Snatam Kaur

I think so.

Snatam Kaur

My spiritual practice is part of my personal growth and the music and the chanting is deeply woven into how I support myself, how I heal, and how I get inspired.

I feel really grateful to be able to have to the music as a form of creative expression but then, to have this sense of the healing capacity within the music has become really important to me and I forgot about how healing the music can be and the purpose of it. I have always known but recently, we were just in Brussels for a concert there and the concert organizer told me that the concert would probably be about 85% full but she was super happy about this because many concerts in the city were either being cancelled or were 50% full because people were just afraid to come out because of the terrorist attacks that were happening.

When we got on stage, I admit to feeling a little bit worried about this and sensing that in the audience as well. When we dove into the chanting, to the music, it just became so clear to me how important it was for these people who had been through a traumatic experience to really experience the power of mantra. So, it really helped me to focus in a very deep way and I’m so grateful for that experience I had because I recalibrated my focus and the concert itself was totally healing for me in my own heart and the situation and I felt for the people that had come. It was really through these sacred chants.

Snatam Kaur

You can just recite these sacred words to heal your body and mind and I’ve seen it happen time and time again.

I think that a lot of people may not realize how simple, easy, and accessible the mantras are and it’s hard. You get mixed up in all sorts of other thoughts about, “Well, can I do this?” “Is it some sort of religion?” The fact of matter is that these chants are available to people from all walks of life because of my teacher Yogi Bhajan.

In our sacred traditions, we can share with each other, go back to these ancient roots and traditions and honor them. We also bring them to fore front of our tool kit for how we can heal.

Snatam Kaur

“Man” means the soul, the body, the mind. It’s how all of these are connected. It’s the being. “Tra” is the projection of that. It’s the projection of the mind. To heal your body and mind is one of the most important aspects of your life.

With mantra, you have the capacity to go above and beyond time and space and go to the projective prayer for your soul that helps you heal your body and mind. You can have mantras that bring you down where you can project yourself into a rot. Basically of, “I’m not worthy” “I’m not worthy” “I’m not worthy” where you repeat and you repeat and you repeat and then this becomes the frequency your mind, which becomes the frequency of your words and then, your actions and it’s all connected.

However, what we do in the Kandulini yoga and Sikh tradition is utilize powerful mantras that have been recited by beings in a state of enlightenment who brought themselves to a state of a union with the divine through these words and technology of using these specific combinations of sounds. This helps you to heal your body and mind.

We utilize those same sounds and go through the same, which reverse to the same pathways of enlightenment of the original reciter and then of all of the reciters that have taken part in reciting that sacred mantra along the way and then, we recited and contribute to that energy for the future generations to come. It’s like this healing wheel that happens that directs to heal your body and mind.

These sacred mantras work is to cleanse your consciousness that helps you heal your body and mind. Often times, people will experience when they’re chanting a sacred mantra like actual fears coming up. Even anger can come up because it’s a cleansing process and the trick is to allow those emotions to come forward and to lay them at the feet of the mantra to let go of them into the experience of the mantra.

Snatam Kaur

I have different experiences with mantras in different times of my life just depending on what I’m going through and what’s calling to me for healing. Mantras help you heal your body very quickly.

In the Kundalini yoga tradition, we learn about mantras to help in your capacity in relationship with you beloved, mantras to help you to become a more conscious parent, mantras to allow you to let go of fear and anxiety, mantras to help you tap into your truth. They’re all different and help you heal your body at different frequencies.

So many different mantras are there to heal your body and it’s a life long journey for me. I’m happy to be in this discipline of Kundalini yoga and meditation to be able to explore so much while becoming a teacher and still realizing I have more to learn.

There is one mantra in particular that I can share with you in this podcast that helps you heal your body particularly. Mostly because I can explain to you the entire meaning of the mantra and it won’t take so long and we can have maybe the experience of it.

This mantra is “Wha-hay Guroo, Wha-hay Guroo, Wha-hay Guroo, Wha-hay Guroo.” Wha is the ecstatic experience of the divine. Hay is here and now and Guroo is wisdom that which gu is darkness and Roo is light and when we chant “Guroo”, we’re taking into the experience of wisdom which understands and knows the dark and the light and comes to consciousness any way in the midst of that. Guroo is the transformational mantra that takes us into awareness. So we chant “Wha-hay Guroo, Wha-hay Guroo.”

Snatam Kaur

Yes

It really helps you heal your body. I chant it actually all the time throughout the day especially times when I’m doing prayers in the morning. I do a conscious prayer each morning where I intended my prayers for the day, for my family, for healing, for people that need it, for work, for the earth, all of those things.

Then, as I’m saying the prayer, for example, “Today, let me remember God’s name and let me remember my truth.” Then, I’ll say, “Wha-hay Guroo, Wha-hay Guroo, Wha-hay Guroo, Wha-hay Guroo,” in my own mind to allow that prayer to go forward and to let go of my resistances to that prayer manifesting. Also, to allow it be in the divine will. It’s really God’s divine will that prevails at the end of the day or the beginning of the day or throughout infinity.

So Wha-hay Guroo allows my soul to come into union with that divine will. Adjust the prayer to heal your body. Let’s say you’re praying for something that’s not really in the will of the divine and that Wha-hay Guroo allows your soul to come into alignment with that will of the divine.

We can just take a few moments to chant it now if you like to heal your body.

Snatam Kaur

Let’s do it. All right.

