..We like to think we control our minds and are in charge of our thinking, but often we find that this is not the case. Have you ever lain awake at night worrying about something that you cannot do anything about? No matter how much you might sensibly tell yourself to forget it, to go to sleep and to think about it in the morning instead, you find yourself coming back again and again to the problem, searching for a solution.
In India they often use the analogy of the mind being like a monkey, but not just any old chatterbox monkey. No. To drive the point home It’s likened to a drunken monkey( think Saturday night in any town centre). But that analogy is still not enough. The Mind is like a drunken Monkey that has been bitten by a scorpion. Crazed and tormented it lurches around looking for relief somewhere, anywhere.
Yoga offers many tools to move from an agitated, restless mind/body to one where there is peaceful, harmonious flow. Whether it being doing āsana(poses), prāṇāyāma( seated breathing) or meditation, the one thing that is key to success is the ability to pay attention, to be able to direct the mind to do any activity we wish to do.
Chanting is an excellent way to learn and practise this ability to control the mind. When we chant we have to pay attention to what we are reciting. You cannot chant if you are thinking about something else. Well...you can but inevitably we make mistakes and that is what alerts us to the fact that the mind has become a monkey.
Whether it be through repetition of a mantra or a longer passage we have to give our attention to the words. We need to repeat them in the correct sequence, just one syllable at a time. If we are in a hurry then we make mistakes. If we try to hard we make mistakes. There is an art to chanting where we must coordinate the movement of the tongue and mouth with what we see or hear.
It is no problem if we do find ourselves distracted by other thoughts, because each time that we come back to the chant we are developing the ability to dismiss our unwanted thoughts. This could be a useful skill to develop for when you find yourself awake at night.
In India they often use the analogy of the mind being like a monkey, but not just any old chatterbox monkey. No. To drive the point home It’s likened to a drunken monkey( think Saturday night in any town centre). But that analogy is still not enough. The Mind is like a drunken Monkey that has been bitten by a scorpion. Crazed and tormented it lurches around looking for relief somewhere, anywhere.
Yoga offers many tools to move from an agitated, restless mind/body to one where there is peaceful, harmonious flow. Whether it being doing āsana(poses), prāṇāyāma( seated breathing) or meditation, the one thing that is key to success is the ability to pay attention, to be able to direct the mind to do any activity we wish to do.
Chanting is an excellent way to learn and practise this ability to control the mind. When we chant we have to pay attention to what we are reciting. You cannot chant if you are thinking about something else. Well...you can but inevitably we make mistakes and that is what alerts us to the fact that the mind has become a monkey.
Whether it be through repetition of a mantra or a longer passage we have to give our attention to the words. We need to repeat them in the correct sequence, just one syllable at a time. If we are in a hurry then we make mistakes. If we try to hard we make mistakes. There is an art to chanting where we must coordinate the movement of the tongue and mouth with what we see or hear.
It is no problem if we do find ourselves distracted by other thoughts, because each time that we come back to the chant we are developing the ability to dismiss our unwanted thoughts. This could be a useful skill to develop for when you find yourself awake at night.
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