Chanting with Mala Beads

I have always been spiritually eclectic, lost in a sea of esoteric and pagan traditions. 

One tradition that always fascinated me, yet I never actually practised, was chanting with mala beads. I would see the Sadhus on TV, with their beads swiftly flowing over their fingers as their minds and souls would soar over the Ganges. 

Only recently did I finally decide to purchase my first set of mala beads. I did my research and decided on a chant that I liked and felt right. 

The first time I did a full round of the beads with my chant, my mind became crystal clear and needle sharp, I couldn’t believe how wonderful it made me feel. 

I haven’t stopped since. 

Chanting has helped me to reach a higher state of consciousness, connection and wisdom. 

I reach a place of peace and serenity that I rarely reach in any other form of meditation. 

In its simplest form, it makes me feel great.

I love the idea of the mala beads, ‘garlands from heaven’ I see the beads as they are in this world, often beautiful, strings of beads, maybe with embellishment or a tassel. 

But in the other world, through my shamanic eye, I see its true form, a garland of sacred flowers plucked from heaven itself.

There are 108 beads, and I suspect that many reasons why there are 108 beads. 

My favourite is that there are approximately 108 meridians that run through the heart chakra, seat of love, compassion, creation and manifestation. 

There is also a guru bead, which we never chant on or cross, it is left as a holy bead, it is sacred, reserved for gratitude and thanks to our teachers, God, higher self.

I love how chanting with these beads fit so well with any other tradition, for example; I sit, every Saturday evening, along with my fellow shaman, with our mesa’s open, dreaming our world into being. 

I still do this, but I end by chanting a full cycle of a world prayer. 

I’ll tell you about that later.

So how do you do it? 

Acquire a set of mala beads, either made or bought. 

Dedicate them in your way. 

Bless them, in your way. 

Drape the beads over your middle or ring finger, (never the index finger, the finger of ego) use your thumb to gently squeeze, roll, or stroke the bead whilst you chant your chant, (silently or out loud) then you push it along, continuing with the next beads. 

Once you have made your way to the ‘guru bead’ at the beginning, you can turn it around and start again.

For some reason only my higher self knows, I decided that I needed a set of mala beads for each of the chants I use. And so, it began….

My first is a rudraksha mala, they are the seeds of a holy tree that only grows in the Himalayan mountain ranges. 

Rudraksha beads are good for protecting you from heavy energies and supporting your energy field. They also help to purify your body and mind. 

It connects me to the Hindu part of myself.

The chant I use for this set is; Om Namah Shivaya. 

It is thousands of years old. 

Om is the sound that came out of the void of potential, before existence came Om. 

Namah, means literally bow. 

Shivaya means God, higher self, divine self, the inner self, future potential. ‘Om, I bow to my sacred self’

{Aum-num-ha-shi-way}

I was in the Hippy Market in Ibiza when I me my second mala, it was love at first sight. 

Connecting to my Buddhist side to my soul, I acquired a Tibetan Yak bone mala. 

I knew the very mantra that this one would connect too.

Loka Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu. 

Loka, means all the people, the universe, all is one. 

Samastah, means All beings in the same time and location. 

Sukhino, means free from suffering, centred on happiness. 

Bhuv, means the state of unified existence, unity consciousness. 

Antu, means May it be so. So may it be.

{Loka-Sam-a-star-sook-e-no-buv-antu}

My third mala I acquired in Portugal. Another Buddhist mala, lotus seeds. 

The lotus flower rises up from the deep dark muddy waters towards the light of the sun and the stillness of the pool. 

They represent spiritual development, enlightenment and the open heart. 

Om Mani Padme Hum is my chosen mantra for this mala, fitting as you will see…’Om, behold the jewel in the lotus of the heart!’ 

For me this beautifully phonic chant opens up the heart chakra to love, munay, compassion and a fierce one heart flame. 

I dedicated this mala recently to this exact cause, the dawn of the One Heart Flame. 

There is so much to know within this mantra, I couldn’t possibly go through it all now. 

It purifies; pride, jealousy, lust, prejudice, judgementalness, violence and apathy. 

{om-man-ee-pad-me-hum}

I recently made two more mala bead sets, to go with two more chants that I use, both strangely are linked to the Divine Feminine.

The first is a Goddess mala. 

This was inspired by witches necklaces that I have seen, normally jet and amber, my pagan mala is made of; jet, wood, lava, tigers eye and quartz crystal, with a antler guru bead in the shape of a Mother Goddess. 

Om, Shanti, Shanti, Shanti is my chant, simple and pure, raising ones energy field to that of peace, bliss and the Divine feminine. 

It is literally the word ‘peace’ repeated three times, for each of the three worlds within us.

{om-shan-ti-shan-ti-shan-ti}

The second mala that I made was a pretty powerful experience. 

Firstly, they are (to be) dedicated to Kali Ma, the dark Goddess within the Hindu cosmology. 

She is a Mother Goddess, yet she is also the destroyer, a terminator of time, ego and all hatred and apathy. 

She is one of my favourite Goddesses to work with, so powerful and so beautifully dark. 

The chant I use has been said to be only used by very few initiates due to its purgative nature, you literally call Kali to come and destroy all that does not serve you, destroying the ego, fast-tracking you to enlightenment. 

Strengthened by the word ‘Shi’ which is an expression of greatest respect, and the word ‘Maha’ meaning Great. 

She is a waka, a primitive and galactic pillar of universal energy. 

The black beads that I acquired had to be literally impaled and broken open so I could thread them, I used black leather thong for its strength, and I used tiny wooden skulls within the mala. 

The guru bead is a red skull with a dark blue tassel, like the skin of Kali Ma. 

