Dawn Smith Yoga

Going Deeper
‘Yoga, Sound & Meditation’
By Dawn Smith

Sound can be incorporated into your yoga practice to help you focus your mind. Sounding or chanting greatly improves your breathing and increases your ability to stay focused within each posture.

Sound, singing, toning, chanting and music affect you on many levels and are highly beneficial to your health and well being.

Many cultures associate the creation of the world with sound. Science has provided some corroboration that primordial sound waves helped to create this creation discovering that sound is the energy that causes things to come into existence.

The Energizing Power of Gregorian Chants

One group of Benedictine monks discovered an unexpected benefit from their Gregorian chants: their chanting seemed to energize their bodies.
In 1967 Alfred Tomatis, a French physician, psychologist and ear specialist, studied how chanting affected the Benedictine monks. For hundreds of years they had kept a rigorous schedule, sleeping only a few hours a night and chanting from six to eight hours a day. When a new abbot changed the schedule and cut out the chanting, the monks became tired and lethargic. The more sleep they got, the more tired they seemed to become.
Tomatis was called in to find out what was wrong with them. He believed that chanting and listening to certain kinds of music served a special purpose: energizing the brain and body. He said the monks had been chanting in order to ‘charge’ themselves”. He reintroduced chanting along with a program of listening to stimulating sounds, and the monks soon found the energy to return to their normal schedule.

Whether the monks knew it or not, they had discovered the power of sound, especially spoken or chanted prayer.

The Creative Power of Sound by Elizabeth Clare Prophet

Ways of using Sound.

If you remember that energy precedes form; whatever appears physically has energetic origins. Using the energy of sound and positive intention within your yoga practice vibrates your cells with the very essence and meaning of each mantra and posture thus creating positive changes in every area of your life.

Toning Vowels

The purpose of toning is to restore harmony to your physical and subtle bodies, synchronizing brainwaves, relieving stress and tension. Literally massaging the body from the inside out, the repeated toning of vowels creates a resonance within the chambers of your body so that when you stop toning the sound continues to echo within, restoring balance to the functioning of all your organs.

Sounding Bijas

Bija means jewel or seed. Each seed sound or Bija is related to your “chakras” (energetic centres or junctions within your body located along the inner spine from your tail to your crown) and your chakras are related to each of your endocrine glands.

Bijas can be used silently in meditation to help you to focus on each chakra or sounded out loud to create a resonance or vibration within each chakra affecting not only its frequency or velocity but also the health of the related endocrine gland.

Bija Sounds

LAM When sounded creates a strong foundation and encourages concentration
VAM Nourishes and purifies your body bringing both fluidity, alignment and an increased ability to “go with the flow”
RAM This sound assists longevity and the rising of Consciousness (Kundalini energy)
YAM Assists control of the breath ‘Pranayama’
HAM Vibrates and energizes the brain, harmonizing the voice
OM/AUM This sound connects you to Naad/Nada the primordial/universal sound
SILENCE Allows your mind to rest in deep meditation

Chanting Mantras

The word Mantra is derived from two Sanskrit words, the first manas meaning “mind”, and the second syllable drawn from the Sanskrit word “trai” meaning to protect or free from. Therefore repetition (japa) of mantra (sacred syllable or word(s) can focus your attention, freeing you from distractions helping you to more easily experience deep meditation.

Mantra work is an incredibly powerful self healing modality that helps to maintain a healthy balance within all of your bodily systems preventing chronic, mild or long term health issues, however depending on your current consciousness it would be wise to consult medical professionals should you have any specific concerns about your health.

Going Deeper ‘Yoga, Sound & Meditation’ Workshop

This workshop is suitable for all levels of yoga ability and particularly useful for singers, actors, public speakers and for those who are shy, stutter or lack confidence

Yoga and Sound work develops confidence and self esteem.

See Class & Workshop Calendar for other related events