Just came across a post on Flying yogini's blog about chanting OM, surprised to find myself commenting on it and at length. The question was concerning our experience of AUM/OM and how we'd teach it.
I NEVER, not in a million years thought I'd end up chanting, too hippyish, too much of a new age cliche, complete lack of cultural reference..... I also refuse to sing (damn, here goes the cultural reference argument) if I'm forced to go to church (weddings, funerals etc) and even got fired once as a chef for refusing to come out and sing Happy Birthday to a guest, with the rest of the staff.
Curious thing though, while getting into Vinyasa Krama yoga I heard some mp3's of Ramaswami chanting. I downloaded them and would listened while cycling to work. Within a couple of days I'd catch myself humming the tunes throughout the day, by the end of the week I'd find myself chanting little snatches of them. I ended up learning the pranayama mantra and have chanted it in my head during pranayama ever since and sometimes, if stressed, I'll chant it secretly out loud, I find it curiously calming. I'll also chant the ganeseha and patanjali prayers out loud if I'm a little down, makes me smile every time, cheers me up no end, why is that?
On the Vinyasa Krama TT course this summer, I found myself, in a class, chanting a couple of hours a day ( needed a reality check on that one), we ended up chanting all of the Yoga Sutras together. I still felt a little awkward when we would do a line of a chant each but I think I secretly enjoyed it. Now I chant regularly at home and even did the 1008 gayatri's this year. If I were ever to teach a VK class I hope I'd have the nerve to start and finish my lesson with a chant just as Ramaswami would do with us.
Despite all that, I'm still a little uncomfortable with my OM. It was OK on the course when in the middle of the group and my OM can get lost in amongst everybody else. Still something about the OM on it's own, just feels.... awkward, kind of inauthentic when I do it, strangely a short mantra like, say, 'OM hrim nama shivaya' is fine, go figure. Oh and how do you make your OM longer, some people on the course kept it going for ages, always thought that would be good for playing long notes on my Sax, any tips?
Oh and If I were to teach it or use it in a class ( and I'd feel obliged to, because Ramaswami always finished his classes with three) then I would probably just get everyone humming MMMM together a couple of times and then add the O/AU kind of ease into it so it doesn't seem so awkward, sneak it up on them.
Here's my favourite prayers to chant and Ramaswami teaching them, The Ganesha prayer and the Patanjali prayer, part of which will sound familiar to the Ashtangi's. Ramaswami would tend to chant them together.
UPDATE: Thanks to Anon for an interesting Link, in a comment on this post, to do with ' the right note for AUM' and Brain science.
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6 comments:
I was renting from a dance studio earlier just after the VK teacher training, I stopped teaching there at the end of October for various reasons. One of the things that the studio owner told me when I left was chant less. I had no idea how to respond to this. At some point he told me just to repeat OM. I have a lot of problems about chanting OM---I think it is do to the close association it has with Ishvara. While this long chants to me are simply just honoring the person or concept being chanted to and about. Chanting OM alone to me is weired but the Patanjali chant or any of the peace chants do not seem weird to me.
I'm still struggling to get the right pitch and sound, but once caught a performance by Girish who played the proper pitch on his harmonium and explained a bit about why this frequency is used - more here http://bit.ly/h3sHha
Must have been a little disheartening Chris, guess you have to get people used to the idea, I would probably have been turned off if I had come up against it in the beginning.
Re OM see Anon's link below, it presents a very interesting link with gamma states found in brain wave studies of long time meditators.
Thanks for the link Anon, most interesting, hope it's ok, I'd like to link to it in the main body of the post. I often practice my Om in the bath and try and get that low pitch that makes the whole room vibrate, only seems to work in bathrooms. Must bring my tuner home from work and check the pitch and where the tuner's needle is when it really clicks in
This is sort of funny, this business of chanting too much! I think of it no differently than asana practice -- some use it for exercise only, while others approach it as a spiritual endeavor. Asana, chanting. Same, same. :)
I teach at an athletic club that frowns on chanting because it's considered to be "spiritual," and the club is in the "body" business. That said, I occasionally offer the option to join in the Vande Gurunam opening chant. I present it as an exercise in training the ears and vocal chords (not to mention mental concentration). We use asana practice to work muscles and joints, so why not use chanting to exercise other parts of our body?? (Full disclosure: I tend to omit the chanting entirely when there are newer yogis in the room, for fear of scaring them off...)
On the topic of pitch, I talked to a guy who did an extended (one-month?) intensive with Richard Freeman. He said Richard would "tune" the group with several iterations of 'harihi om' to make sure everyone was in sync. I got the impression it was like adjusting your sax mouthpiece more than warming up the horn or chops. I had forgotten about that until you mentioned the pitch pipe.
thanks so much for the comment. it was fantastic! Still working on all this and changing it a bit here and there in my classes. Love your blog so was thrilled that you found mine!
Thanks for this mike, i remember reading it and wanting to check on the pitch of my Aum before commenting, forgot what it was now.
Your welcome Nancy, good luck with introducing it into class, tricky.
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