Optimize Your Vibrancy with Mantra

Redesign Your Life through the Sound of Your Own Voice

Nov 05, 2023

Welcome to this week’s Quiet Light Reflections. Today we’ll dive into the power that comes from chanting Sanskrit mantra, as well as briefly dip into a humorous personal anecdote about getting unexpectedly more “awakened” to the energy of Mars through mantra.

Glide to the end of this article to find some hand-picked Sanskrit chants that I recommend for increasing your abundance, sense of belonging and mental-emotional clarity.

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The Power of Sanskrit

Sanskrit is a special ancient language. Long ago it was used to communicate as an actual language, but now it’s considered to be more “classical” and not colloquial. What makes Sanskrit so special is the vibrational transference that its syllables emit.

According to the World History Encyclopedia, on Sanskrit:

“The language is believed to have been generated by observing the natural progression of sounds created in the human mouth, thus considering sound as an important element of language formation. This is one of the prime reasons why Sanskrit has been rich in… its expressive quality of bringing out the best meaning through perfect sounds that are soothing to the human ear.”

For over a year now, every morning around sunrise I’ve chanted a mantra to the planetary energy of the day. It’s fairly simple: On Sundays I chant with the Sun, on Mondays I chant with the Moon, on Tuesdays with Mars, and so on. It’s always the same every week.

I get out our shruti box, find the appropriate musical note indicated for the planet, and start monotone chanting (Vedic chanting) the short verse in Sanskrit 108 times. One hand pumps the shruti box bellow while my other hand fingers through my mala to count off each verse. I’m usually going through the chant solo, while my loving partner is somewhere in the house or sitting near me and listening.

As an apprentice of Vedic astrology, I innocently began this practice to help me remember the qualities of those planetary archetypes—kind of like a meditative "study hall” within myself.

It seemed like a nice exercise to keep my memory straight about what each planet represented. For example, as I’d chant a Venus mantra, I’d repeat the words aloud while simultaneously meditating on things that Venus represents… like our ability to make good decisions, beauty, luxury, art & form, diplomacy, soothing comfort, etc. Or for Jupiter, I’d be concentrating on happiness, joy, prosperity, purpose and expansiveness.

Sometimes I would try to physically feel the energy of the planet in the chant, but it always seemed like I was just making it up in my head or trying too hard. “Oh, I’m chanting to Saturn now. Hmm… better feel the gravity of that.”

Now that I’ve been doing this practice daily over time, I’ve started to really notice how things have shifted for me along the way: the planetary energies are becoming way more personal, and making their presence known!

And I don’t mean a presence like they’re outside of me. There’s a tendency to anthropomorphize planets into human forms and call them “he” and “she.” I’m not doing that. Planetary archetypes are what live inside of our psyches and our own physical forms. They also express throughout our environment. Yes, planets are spheres rotating around the Sun just like our Earth, but more so these energies are alive within each one of us. The more you give intentional attention to these different luminous energetics within yourself, the more you’ll recognize their qualities breathing themselves into life through you.

A Funny Story: The Mantric Vibration of Mars and How We Cooled Off

A Brief Background on Mars-Vibes

First off, I adore Mars-energy. And I’m a little biased: it animates prominently in my physical and emotional bodies in this incarnation. It just so happens that my partner also has Mars’ dynamism very forward in his makeup too. Here’s a brief, non-exhaustive list of qualities that the Mars archetypal vibration includes:

Logic

Quickness

Sharpness

Fire

Ideals

Fights

Instinct

Courage

Agitation

Temper

Right Action

Passion

Luck

Depending on how Mars is situated in your astrological chart, these things can work with grace and ease or they can be difficult. Take fighting and ideals, for instance. Someone can have ideals that are too high, and become really judgmental of themselves and others. They may not know how to pick the right fights, or simply won’t stand up for what’s dharmic.

On the positive side, you can have realistic ideals, and only pick a fight when it’s necessary. It’s like being a fire fighter who is relaxed until the firehouse bell rings and it’s time to rush to the truck and put out the flames. That’s healthy Mars energy.

Mars also rules your nervous system. If you’re calm and cool most of the time, chances are you’ve got a nice healthy Mars dynamic flowing through you. If you’re losing your temper a lot or fighting just for the sake of fighting, well… you may consider examining your Mars-energy a little more closely.

The Unexpected “Awakening”

As I was saying, every morning I chant the planetary energy for that day. Each Tuesday (Mars’ day) I chant “Om Koom Kujaya Namaha” 108 times and focus on Mars things, like what’s listed above. Everything was pretty copacetic for about nine months of doing this every Tuesday. Then something began to change…

One Tuesday came around, and as per my usual mode, I started rolling in with a couple of “OM” sounds to get warmed up, and then launched into the first of my repetitions of Mars’ mantra.

Like any other day, my partner came into the room to be near me while I co-created with the mantra. But this day was different.

He decidedly went into the next room (the kitchen) and suddenly started banging things around. Items crashed unexpectedly. Drawers were being opened quickly and slammed shut. He was turning the water on abruptly and then off…then on again, and the sonorous sound of the water flowing would cut into the volume of the mantra.

I found myself getting angry. Not angry at him…I could tell that none of this was on purpose. I was fairly certain he wasn’t conscious of the noise and banging around. I found that I was just experiencing anger for the sake of anger. Frustration and heat too! I got so hot! Impatience roiled within me and I couldn’t wait to get through the mantra. All of these things were the embodiment of Mars energy, and I knew it in the moment.