If you’re sitting there in your studio or at home, people are sitting there, I just encourage you to come sitting in easy pose, legs crossed or if you’re sitting in a chair like both feet on the ground and then having your spine straight. You can close the eyes and just allow the palms to be facing up. There’s no special mudra here. I am just sharing with you the chant. No special hand posture. I’m just sharing with you the chant itself to heal your body.

Close your eyes and I’ll start chanting and you can join me in any time that you feel inspired. As we chant, we consciously become aware of letting go of the kind of the residues of the ego, the residues of resistance, and go into that sound current because sound current can heal us.

All right. So let’s take a deep breath and we’ll just do it for 3 minutes. Anybody can do 3 minutes of anything. The intention here is just to become one with the divine flow and any other resistances, we’re going to let go of. Okay? Ready? Okay. Here we go. Inhale deeply.

[chanting]Inhale.

Snatam Kaur

Yes. That’s it. That’s the real deal that helps you heal your body.

Snatam Kaur

Well, I feel like I come from many Indian teachings and a community where these sacred sounds are celebrated, shared, and vibrated. I feel like I’m one of the many, really. To me, the sound current, we call as, “Shabad Guroo”, the teacher through sound, the guro through sound. People have different guroos that they go to. In our tradition, the guroo that we go to is actually the sound itself.

Snatam Kaur

That’s why I’m really passionate now about teaching and sharing.

I started off locally just within my small community but I’m praying that that opportunity opens up more and that’s also the intention of our concert tours. We do too major concert tours every year. That’s a major focus for me that makes the concert tours so rewarding and beautiful is that it’s an opportunity for me to teach people how to really imbibe the sound.

I really focus on inspiring people to sing and to chant because that’s when the real transformation happens that helps to heal your body and mind. You can listen to my music in a shop or at home if you want to heal your body and it’s definitely going to uplift the environments because of the nature of the mantra and the sound current itself.

Snatam Kaur

I found that we can have major differences, opinions, and approaches to life and that enchanting and music.

All of those differences of opinions and approaches to life become second priority. The energy within the chant becomes the first priority, which is an opportunity to heal your body.

It has brought a lot of healing in my life and also in times of stress or when in a community itself. People have difference of opinions in my community and we were able to come to the power of chant to overcome those differences and to maybe not take things so seriously.

I always find that after I’ve chanted, I’m able to not take things so seriously and I think that’s a big thing. A very wise mentor of mine once said, “The two most important things in life are to never take yourself too seriously and always have the right containers for everything.”

Snatam Kaur

Thank you.

I think we’ll start off with the teaching message that helps heal your body. That came forward for me. I think it’s always been a part of me because I grew up with the teachings of Kandulini yoga and my spiritual teacher, Yogi Bhajan. One time, I sat with him and I had a successful CD that came out, my first album and he said to me, “So, I hear you want to be a singer?” Because I really wanted to get out and tour and now, with this album and I said, “Yeah. I really want to be a singer. I really want to do this,” and he said, “You got to remember one thing and that’s that you are never just a singer. You’re a teacher also.”

So that really impacted me at that moment and then, a few years ago at a concert, after I’d read finish and replayed, had this concert experience, a woman came up to me afterwards and she said, “That was so wonderful. When are you coming back?” I realized at that moment I wouldn’t be able to come back for a couple of years. I told her, “A couple of years,” and she looked so disappointed. She said, “Oh God. I got so much healing out of the chanting but you’re not going to be back for 2 years.”

It was in that moment that I realize that I really needed to get busy to teach. To come into that space of teaching so that people wouldn’t be relying on me or anyone else for that matter for their sense of empowerment through chanting. So, that inspired a whole book.

I wrote a book, which was a huge surprise to me that I would ever manifest. I wrote a book about what feeds and inspires my chanting and how my life has been shaped is through this morning practice that I do every morning that includes a wake up routine, a recitation, yoga chanting and then, a prayer in a sacred reading.

It doesn’t matter what your walk of life is. There are basic tools that could be brought into people’s lives that could give them the sense of empowerment through chanting.

I made these two CDS and this book and it’s called Original Light and I’m in the process now of an online course called Life Guided by Light to help people with the book and actually, people can still sign up for that because all of the courses are being videotaped and they’ll be available for infinity.

The idea is to help people because t’s not just chanting and understanding the words. I take a cold shower in the morning that really helps my circulation. I practice yoga, which really helps the energy flow and the capacity to carry the sacred chants. I try to eat what I feel as a healthy diet.

Snatam Kaur

Then there’s the intention and focus where it’s what’s your intention, what’s your focus and connecting with your spirit and making the practice go deeper than the mind can fathom or can even project for.

They’re all these tools that basically my teacher Yogi Bhajan thought me along with others as well that I wrote a book about and shared my experiences with that intention for that woman at that concert and for everyone feeling like I just want to connect. I want to feel empowered. I don’t necessarily want to have to go to a yoga class at a yoga center or have to go to a workshop and fly across the country or that I can obtain these tools and skills to have the experience right within my own home and community.

That’s the whole focus right now for me. I’m super excited to be able to provide music for this kind of level of teaching. It’s actually a dream come true. I never wanted to be like a performing artist in the sense that I was performing for the sacred performance. I wanted to inspire people to feel connected to the mantras in their own hearts and souls because I had such deep healing experience with them that I wanted to share that. And so, now that that dream is coming true, that prayer is coming true.