This might be a good time to practice (or learn) mantra meditation. While sitting in silence is divine, this can be difficult to do; our mental chatter has had a lot of exercise, and it tends to believe that if you aren’t thinking all the time, you aren’t doing the best that you can. But in fact meditation focuses and opens up the mind, and that respite from the chatter gives way to clarity and new paradigms and possibility.
Mantra is something we say or think repeatedly and therefore seeds (informs) our actions. Mantra in meditation practice replaces the mantra we already use called negative self-talk, and with the amount of time we have to ourselves these days, this can spiral out of control if not consciously managed.
We can begin with something easy:
Sat Nam (the a’s are pronounced like u in “but” and o in “mom,” respectively, and it means truth is your essence)
Inhale slowly and mentally say Sat, then exhale slowly as you mentally say Nam.
Another way to practice this is to place your fingers of your right hand over your pulse in your left wrist (below the thumb), and “listen” to your pulse. With each beat of your pulse, mentally say Sat Nam.
Practice either method for 5 minutes and increase the time from there as desired or to increase mental endurance.
When you are done, take a moment before you move on to the next thing in your life. To finish your practice session, inhale deeply and suspend the breath for at least 10 seconds, exhale, relax the breath, and sit in a moment of silence with your eyes closed. Listen to the silence. It’s that beautiful space, like the inside of an actual seed, where true intelligence lies, and the coding of your most essential, powerful, divine nature resides.
Sat nam.
Savitree Kaur 