Please note here: neither of us are “angry” people. We’re generally very quiet, peaceful and loving folk. So you can imagine how much this surprised and fascinated me as it unfolded!

The first time this energetic shift happened, I went through the whole chant in this agitated way. I stuck with it and beared the burden. Of course, by the end I was out of breath and totally pissed off. (I can laugh at that now.)

I had to carefully set down the shruti box and march outside to cool off. My nerves were a wreck. When I came back in, my partner seemed fine and didn’t have a trace of anger or impatience. It really confused me.

The next Tuesday, having this previous experience in mind, I started again in the usual way. Sure enough, my love went right into the kitchen and started crashing things around again. The energy of the whole house was raised into a total fireball of heat, impatience, annoyance, and tension. So I silenced the shruti box bellow completely and began to chant the mantra a cappella. This seemed to help, but not fully. Using Mars logic, I then reduced the volume of my voice and noticed that quieting everything down helped settle him down, and he ended up retreating into the other room.

“Fascinating!” I thought. “What an experiment! I will keep seeing what happens.”

So without speaking any of my observations to my love, I began to notice that no other day’s mantra evoked this kind of behavior from him or would entice me into such a worked-up state. No other mantra seemed to create such a heat in me that I felt like I was running a race.

In fact, I noticed that by this time he had voluntarily begun sharing his favorite morning mantras with me. He loved Thursday (Jupiter) and Friday (Venus). He liked Wednesday’s mantra for Mercurial energy too. No mention of Tuesday though… “Hmm. Even more interesting!” As I listened to his commentary on the different mantras that I chant each morning, I imagined myself wearing a white laboratory coat holding a clipboard in total scientist mode. My “studies” were apparently continuing outside of my online apprenticeship!

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Mars-energy is not bad or wrong. There’s also nothing disastrous with the Mars mantra. It’s simply its own vibration. At its core, Mars-ness is neutral… just like everything. All planetary energetics have their positives, negatives and neutral aspects. It’s all in understanding what Mars-luminosity is already doing inside of you and then how you choose to use it.

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I’ve since told my partner about this little experiment I did. I think we’ve both become more aware of how vibrationally-shifting Mars can be when it comes through us—especially when we’re together. Better yet, I think we’ve been able to grow from it.

I continue to chant the Mars mantra every Tuesday, and I’m not afraid to modify my approach to it in order to get the best results for us both. That’s the co-creation and the transformation that starts to occur. By chanting daily, I think we’ve both become more sensitive to all of living archetypal signals— me through vocalizing them and he through hearing them.

More than ever—and I’ll speak for myself—I feel like I’ve begun utilizing the positive Mars-vibrations to be more logical, more trusting of my instincts and more courageous to stand up for what’s right…and at the right time.

Sound is Powerful: You are Powerful

Because of this experience with this particular mantra, my approach to all mantras has adjusted. I’m much more cautious, aware and respectful of what I’m invoking into our space and into our lives. I’ve become more sensitive to the fact that these aren’t just words; they're a literal co-creative experience with the quantum transformational energy that’s being called in. The daily practice of chanting these mantras is changing my life: my thinking processes, behaviors and capacity for love and healing are exponentially accelerating and expanding. I’m experiencing life on completely new embodied levels because of this dedicated practice.

Most importantly, there’s a humbling realization about the effectiveness and leverage that chanting mantra can bring, especially when your whole mind, heart and soul are pouring intention and meaning into the words as you incant them. Because it’s truly an incantation, a magical, mysterious shakti starts to spiral outwards from within your body, like a lit-up vibrant seed of bliss from your core. Your voice and choice of words animate your cellular electricity internally and beyond your physical form. The vibration that you choose to hum, om, chant, sing, speak, whisper or silently say to yourself affects everyone and every object around you.

Embody Your Vibrant Bliss-ness

There are many Sanskrit mantras floating out there. They’re meant to invoke positive, expansive and loving co-creations through you.

Here are some of my favorites that aren’t planetary:

Mahamrityunjaya Mantra (a Shiva chant for seeing clearly and destroying illusion)

Prahbuji (for belonging, and coming back home to the Divine within)

Ganesha chant (for removing obstacles, creating prosperity and hearing wisdom)

Lakshmi chant (for abundance, well-being and less-conditional love)

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If you’d like to learn the planetary chants, you can go to my astrology teacher’s Youtube playlist here where he chants each mantra for each planet.

Keep in mind that you don’t necessarily have to use these planetary chants for the days of the week. If you’re in a particular planetary Mahadasha (time cycle of your life) and you’d like to strengthen the planet’s energy within you to smooth out some of the rough edges of the phase your in, these mantras can be a great aid.

Or perhaps you’re wanting to simply strengthen a particular energetic within yourself regardless of your current life cycle, then you’d pick the appropriate chant to boost your personal goal.

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How is your sensitivity to sound or word or mantra? What is your experience, positive or negative? Are their certain musical notes or chords that just “do it” for you? …or have you running for the hills?

How are you shifting your words and focus to create higher vibrations for yourself and those around you?

Also, if you’d like to know which planetary mantra or other mantra could be beneficial in your life, I’m happy to respond to you with a light suggestion based on the information you give to me.

Feel free to leave a comment below.