"It is fascinating," the Dalai Lama says, speaking in slightly stilted English. "In the West, you have bigger homes, yet smaller families; you have endless conveniences - yet you never seem to have any time..."

When we get so busy that we feel overwhelmed, many of us often end up having no time, energy, or inclination to rectify the situation. There is so much clutter in on our mind, that we can't see what is going on. Our thoughts may become negative and begin to control our lives negatively.

• What it is: Chanting is when you recite positive, confirming words or phrases aloud or just in the mind with the intention of helping to reprogram your mind and to invite well being into your life.
• What it's not: Chanting must never be done to repress, avoid or escape thoughts and emotions, although it does help to stabilise the emotional effects while the person deals with emotional challenges in healthy ways.
• Feeling: Reciting the chant with feeling brings greater benefits. By doing the chanting slow and by adding pauses in-between words, you give yourself more time to experience your feelings.
• Memorising: Some chanters intentionally see how fast they can recite the chants, which helps with remembering them.
• Automatic listening: Over time, by repeating your chants, they can be listened, just like a song can be heard in one's mind automatically and effortlessly. This is the practice of the mental stance of listening, and one does not literally hear an inner sound.
• At its own speed: Allow the mantra to flow at it's own poetic speed. You will naturally recite at varying speeds over time, sometimes even faster than the mind might normally be able to recite.
• Authentic expression: To recite chants as authentic expression, it has to be done with willpower, attention, concentration and focus.
• Persistent thoughts: If it is hard to chant because you keep thinking about something else, do not force the chanting... allow time for inner reflection to explore and deal with those thoughts and emotions.
• Repression: Chanting should not be used to avoid dealing with mental and emotional issues.

Chanting can be used for experiencing specific, desired benefits. The payoff of chanting is immediate and long lasting!

• Authentic: Chanting strengthens your sense of self, and allows you to better express the inner you.
• Awaken: By chanting, our spirit awakens and beckons us toward immeasurable life, discovery, bliss and wisdom.
• Balance: Chanting helps you be more balanced, present and grounded.
• Be your best: You can design your chants to bring out the best in you!
• Breath: Your breathing becomes deeper, slower and increasingly subtle.
• Change: This is a powerful tool for change and gives us comfort and guidance when we need it most, when we go beyond our normal habits and comfort zones.
• Clarity: Your chants will systematically organise your mind and simplify your life
• Coping: You become able to function better in all areas of your life and in the world.
• Compassion: Wisdom, understanding, sincere compassion for others and a sense of community return.
• Creativity: It gives us access to our creative spirit, creating wellness, stimulating vitality - clearing away deep seated blockages.
• Enjoyment: You will experience a sense of joy more of the time.
• Focus: Chants can be recited to train the mind to focus and control thoughts effortlessly, reducing mental strain.
• Health: It promotes general health and boost your immune system.
• Inner peace: You become more peaceful and will experience a sense of happy neutrality, oneness, harmony and tranquility.
• Inner silence: Chanting slows down and quiets the mind in a natural way and generates inner silence.
• Memory: Training the memory through willpower has a centering and balancing effect on the mind.
• Mind: Chanting sharpen, inspire, illuminate and awaken all intellectual faculties, even photographic memory, and open the doors of self expression. You will obtain constant, pervasive awareness, concentration and focus to help you excel in your studies. Chanting shuts down the discursive mind, balancing the right and left hemispheres, clearing or purifying the mind of perpetual self-doubt, and negative thoughts and emotions.
• Relaxation: By alleviating fear and anxiety, your body will begin to relax.
• Reminders: Chanting serves as potent regular reminders of our potential, highest spiritual values, purpose, goals and envisioned future.
• Preparation: Chanting practice is excellent preparation for deep meditation.
• Prosperity: You literally invite well being and prosperity into your thoughts and your life!
• Refresh and recharge: Practicing your chants quietly at your desk is a wonderful way to refresh, invigorate and recharge yourself.
• Solutions: Through recitation of chants one's subconscious mind helps you to find solutions for problems.
• Wellbeing: Chanting invigorates and brings on a calm sense of wellbeing and peace in our minds and bodies.
• Willpower: Chants generate a charge of positive energy, which strengthen and empower our willpower to follow our passions and turn our dreams into reality.