She is still waiting to be used and dedicated too…I’m waiting for the right time… 

Om, Sri, Maha, Kalikayai Namaha.

{om-shree-maha-kar-lee-ka-yay-na-ma-har}

Mala beads and the chants are such a blessing, and I implore everyone to try it out and see what you think. Experiment, and find your voice. 

Ask the universe for a garland of flowers direct from heaven, maybe you will find one that suits your practise.

Namaste – I bow to the Divine within you

Calming the Jaguar Within

That knot in the pit of your stomach. 

That tightness in your chest. 

That chaos that is your mind. 

We’ve all been stressed, some of us are more prone to feeling it than others, the red warning light is permanently on. 

Stress has many symptoms; Shortness of breath, irregular heart beat or chest pain. Painful joints or maybe back pain. Tight jaws, sweaty palms, headaches. Too tired to do anything, yet at night you cannot rest or even sleep. Overemotional? Anxious? Rage, anger, fear, worry…yep, that’s stress.

When we are stressed, our adrenaline system kicks in. 

Walnut sized glands on top of the kidneys start flooding our body with stress hormones called adrenaline and cortisol. 

This initiates the fight or flight, and faint or freeze response, basically causing disharmony within your body. 

It was great back in the day, when a sabre-toothed tiger shows up! 

Our eyes would widen, our heart beat quickens, blood goes to the major organs to fuel the body, our breath naturally increases, increasing our oxygen levels, and we run, or we fight. 

When we run away, we also began to burn those toxic hormones, therefore reducing the stress in our bodies, until we eventually calm down and begin to relax. 

You only have to watch a couple of ducks fights in a pond, they finish fighting, frantically flap their wings, and then they calmly swim along the still waters.

In modern times, we unfortunately have forgotten how to flap our wings, we have forgotten how to release the stress, and even more unfortunately, our children are now forgetting. 

What do we do instead? 

Well, instead of running away from it, we sit in front of our sabre-toothed tiger at the computer, or we gaze at it longingly on our smart phones. 

We internalise it, caging it up, while we allow our tiger to gnaw on our legs.

The longer these hormones are in our body, the longer you are stressed, the higher our blood pressure goes. 

What with this and the toxicity of the hormones, we are increasing our chances of heart disease, heart attacks, strokes, diabetes and many other stress related disorders. 

The change in chemicals within the body lowers our immune system so we catch anything and everything, and it has been said it could even increase our chances of getting cancer. 

If that doesn’t make you want to reduce your stress level, cortisol speeds up the ageing process! Shock horror!

So how do we eradicate these poisonous toxins once they are in our bodies? 

Firstly, we should look at stress from a higher level, a shamanic level. 

When we are in ‘our stuff’ stressed and anxious, we are reacting from the mammalian part of our brain, a mammal, like a jaguar. 

Just imagine yourself as a powerful jaguar.

You stalk in the dark, eyes wide, ears pinned back, teeth bare and claws ready to draw like a flick knife. 

You’re feeling everything, sensing everything. 

Nothing is what it seems, you trust nothing. 

Memories of past wounds and past fights are played on repeat inside your mind, as you frantically look for an answer to a problem that may show up, accessing the same irrational response, looking out for danger. 

Stressful? Crazy? 

Let’s not get into the psychological madness of the human being.

So how do we temp this jaguar down from the tree?

TRE is a safe and wonderful way to release the stress that’s locked within your muscles and tissues. Trauma Releasing Exercises, helps us re-member how to shake our bodies, how to tremor. 

Shamanic healing sessions are great as they will ultimately remove the energetic blocks that are causing the stress in the first place. 

But what can you do in the meanwhile?

Drink plenty of water to flush out the toxins. 

Work out, burn those poisonous hormones, sweat them out! 

Tai Chi. 

Yoga, meditation, chanting, sleep, they all work.

One way I use to shift yourself out of your current mood into a different perspective is the 777 breath.

It is used in our shamanic practise to shift our consciousness out of the mundane into a different state of consciousness. 

During ceremony, the pauses in-between breaths actually open up small windows in time and space, making ‘time’ more elusive and malleable.at its basic level, it reduces stress levels and eases pain and migraines.

Find a comfortable position, seated with back straight.

·         Rest hands on hips to block the flow of energy around the body. (When we breathe, we breathe in through our nose, allowing our tummy’s to rise, and as we breathe out through our mouths our tummy deflates; this is how we should be breathing naturally)

·         Begin by taking in seven sharp breaths in to fill your lungs with air.

·         Hold for the count of seven.

·         Breathe out through the mouth to the count of seven.

·         Hold for a count of seven.

·         And repeat, do seven rounds only.

Try it, see for yourself, have the experience.

I love using hand mudras, the Kali mudra is the best mudra for releasing stress, coupled with chanting and visualisations it is a powerful de-stresser.

Decoupling this fight or flight sequence within our endocrine system is tricky, but we shaman have a beautiful technique that actually does this. 

We realign the heart and sacral chakra, harmonising the energy flow. 

Meanwhile we pulse our own energyfields, matching that with the frequency of the earths, so that your energyfield also resonates with it. 

A disconnection with the earth, our mother, causes a great disharmony within our spirit. 

What we do at a mythic level, is call our eagle back home to roost, we temp our jaguar back down from that tree, to be held in the loving arms of our mother, the earth.

Whatever technique you use, use it. If it works, do it. A wise man (5^th grader at school) once told me, “Mr Cox, you should try lighting a candle and think of all the nice things in your life.” never a truer word said.

For anymore hints and tips on reducing stress levels, drop me a line, and follow me on Facebook or Instagram @Thebeardedshaman and if you are local, join me for a healing circle, I will teach you all I know!