajas you
have within your spirit. And the third and the
last tip of the trident, the third
guna that every one of us, every
living being has within itself,
is Tamas. Tamas
stands for darkness. Tamas
represents ignorance. Tamas represents
illusion, fear, negative emotions.
Tamas is a blanket of that darkness that we
sometimes feel within us, that we sometimes feel
sweeping over all our thoughts and taking over
our minds, putting us in a place of feeling
depressed, putting us in a place of feeling deeply
angry, deeply disturbed, deeply
pained and unable to come out of it.
That darkness that we are afraid to show the
world, that darkness that we are afraid to sit
down with, is tamas. And if you have
been having a hard time accepting that part of you,
accepting the darker, unsteady, uncomfortable
parts of you, know that darkness
is such a natural state of our
existence that it even finds itself
on the divine weapon of God himself.
We are mere humans in this physical world,
gifted with a mind that can go to the
extremes in either direction, we can
think of amazing things. We can create
incredible ideas. We can invent and
discover and solve problems and pray for
each other and create miracles and manifest
reality with our minds. But
we can also destroy our peace of mind. We
can also generate fear and
hatred. We can also lie. We can
also experience fear and greed and
jealousy and darkness taking over our
thoughts. The fact that darkness is not
simply ignored or discarded by
even the gods should be a sign for us
humans to not ignore it and discard
it, either. Instead, if we could visualize our
minds from a distance as this trident
of Sattva - that is pure, positive energy, Rajas - that
is passion and desire and ambition, and Tamas -
that is negative thought and energy. If we
can acknowledge that we are having a bad
thought. We are having thoughts that feel dark and wrong and painful
if we can first acknowledge that and then
say, all right, what else is my mind made up
of apart from this darkness? Every time we
look at our Tamas, if we were to slightly shift our gaze
and try to find one thought of
sattva, one thought of rajas, then
we would slowly become more accepting of
our Tamas, more graceful towards our Tamas,
more forgiving and nourishing towards our Tamas
instead of hating that part about ourselves.
And as we become kinder and gentler towards
our own Tamas, we notice that
that side of us starts becoming lighter. We
will notice that we experience
less and less fear, less and less
strong aggressive emotion.
We will begin to notice that we are more comfortable
with the silence of our own minds, and we are
easily able to soothe any negative thoughts
and cultivate a thought that is pure and positive
and joyful in its place.
Speaking of thoughts that are pure and positive and
joyful, I bring to you
today's special Shiva mantra.
That is. And that is the Shiva Rudra
Gayatri mantra. This chant envisions
Lord Shiva in the form of rudra, which is his
fiercest, perhaps angriest, and
perhaps most human form. This form of
Shiva and this mantra has a way of
slowly reaching out to our darkness,
to our most uncomfortable thoughts and truths,
to the things that keep us up at night, and
slowly soothing it with the power of
sound and with the power of your own intention.
The Shiva Rudra Gayatri mantra is
something I want you to try listening to at the beginning of
your day, for the next few days, or whenever you feel
that sudden overwhelm of negative thought, or when you
feel yourself entering that dark place in your mind
again, try listening to this mantra,
allowing that darkness to slowly
settle. You are more than your
darkest thoughts. You are more than the darkest
days of your past and present. You
are even beyond your purest thoughts, your
greatest ambitions, or your most
disturbing truths. You are a
fragment of Shiva who is
beyond all these three states of thought.
And I hope as you meditate, you
realize how blissful your life is
meant to be. If you don't already have this
mantra, you can buy this mantra now at a 30%
discount. Just use the code mentioned in the description of this
episode and try spending some time with this
mantra and with your mind and let me
know how it goes. If you find a minute in the coming
week, please leave us a review. Please let
me know your thoughts on this podcast and on the
themes that we discuss and open up about.
I would love to hear your story, especially if
you've been a regular listener of this podcast.
Thank you so much for joining in for today's episode. I will
be back next week with another beautiful
symbolism of Lord Shiva and a beautiful
mantra for you. Until then, my dear listener,
stay happy and stay blessed. Bye.