What brings you to the spiritual path?

For most of us it’s dissatisfaction. We feel boxed in, limited, or lost in our life. We sense and long for a deeper, more awakened, more fulfilling way of being.

We want to be free.

But, how?

Often we seek to be free from.

>> From what we don’t like.
>> From what we don’t want.
>> From what is in our way.
>> From what limits us.

Trying to be free from pits us against life.

It’s a struggle. A battle. Trying to be free from . . . turns life into a contest that we either win or lose. When our attention and life energy are invested in struggle, we overlook the freedom that can’t be won or lost.

Yes, true freedom can’t be won or lost.

It’s your very nature. All the great wisdom traditions and teachings declare that your true nature is always, and already, free.

You’ve tasted this true-nature-freedom.

Perhaps you were walking in the woods and suddenly all struggle evaporated. Or maybe you were stuck in traffic and with a breath you left the world of frustration to find yourself . . . free. You don’t have to walk in the woods or get stuck in traffic to discover this freedom. But, you do have to cultivate your “taste” for the sacred. How?

Spiritual practices cultivate your attunement to this deep freedom.

Practice doesn’t make you free. Spiritual practice isn’t about freedom from.

Rather, it builds your capacity to realize and embody the freedom that is ever-present. There are so many forms of spiritual practice. Mantra meditation is one of our favorite.

Mantras resonate with the energy and awareness of freedom. As the resonance of the mantra suffuses your awareness, you are no longer enmeshed in the struggle to be free from. As you commune with the mantra—a new world opens up for you. What world?

A world that transcends struggle and dissatisfaction.

You’re not free from anything. Mantric freedom is not away from anything. Mantras attune you – through tone, tempo, melody, and music—to the sacred harmony that is already here . . . resonating through all of life.

Mantras take you into the very Heart of Life.

As the mantra infuses your being, you realize that the obstacles, problems, and challenges that arise in your life are symptoms of struggle—of an habitual state of consciousness.

You recognize, in the words of Albert Einstein that “You cannot solve a problem from the same consciousness that created it. You must learn to see the world anew.”

Mantra meditation offers a method for entering true freedom in which the problems of your previous state of consciousness are either solved, resolved, or (most often) dissolved.

That’s one reason we love mantra practice. That and it’s just such a pure joy to enter the Resonance.

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Editor: Catherine Monkman

Photo: Author’s Own