• Visual reminders: Create collages or mandalas which includes pictures and words describing how you want your life to be. Place these on your refrigerator, at the office, inside your cupboard. It will remind you to visualise the good things to come.
• Written reminders: Write your chants on sticky-notes and place them in different places that you frequent during your daily routine.
• De-clutter: It is paramount to rid your surroundings of clutter. Stagnant areas of your life may correspond to cluttered or uncomfortable areas in your environment. Rather err on the safe side by ensuring that no area of your life is neglected. Give belongings which have past their utility away to charity.
• Relaxation area: Create a sacred space in your home where you can relax for at least 30 minutes every day. Ideally it is a place where they are unlikely to be disturbed.
• Audio: Sound is the purest form of energy and can move us profoundly. Have a chanting bell, and ring the bell to create a rhythm, pauses or a change of focus in your chants. One can also use CDs, sounds of melodious tingles, water trickling, Tibetan singing bowls or chimes. Use manual instruments or sound devices which sounds pleasant to you.
• Candles: As you light the candle or incense you might begin a first chant, which could go something like this: "I light this candle, calming and brightening my day." Repeat if a few times.
• Fragrances: Create a pleasant fragrance with oils or incense to calm the senses and create an atmosphere conducive to chanting.
• Set boundaries: Life can sometimes demand too much of us, so keep your life in balance by assessing and setting required personal boundaries.
• Positivity: Surround yourself with people who are in a positive frame of mind, with a benevolent outlook and healthy respect for themselves and others.
• Intention: Good intentions are the ingredients which determine whether the actions taken result in effectiveness, positivity and success.
• Teachers: Chanting is very powerful and may bring up complex emotions and long-forgotten or suppressed memories, which could result in undesirable effects. It is a good idea to seek out a teacher as you venture into unknown and sometimes disturbing territory of the mind.
  • Good teachers: A reliable teacher would advise and encourage you appropriately
    • Credentials: Check the credentials and confirm them with others. Is the teacher affiliated with a reputable organization or movement? What was his/her training? Has the teacher been accredited by a reputable institution? Do not commit yourself immediately.
    • Observe: Meet the teacher and take time to watch carefully how the teacher behaves, interacts with students, and whether the behaviour matches his/her words.
    • Respect: A truly good teacher respects people's insight, and points directly to their true nature.
    • Realistic: A good teacher's own attainment is one who combines understanding and practice, has no lingering delusions and is not moved by praise or blame.
    • Style: Ensure that the teacher's personal style fits well with your own temperament - many styles can bring results.
    • Students: It doesn't matter if your teacher has only a few students.
    • Humor: Humor is a useful test to detect a genuine teacher - most good teachers have a well-developed sense of humor and are not afraid of laughing at themselves on occasion.
    • Common sense: Use common sense the same as in choosing a doctor or dentist - your spiritual health is at stake.
  • Bad teachers: Beware of the bad teachers, who employ mind-control methods and lead you to into enmeshment.
    • Be aware that there are institutions who use chanting as a form of mind control and those are best avoided.
    • There are those who are arrogantly self-deluded, who mislead their followers knowingly and pretend to be enlightened. They enjoy the power they have over the people they dupe.
    • There are those who are cynically manipulative of others and believe they are superior to everyone else.

Innovate!: Create your chants by combining well-chosen words and phrases which will help you to power up your mind. Also use sounds, music, art, movements, postures, surroundings - be creative.

• Time of day: It is best to do a chanting session of no more than 30 minutes at a fixed time each day so that it will become regular practice. Supplement this with ad-hoc chanting in-between daily activities.
• Position: Take a few minutes to relax and get comfortable.
• Posture: Sit, stand or ly in your relaxed tailor posture.
  • Body: Ensure that your shoulders are relaxed, back held straight without strain, and your head slightly inclined forward.
  • `Floor or cushion: Sit cross-legged with your spine straight on the floor or on a small thick cushion that elevates the back. Keep your arms straight, with your hands resting on your knees, palms up.
  • Chair: Sit upright in a chair with your spine straight and feet flat on the floor. Your hands can rest on your thighs, palms upwards.
  • Alternate: If you get bored in one position, alternate positions or do a chant whilst walking.
  • Eyes: Eyes could be closed, or gaze directed downwards.
• Breathing: Slow down and become conscious of your breathing. Slowly breathe in... and out... deeply and fully several times following your breath mindfully. If we can carefully regulate our breathing it is a great aid to our chanting. The lungs not only exhale carbon dioxide but also release accumulated tension and stress.
• Str-e-e-e-e-etch: Inhale deeply and stretch the arms comfortably and gently out to your maximum, up over your head to the sides if its easier. Exhale and relax. Then inhale deeply. Relax.
• Concentrate: Take a few moments to just get more comfortable and concentrate on breathing as long and deeply as comfortable. Remember to be gentle.
• Harmony: To feel inner peace, it's important to relax and let yourself feel oneness and harmony. Each individual can contribute more peace, harmony and positive vibrations to the benefit all humanity.
• Reciting: Chants can be recited in a pleasant musical/singing tone, which will help in concentration. Chanting mantra aloud can be a very enjoyable and useful process, whether alone or done with a group of people. After some time that process turns inward, and the chanting is done in the inner silence.
• Anchoring: After your chanting session, anchor this abundant energy you have generated in your life and as a final chant, express your desire to share your over-abundance of positive energy with others.

