Chanting on the Brain... My Interview with Sonia

Interviewing Sonia was such a delight.  It was wonderful to chant with her – and thank you Eric (my producer) for being such a good sport and chiming in.  Personally, I have experienced such tremendous benefits from the addition of Vedic chanting to my yoga practice and have been impressed by it’s therapeutic application with students. I wanted to follow up from the interview by sharing a few specific points:

• Learning to chant the yoga sutras has brought me closer to the teachings, and offered me a way of accessing the ‘truth’ of them via my heart rather than going through pages of intellectual commentary.

• Chanting in asana has definitely increased my mental acuity.  The first few times I did it, I felt like my brain had been put through a mile-long obstacle course.  With practice it’s grown easier and I notice a sharpness of focus, a capacity for concentration and overall mental stamina that is a direct result.

• Vedic chanting, especially some of the more complex formulas or variations on the original text have, let’s say, supported my memory stations.  I do believe they are a for-real protection from the formation of plaques and deterioration that I’m prone to given my genetic make-up. (We’ll see how that theory holds up over time, but for now it feels as if it’s supporting healthy, new pathways).

• Chanting has deepened my experience of yoga as a spiritual practice – and provided me a way of incorporating more of a prayerful quality into my time on that mat.

I would also like to share a true story of the power of Vedic chanting to support the healing process following a surgically induced brain injury.  A client of mine, I’ll call her Amy, is an epileptic and suffered from chronic mini-seizures.  These seizures increased after she had a bike accident.  It was suggested that surgery could possibly control the seizures.   The procedure failed to curb the seizures, and also negatively affected her speech, memory and sensory sensitivity.  Post-surgery, her mental and physical stamina also decreased considerably.  Although she had always been a very social person, she found herself withdrawn at parties and family events because she couldn’t handle the noise levels, commotion, and had trouble getting words to come out of her mouth at the pace of normal conversation. 

When I met her Amy, she had been practicing yoga for over 20 years to help maintain her strength and flexibility.  She’d suffered from polio as a child and had lingering physical weakness on her left side as a result.  When she came to see me, her physical condition was still her primary concern.  She’d lost a lot of muscle tone post-surgery from lack of activity and couldn’t keep up with her regular yoga classes.  After we’d worked together for a few years on the physical plane, we began to address some of the more subtle ‘disabilities’ that were preventing her from living her life fully.  I had been studying Vedic chanting with Sonia for a while, so I consulted her about the possibility of working with sound and chanting with Amy.  Sonia laid out an overall approach for systematically introducing sounds and way of pacing that would stay within Amy’s do-able range.

The results far exceeded anything Amy or I could have anticipated.  The chanting in Sanskrit forced her to utilize her tongue and mouth in new ways (creating new brain pathways), matching pitch reawakened her musical sensibilities (she had been a pianist and singer, but had become relatively tone-deaf post surgery).  Once she began linking mantra with movement, she experienced an ease with word retrieval, allowing her to converse as she once had.  More than all of that, she found the chanting soothing and used it to calm and center herself when she felt overwhelmed.

I share this with you to encourage you to consider adding mantra and Vedic chanting to your practice if you haven’t already.  It is a discipline that is nourishing for the mind, body and soul. Check out Sonia’s CD’s and workshops at www.vedicchantcenter.org
If you have stories of how mantra and chanting have supported you and your students let us know!!  We look forward to reading your comments!

Listen to this interview here: June 11th - Sonia Nelson

Click to listen now, right click and choose "Save As" to download!

Bringing Yoga to Your Students

After speaking with the folks from Street Yoga I was reminded of the time I spent doing social work in the projects of Cambridgeport.  These projects were situated in-between Harvard and MIT, a half mile from each institution.  I was always struck by the irony of these project kids sandwiched between two of the most prestigious universities in the country and the impossibility for most of them of ever entering those gates. My Boston days preceded my yoga life, but I remember that intuitively I would organize the groups of kids that I worked with into some kind of physical activity, whether it was a theatrical production or taking them out to the courtyard to shoot hoops.  I can now understand that I was responding to the rajasic, agitated energy inside of them, and helping them channel it through physical release.  Once we had moved together, I found we could talk about their feelings and what was really going on in their lives.
Bringing yoga to kids who live in similarly stressful kinds of situations makes all kinds of sense. Yoga’s flexibility to both be physically releasing, and emotionally soothing enables it to tend to a wide range of disparate energies. When I attended the Street Yoga class in Portland, it was filled with young, male teens. These, tall, tough looking guys in jeans seemed to appreciate a quiet space where they could retreat internally and connect with themselves.  The teachers were both male as well (in fact it was the first yoga class in 25 years where I was gender-outnumbered by a long shot!), and yet the class had a soft, non-authoritative quality.  The breath was emphasized through out, the music that was played had a gentle, melodic flow. I was impressed with the invitational manner with which the teachers, in turn, approached instruction.  There was ample space given for personal interpretation, including the option to opt out of a particular movement.  At a certain point in the class, a few regulars were asked to come and lead a half-sun salute.  Somewhat self-conscious, each young man stepped onto the center mat and shared his own particular way of doing the sequence. There were no corrections, or adjustments given – an atmosphere of tolerance and acceptance pervaded the room.


In talking with the students of the class afterwards, each one mentioned how the breathing has been the greatest ‘gift’ of all.  One described it as providing him with a sense of control over himself and his emotions. Another said it helped him to feel more centered.  This of course is an affirmation of what the yoga teachings say about the power of pranayama, or breathing practices – that through pranayama the mind balances, and that which clouds or veils the light of perception is ‘swept away’. (sutra 2:52)
In that simple, basement classroom, with linoleum floors, desks and chairs pushed to the walls, I experienced a deep and transformative yoga that honored the tradition fully.  Suresh, the primary teacher of the Sunday afternoon sessions models the qualities of maîtri and karuna, friendliness and compassion, creating a safe and loving environment for all who enter his classroom. It was like this still-point amidst a whirling world of chaos just outside the door.  What a reminder to all of us teachers to detach from the accoutrements of yoga… candles, incense, hardwood floors…What matters most is the heart and intention of the teacher to bring forth the teachings in a way that connects and honors the light within each student.