By Nirupama Chowdhary, India
Last year with the onset of the Covid pandemic, Mohanji felt the need to create different platforms to help the people in distress and empower them with different techniques. In March, Acharyas from India were in Bangalore with Deviji. One day a message came from Mohanji to start Online Mai-Tri on Facebook to raise the vibrations of the people.
Soon we were all back in our respective places just in time before lockdown. With lockdown, life suddenly came to a standstill. Fear and anxiety gripped people all over the world. For the first time in the history of mankind, people were forced to stay inside their homes.
All the families under one roof, working online, working from home and children having online school. No external help. Being confined and stressed, fear of the deadly disease was creating havoc. Mohanji came up with many simple techniques through Acharyas for the people of the world to destress and be peaceful, calm and happy.
One of the techniques was chanting mantras. Acharyas were asked to chant a mantra 108 times on Facebook live in the morning and in the evening. Chanting mantras release positive energy, which decreases negative thoughts and stress levels. Chanting mantras is an ancient practice that calms your mind and emotions.
Chanting 108 times can decrease anxiety and depressive symptoms in the human body. It helps your ability to concentrate and focus your attention on a single task, thus bringing you to the present moment and empowering you.
I started chanting the Maha Mritunjaya mantra on Facebook live. Maha Mritunjaya mantra is considered to be one of the most powerful Shiva mantras. It is also called the Heart of Vedas. Chanting of this mantra bestows longevity, wards off calamities and prevents untimely death. It removes fear and heals holistically. It aligns, strengthens and helps the spiritual journey of the listener as well as the one who is chanting.
I am not very good at singing or reciting. But I had a basic knowledge of Sanskrit, and it helped. On FB live, you sit and chant loudly in a room. Your composed self and voice enables you to connect to the audience. You chant with your eyes closed.
Here I had my first experience of connecting to the self. As I went deep inwards, I felt cyclic movements from the root chakra to the crown chakra and experienced a state of bliss. This self-connection is normally not possible in a day to day life. Usually, the mind is always in chatter mode or thinking and planning. So I took every opportunity to do the chanting. We have been chanting every Saturday on zoom for months.
As the second wave of the Covid pandemic came, things were gloomy again. Mohanji Acharyas came up with different chanting programs and sessions. Chant 4 Bharat was one of them. A mandala (41 days) of chanting a mantra using the collective power of intention and power of mantra chanting loudly with full concentration was encouraged. Many volunteers joined the Acharyas for the Chant 4 Bharat program, where the Maha Mritunjaya mantra was chanted in 4 different time zones for people of the world who were suffering and had lost their loved ones and all those who were helping others.
My family was going through a tough time. I joined in the chanting of the Maha Mritunjaya mantra. Rajesh Kamath, Mohanji Acharya, on his page Sacred Bharat had been giving details on chanting, a few dos and don’ts of chanting. He wrote – connect to your heart center, the seat of the Guru (Spiritual Master). In our case, we visualise our Guru Mohanji in our heart center while chanting.
One day while going through the messages on WhatsApp, in the Chant 4 Bharat group, I saw Rajesh Kamath’s explanation on how Mohanji advises chanting in the spine. “Mentally feel the spine while chanting – any part of it. When you feel the spine, your focus is on the spine. When your focus is on the spine, you get rooted in the spine. When you get rooted in the spine, you can go beyond the body and the mind.”
With this intention in my mind, I chanted on Saturday, May 22nd. I had one session at 3 pm for the India page and another for Chant 4 Bharat at 5 pm. The first session was quite intense. And in the second session, I started by asking all to sit tall and straight, completely rooted in their spine while chanting. I started chanting with awareness on the spine, from root chakra to the crown chakra.
Suddenly, I felt as if something hot was being poured at the point from where the spine begins at the top of the neck. I started feeling intense heat in my spine, slowly spreading all over my body. I could see a huge idol of Lord Shiva in a meditation posture on my left. Mohanji was sitting at the feet of Lord Shiva, wearing a white dhoti and ang vastra (shoulder cloth). He was tapping his feet to each chant with a smile on his face.
I could see him and feel the intense heat as I continued chanting with closed eyes. Then I felt the heat increasing, and suddenly my body was on fire. My whole body was burning. I was still chanting loudly. As the session came to an end, I saw myself turned into ash. Smoke was coming. Then everything was cool and light; chanting finished. There was a feeling of bliss. The beautiful session was over, and I was my normal self once again, but totally rejuvenated.
Guru leela (divine play) of Mohanji made me witness my dissolution through chanting the Maha Mritunjaya mantra.
|| JAI BRAHMARISHI MOHANJI ||
Edited & Published by – Testimonials Team, 1st July 2021
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