EXPERIENCE LIFE MAGAZINE, MAY 2008 ISSUE

Written by, Anjula Razdan, an Experience Life senior editor

Stress Solver: No More Noise

Through the ancient spiritual tradition of Nada Yoga, we can escape outside distractions and finally hear our inner selves.

Think of it as the yoga of sound.  Unlike the popular hatha yoga, which uses a series of body postures, bends and stretches to sculpt our bodies, nada yoga harnesses the power of sound -- both the sounds of the natural world and our inner acoustics -- to help us counteract the noise around us and quiet the mind.  "In Nada Yoga, the tongue and throat are like mini-spines of sound," says Yogi Russill Paul, author of the Yoga of Sound: Tapping the Hidden Power of Music and Chant (New World Library, 2004).

Origin:

In Sanskrit, the term nada yoga means "union" (yoga) with "the source of vibrational energy that pervades all things" (nadam).  It is a Hindu practice that developed around 200 to 300 B.C. "Nada yoga is a very pure and esoteric form of yoga" Paul explains.  "In the 2000 year old history of yoga, the further you go back, the deeper and more wholesome a form of yoga you find."

Benefits:

Sress-reduction, decreased blood pressure, a stable heart rate, increased circulation and increased endorphin production.  In addition of the SS Paul, we learned to create space in our minds -- a vital skill in these frenetic times -- and we learn how to listen better.

Simple steps:

The key to nada yoga involves using your breath to retrace sound back to its source.  "Sound comes from a deep place of comprehension, a deep silence and a deep knowing in which no words unnecessary," says Paul.

Some Nada yoga workshops incorporate blindfolds and your plugs to eliminate outside distractions, but these aren't essential aspects of practice.  The first step is to choose a mantra ("old" or any positive affirmation) and say it out loud, over and over again, so that your mantra is literally sounding in your physical environment.  And then begin whispering the mantra, so that your "moving the sound one level inside, and it is bringing you closer to your breath."  Finally, when you are becoming more still and quiet, repeat the mantra only in your mind.  Start

"Most of the time, when we silently repeat mantras or affirmations, we've got a whole bunch of thoughts that are clamoring for attention, and the mantra invariably gets drowned out," says Paul.  "But, when people begin by saying the mantra out loud and then whispering it before allowing it to become silent, they will find that it is much easier to see it in their minds because they learned to work the sound into their breath internally".

Using these three steps, he says, we're able to let go of whatever was unsettling or disturbing us and relax into a profound sense of inner peace.

Anjula Razdan

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