Mantra: The Power of Thoughts, Words, and Actions

I recently had a rough flight. Bumpy landing. Maybe lost a wheel or two. Maybe refused an oxygen mask in lieu of muscling through impossible circumstances. But the flight is over, and we’re walking away, and I find I don’t need to talk about it anymore. 

(This is a metaphor).

The last chapter of my life is in the crash-landing position, heaving, with its head between its knees. Wondering which way is up, and if there is a ground, and if we’ll make it.

Simultaneously, I have become terrified of flying. I do it anyway, and pretend to be cool, except when I also jump six inches when someone taps me on the shoulder with pretzel mix and a napkin.

(Who eats pretzels with a napkin, the Queen?)

When I start to panic, I listen to Jaya Lakshmi & Ananda Yogiji, and in my fever, often have a visual of a plane full of white ninjas, the Kundalini tribe, chanting, smiling, and washing their cares away in that sweeping motion - arms over the head.

Wahe Guru.

Mantra. The power of words, intention, repetition.

It gets me through the flights, and it’s getting me through this.

(I think I can.)

We start teaching mantra for a the same variety of reasons we teach anything: we saw someone else do it, we think we’re supposed to, it’s on a list of objectives provided by a studio, we want to be cool, we actually understand and like it.

If I teach mantra, it’s usually dividing the class in three and starting the right side first:

“Row, row, row your boat…”

Which, as it turns out, is a pretty decent mantra.

In my class we bless the rains down in Africa. We howl with Shakira. We groove with the X Ambassadors who believe we are SO gorgeous, and we like our sugar with coffee and cream.

Thoughts become words, and words become actions, and this makes words a really interesting middle man between what you’re doing (actions) and why you’re doing it (thoughts). Yoga says change your words, change your life.

(I’m paraphrasing).

The genre and the language are less important than your connection to the meaning. When you are in the Seat of the Teacher, you are flying the plane, my darling. Your thought-mantra gets blasted over the PA system while the message you’re trying so artfully to convey with your spoken words can get lost.

It’s a lot of responsibility, and it starts with you.

Mantra is your oxygen mask. It won’t teach the class or fly the plane, but it will help you think clearly.
​
(Don’t forget it).