I had mentioned about a CD on chanting the Bhagavad Gita in which I participated along with the volunteers of the Egmore Samskrt School. Though the main recording was done nearly a month ago, some corrections had to be carried out and was done recently.
When I heard my own voice that has become so mellowed down when inserted in the spaces of the previously recorded version, this thought about how our body and mind is affected and changed by the environment and the levels of our consciousness, was transforming.
I was invited last week to speak the other day at the Gita Jayanthi celebrations of Samskrita Bharati, an organisation devoted to propagating the culture of speaking Sanskrit. One among the speakers on the occasion, Lakshminarasimhan, a volunteer of Samskrita Bharati spoke on how the Rishis of the past have taken the essence of the truths in several areas of knowledge, health, science, astronomy, geography and many more subjects have packed it in the letters of the powerful language called Sanskrit.
A volunteer of the 10-day Sanskrit speaking course told me about the healing energies in Sanskrit. “Here we learn to speak Samskritam as a child would learn to speak first and then to read and write. I discovered that each day after the class I would feel exuberant, enthusiastic and proactive. As days passed by I realised that it was because of something in this language that I was having this elevating feeling,” she said.
In a book titled Science in Sanskrit published by Samskrita Bharati, a chapter deals with Samskritam and Brain Function. A recent study by Dr. Fred Travis, Head of the Department of Neurophysics of the Maharishi University in the United States is quoted. The study points out that reading Samskrit verses have profound psychological effects on the human brain. While there is a decrease in the heartbeat, breath rate, skin conductance levels, electro encephalogram power and coherence levels have been found to increase during chanting and reading of Sanskrit verses. The study also noted that the effects of chanting and reading Samskrit are equal to that of practising meditation. The study has been published in an International Journal of Neuroscience.
Leave alone scientific studies, it is my personal experience that chanting Sanskrit verses over a period of time have made me feel very calm and elated and nevertheless highly energetic. It is a kind of a high that one feels after taking a walk in the fresh morning air along the beach or the mountainside.
With lot of research being done on the impact of various sounds on the human body and mind, the whole gamut of Mantras or sound tools for enabling healing and energising is being researched now. Traditional Sanskrit chants for good health such as Aapyayantu Mamangani Vak Pranashchakshuhu Shrothramato Balam Indiriyani Cha Sarvani, uses sounds to focus awareness on different parts of the body such as speech, energy, eyes, ears and all the sense organs. The mantras end with the chant of Om Shanti Shanti Shantihi – a sound that does bring with it the energies to calm the mind and bring it to a state of peace and tranquillity.