To our delight over 30 people joined in the ‘live’ chant session. After a few minutes spent greeting each other, Helen muted everyone and led the chanting. Starting with the opening prayers we then went on to chant Durgāsūktam, Śivapañcākṣarī-mantraḥ, Gāyatrī-mantraḥ, Āyurmantrah, Mṛtyuñjaya-mantraḥ, Asatomā-mahāvākya, ending of course with the closing chants. Helen gave a short helpful introduction to each one.
Here are some reactions from participants:
I really enjoyed the session. I left with a strong feeling of being supported by the practice of chanting itself and ‘returning to my sangha’.
It worked well to use muting, I’ve been in one session where that didn’t happen and there was too much of a time sound delay. I really liked the choice of chants, both last week and this.
Of course, it’s a shame not to be able to be together in person, but this a great and workable alternative that I’m planning to use with my own chant group, as well as more Skyping 1-to-1s.
As always when I chant, I felt energised afterwards while at the same time calmed, heart warmed – from the chanting and being ‘with the group’, the healing quality of the chant choices and process of chanting.
I chanted with a different group – no muting from instigator and it didn’t work. Chanting solo is great, but the sangha adds hugely to the experience.
I very much enjoyed the session, even my husband and son in the other room said they felt the calming energy!
I think it worked well being muted so that we could hear Helen and chant along with her and Andy.
I really liked the little intro giving us the stories and meaning of each chant, the siva one in particular – could these be included?
I did feel a whole lot better, just being there with everyone, and seeing people I haven’t seen in ages was a comfort to me, so the virtual experience for me was very needed.
I surprised myself in enjoying chanting via Zoom – I don’t like sitting in front of a screen, but I enjoyed the social aspect of seeing lots of faces I knew and it was useful to have Helen and Andy to chant with.
I was frustrated at not understanding how to say hello to others but that wasn’t a big deal.
I did find the non zoom session more peaceful and in a weird way spiritual, knowing we were all doing it together.
Myself, I found it balm for the soul to hook up with some familiar faces and other new ones in this time of isolation. Chanting is powerful and chanting together even more so.
This coming Sunday we invite you to join the chanting session.
We will be chanting the same chants as last week, and you can download the texts for each by clicking on each chant individual or here for a compressed version of all of them:
- Opening prayer to Krishnamacharya and Desikachar
- Durgāsūktam
- Śivapañcākṣarī-mantraḥ
- Gāyatrī-mantraḥ
- Āyurmantrah
- Mṛtyuñjaya-mantraḥ
- Asatomā-mahāvākya
- Closing prayers
The Zoom login details for this event will be sent in the Newsletter.
Save the link, as this will remain the same for the coming four weeks.
And don’t forget to pass the word on to your own students and friends!