Using simple chants meditatively for nondual awakening...

Q.  I understand you use chanting a lot.  How do you use chanting for awakening?  Which chants should I use and how?

Ramana Maharshi

G.  Chanting has a surprising power to move one "forward" in the process of non-dual awakening.  Although Ramana Maharshi's teachings focus generally on meditative inquiry (Who Am I?), he gave some very useful guidelines for awakening using chanting.  As i discuss in my (downloadable) book, Happiness Beyond Thought, Ramana actually got his name from guidance he gave for using chanting for awakening. 

Ramana, whose original name was Venkataraman had been living in silence for 11 years in Virupaksha cave on Arunachala, a mountain sacred to the Hindus, in southern India.  

Ganapati Muni, a master of Sanskrit and non-dual philosophy/advaita Vedanta, had spent many years visiting sacred places, performing ascetic practices, memorizing texts, reading extensively, arguing Vedanta philosophy, and performing mantras and invocations.  Devoted followers gathered around him. He had chosen the practice of mantras, as the ancient rishis had done, as his vehicle for transformation.  Ganapati Muni, his biographer attests, had chanted the famous Shikvapankshakshari, and written the name of Shiva a "billion" times.   Whether that "billion" is metaphorical, a translational error, or actual, he chanted it often.

Virupaksha cave entrance (left)
where Ramana Maharshi spent 17 years
(w/o cable or internet)

However, that great effort was not fruitful, as he still had not awakened. In November 1907, filled with despair at his lack of success, he rushed up the hillside to see the sage, now 27.  

Ramana was sitting alone on a rock. Ganapati Muni fell at his feet and said: 

        "I have studied all that has to be studied.  I have learned Vedanta shastra (teachings) completely.  I have performed mantra-japa to my heart's  content.  But till now I have not been able to grasp what tapas really means.  I have now approached you to know what it is.  Please enlighten me on the nature of tapas (spiritual practice)." 

Ramana looked at him for about fifteen minutes and then said: 

Ganapati Muni

         "If you enquire and observe where this I-thought arises from, the mind gets absorbed in it.  That is tapas.  While performing mantra japa, if you enquire and observe where the sound of the mantra arises from, the mind gets absorbed in it.  That is tapas." 

Ganapati Muni was overwhelmed by this insight, and in recognition, renamed the sage, "Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi", which is how he is known today.

Chanting for nondual awakening is focused on this simple guideline.  Ganapati Muni focused on the chant, but even after repeating it countless times, missed the point.  Watching where the chant arises and where it disappears is where the "action" is, where the "truth" is to be found.  A simple shift of focus, but a profound one.  The same approach was suggested by Ramana for meditative inquiry; see where the I-thought comes from, and where it disappears into. 

Russill Paul

With Russill Paul at
Ramana's ashram 

The chants in Happiness Beyond Thought, whether they are the short ancient Vedic chants that i learned from my chanting teacher, Russill Paul, the author of The Yoga of Sound: Tapping the Hidden Power of Chant and Music (with whom i spent a month traveling around south India), or teachings like Shankara's Nirvana Shatakam, the Bhagavad Gita, or Ramana's Upadesa Saram, all draw upon this same approach.  

An example, from Happiness Beyond Thought, is a Vedic classic, "Asato Ma":

Asato Ma

Asato	ma	sat	gamaya
Non-being	to	being	lead me

Tamaso	ma	jyotir	gamaya
darkness	to	light	lead me

Mrtyur	ma	amritam	gamaya
Ignorance	to	eternal bliss	lead me

This chant is an asking to be led from the non-being of ignorance to the beingness of realization, from the darkness of worry, ignorance and confusion to the light of understanding, and from the "death" of not-knowing to the eternal bliss of knowledge.

Classically, this request was made to your guru, God, etc.  In this work it is your personal "ego/I" asking for help to awaken, your "self" beseeching your Self for guidance. This can be a powerful surrender, a recognition that you can’t do it all by yourself.

Te			mah			mah
He		tho			gah		yah
Ha	Ahsah			sadh

Te			mah			gah mah
He		sew			theer		yah
Ha	Thah mah			jho

Te			mah			gah mah
He		your			tham		yah
Ha	Mreth			ah mree

The "Te", "He", "Ha" are different focal points in the body for the three different tones used in these chants.  "Ha" is the hara, the belly area below your ribs roughly corresponding to the Third Chakra.  "He" is your heart, roughly the Fourth Chakra.  The "Te" is your Third Eye, roughly your Sixth Chakra, on your forehead just above and between your eyes.  


Chanting is more effective if your breathing is focused. Inhales are done from the “bottom up”, i.e. first using the diaphragm/belly, then the ribs, then the upper chest. Exhales are done “top down”, i.e. first using the upper chest, then the ribs, and then the diaphragm/belly.  This gives a longer, smoother, more even chant; it is how opera singers get those long smooth notes.

The meditative impact is strengthened if each line is chanted on one out breath, followed by a silent inhale.  An alternative approach is to chant a line on the exhale and then whisper the next line on the inhale.   A powerful approach, which is a workshop favorite, is to move sequentially inward with more subtle chanting on subsequent rounds, first chanting out loud, and then whispering, and then finally chanting internally in silence.  These chants are done as many times as you are moved to do.   

A recording of "me" chanting Asato Ma is on the Happiness Beyond Thought website, (book > practices > chanting).  On that page, you can also find the chanting tones by syllable like those shown above, as well as mp3s, for "Krato Smara Krutam Smara", and "Lokah Samastha", two other short Vedic chants useful for awakening.  "Upadesa Saram", "Nirvana Shatakam", and verses from the "Bhagavad Gita" are also there,  downloadable as mp3s.

Stephon Alexander
Dartmouth

There are even some "techno" (yeah, techno) versions  w/my good friend, Stephon Alexander, who is an Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy @ Dartmouth (and a great jazz saxophonist), who just received the Edgar A. Bouchet award from the American Physical Society for his work on quantum cosmology. 

There is also a new youTube video "Using Simple Chants for NonDual Awakening" where i chant and explain the three Vedic chants, their "tone structure", working w/the breath, and incorporating meditation.  

These Vedic chants are probably 3,000 years old and are phonically tuned in Sanskrit, the root language for most Indo-European tongues, to have an impact on the mind.  Some have been chanted by millions of folk over millenia.

Remember, watch where the chant comes from and where it goes to, so you don't have to do a billion chants for nothing.  Watch the space around the chant as it arises.  As Miles Davis reportedly said, like Ramana Maharshi, it is all about the space around the notes.