• Rhythms: Use methods like pauses, keywords, rhyming words and sounds to create rhythms and timed patterns. Here are some more options:
  • Listening: Insert intervals of silence for actively listening to all the sounds in your surroundings.
  • Syllables: Create a rhythm by chanting words one syllable at a time.
  • Emphasis: Emphasise certain words by saying them louder, softer, slower or faster than the others.
  • Motion: Use dancing, bowing or stretching movements to enhance the patterns.
  • Counting: Counting is a means of strengthening the mind's capacity to focus and create deep impressions that have a stabilizing effect. For example, decide to chant a well known chant 10 times, so that you have to keep count of how many times you have said it.
  • Beads: If you have a set of counting beads, you can use these to keep a tally of how many times you have repeated your chant. By getting the physical body involved, it becomes easier for the mind to stay focused.
  • Breath-timed: Time your words against your breath or use deep inhalation in-between sentences.
  • Visualise: You can also visualize the symbols, movements or colours that are connected with the meaning of the chant. These can be drawn into a mandala to look at while you chant or can be created while you chant.
  • Silences: Silence is the root of sound. Sometimes chanting naturally leads one into deeper, subtler feelings that rest in a deep sense of silence.
• Sound vibrations: Sound vibrations relieve tension from the nervous system. To do it aloud or silently, the sound reverberate within your mind whether or not coordinated with breath.
  • Single-syllable vowels: All Single-syllable vowel sounds can be used, with or without an mmmm... sound at the end.
  • A: The most basic the letter sound A, pronounced aaaah... can be remembered with inhalation.
  • U: Remembered with exhalation, pronounced oooom...
  • Om: Focusing on the ommmm... - somewhat like the French sound on
  • Soham: soooo... remembered with inhalation and hummm... remembered with exhalation.
  • Satnam: Radiates energy from all energy centers: rectum, reproductive organs, navel, heart, throat, brow point, and top of the head, pronounced saaa...t nammm.....
  • Sanskrit: ommmm... gah...tay gah...tay pa...ra...gah...tay pa...ra...sa...m gah...tay bo-dee swah-ha
  • Ayurveda: An ancient Hindu system of Ayurveda can tell you which chant is right for you. First find out if you are Vata, Pitta or Kapha. Vata's mantra is pronounced rahm..., Pitta's mantra is pronounced shreem... and Kapha's mantra is pronounced hoom...
  • Kundalini: rhythmically tap the thumbs and fingers of each hand in the rhythm of sa... ta... na... ma... meaning totality, creation, dissolution, regeneration.

• Authentic: I realize, strengthen and express my true nature, my sense of self, and learn how to better express the inner me.
• Change: I embrace the power of renewal and the nature of everything to change when I go beyond my habits and comfort zones.
• Clarity: I organise my mind and simplify my life like waves washing over a sandy sea shore.
• Community: In the spirit of oneness, I strengthen the bonds of community, I live in harmony with and work towards the welfare of all beings.
• Compassion: I am absorbed in the sources of understanding and compassion, and awaken to the boundless present moment, here and now.
• Courage: My courage helps me to blaze new trails in my life. I excel. I am fearless.
• Creativity: I live in expanding waves of effortless creativity and grace - open to fresh new ideas - I create something beautiful every day. Everything is usable material that feeds into my creativity. I do preparation, to see it, retain it, and use it. I keep the process simple and enjoyable.
• Discovery: I am finding great adventure in the unknown and discovering powerful parts of myself that I didn't know were there.
• Expression: I speak the ideals of my heart clearly and share them with ease.
• Focus: I can focus on one task at a time, before beginning with another. I remain focused and calm.
• Goals: I set goals and develop my skills and abilities to reach all my goals, that is how I fulfill all my dreams and deepest desires.
• Gratitude: I am grateful and give thanks for the gifts of the whole universe. I live a life of gratitude and compassion that arise from within me.
• Greatness: Every day I am better than ever - I reach for greatness in everything I do.
• Growth: Today I focus on my inner garden, growing what I truly need.
• Happiness: I can be simply happy... peaceful... joyous... compassionate... experiencing prosperity.
• Health: My intuition tells me what I need to be healthy. I am healthy, my presence and contentment translates into a healthy body.
• Locus of control: I realise more and more that I have the power to make things happen in my life. I believe I can outsmart any bureaucracy and I have the ability to laugh at myself.
• Love: Loving and warm hearts are open to me. I feel love and compassion all the time.
• Mind: My thoughts bring my mind into a spacious, pure, natural landscape.
• Nature: I have a connection with earth's beauty, gifts and creatures - we are in balance, we live in harmony.
• Peace: Peace is growing within each one of us and spreads to those around us.
• Persistence: I direct actions towards bearing the fruits of success until I succeed. I am passionate about opportunity and posess a consistent drive to create, build or change things through perseverance, resilience and optimism.
• Potential: I honour my life by manifesting its full potential for peace, gratitude, compassion and prosperity.
• Presence: I listen and pay attention, my presence gradually becomes a constant awareness.
• Prosperity: I focus on and feel bountiful abundance, abundance is in my hands, I visualise holding its essence in the palm if my hand.
• Success: I strive for progress and contemplate the success of my daily work.
• Support: I create a balanced life and a livable space for me in this world.
• Tranquility: My life, my work, my home and my mind is tranquil and serene and time is my delightful friend.
• Values: I entrust to myself life's highest universal values.
• Vision: My inner vision nourishes me with pleasant memories and creativity that can influence my life for the better.
• Wellbeing: My actions resonate with courage, strength and wellbeing. On my joyous journey through life, action is the ground on which I stand.
• Wisdom: I gain wisdom as deep as the ocean.