Using the Mantra

I wrote the mantra many years ago and used it as a point of focus.   It was a useful means of focusing the mind by repetition to relax and withdraw from the day whenever I wanted.  It had a special resonance because I had written it and felt that it belonged to me.

It is the essence of mantra which formed the repetition in my head (not out loud).

My stillness is my source
My source is my truth
My truth is my inner peace
My inner peace is my stillness

My nature is not still or peaceful so I found these words quite calming.

Where the mantra has come into its own and where I have began to relate to it in a constructive way is through recent illness.

A few months before I was diagnosed I was trying to get fit and was losing weight, as planned, but did not seem to be getting fitter.  At the same time I was starting to explore the spiritual side of my nature, something that has not interested me for some time in the maelstrom of marriage and fatherhood.  I had a couple of books on my desk and Sam the Eagle would often engage me in conversation about them.  I always tried to keep the conversations fairly normal though Sam recognises that I am "not quite mainstream" anyway.

In one of Sam the Eagle and my conversations I was talking about breathing exercises and that I was routinely practising exercises whilst I walked.  My breathing has never been good as my nose is not as functional as its size would suggest.  I mentioned that I breathed in a pattern with the way I walk and establish a rhythm and he related it to a practice in golf that he had read about to steady the nerves - another example of how the esoteric is becoming more exoteric.  What I didn't mention is that repeating my mantra in my head in the pattern of the breathing is an essential part of the exercise.

This breathing exercise was one of the small red flags that went up in the autumn because I realised how much I was struggling with something so simple as walking and breathing through my nose considering that I was meant to be getting fit.  Every time that I went up a gentle slope then I would be struggling.  Of course this was due to the low amount of oxygen being carried by my red blood cells (haemoglobin).

The mantra formed a central part of all my meditations whilst practising Chi Kung and I extended it so that rather than just using the words I was growing the flower within in time with the breathing.

The mantra takes me away from normal focus and helps create a positive environment and structure.  It is perhaps odd to see how

• breathing, walking or practising Chi Kung
• whilst visualising the creation of roots of of a flower, its stem, the flower head
• and then bursting the flower head to repeat the process

can be of particular use.  To me, however, it is symbolic of regeneration and healing.  I often imagine the rose heads as cells and the spreading of good cells in my body.

It may not do me any good  but I doubt that it will do me any harm.  It keeps me busy anyway.

Now back to normal things :-)