Because of my own response and the response of my clients to the mantra I share at the end of this post, I’ve spent some time contemplating and researching the experience and purpose of a mantra.  Through this attention I have deepened my relationship and understanding of the mysteries of mantra and the role they play in self-imagining, becoming all that I am. Here are my thoughts.

“Mantra” is a Sanskrit word for “an instrument of thought,” and is seen as “that which protects the mind.” A mantra has surprising protective power. No mantra should be invoked casually as if naively playing at being spiritually ideal or rigidly as if blindly obeying some guru in order to be spiritually correct. A mantra, in our times of the consciousness soul, the self-aware soul, needs to be chosen responsibly and spoken responsibly. The mantra needs to resonate and harmonize with the body and soul of the individual in the moment and on the path of inner development.

You speak a mantra out loud or silently as if you are chanting with the stars or whispering to the flowers. 

The gift of a mantra is stillness, not the corpse-like stillness of death, but a the vibrant stillness of life poised to fully experience and evolve.

SPIRITUAL MANTRAS -- CONNECTING TO THE DIVINE

Spiritualized, a mantra provides a verbal formula that through repetition in meditation or prayer links you to the Divine. It is an invocation of spiritual states. Spiritual mantras are impersonal and archetypal. They serve to empty your soul. Anyone and everyone can chant the same mantra and the purpose and significance remains universal.  What I find in working with mantras of the spiritual kind is the need to pay attention to the resonance you feel.  Spiritual mantras are universal, we have many different mantras to choose from, all equally pure in their divinity. When choosing a spiritual mantra be sensitive to how it calls out to you.

I have worked with spiritual mantras from Eastern Paths and Western Paths.  I have worked with some for many years and some for a few days.  Trust yourself in choosing the spiritual mantras you work with. A mantra is not a discipline, or something you should stay with because it comes from some great teacher.  It needs to feel alive, sparkle with light, radiate with warmth, sing in your being and move your soul with vital force. Do not hesitate to let a mantra go if it doesn’t feel right.

PERSONAL MANTRAS -- CONNECTING TO THE SELF

Personalized, a mantra is an expression of few words that cultivates in your soul a focused, centered, empowered, grounded and ennobled selfhood, to fill you with your own incarnated divinity A personal mantra always has “I am” living in it.  The purest personal mantra is simply those two extraordinary words.  “I am” is the universal name, but its significance is unique to the one who invokes it. You might want to say the this pure personal mantra four times a day (dawn, day, dusk, night) using three, four, seven and twelve repetitions.  I am. I am. I am. …

Like the spiritual mantras, a personal mantra must feel personally right to a very deep level.  On saying a personal “I am” mantra you will feel the personal rightness of it very soon. In some way you will feel more you. Your core self in body, mind and spirit feels a growing harmony in your life, more rooted in your life, an inner direction that leads you to the core truth of your life and the ability to sustain an inner confidence through all kinds of trials.

You can write your own “I am” mantra or it can be written for you.

A POWERFUL PERSONAL MANTRA

I am safe. I am calm. I am awake. I am nourished.

12 words of well-being.  Repeat them with confidence and consciousness; feel yourself relax into the fulness of life.

Feel each word and become each word. Feel and become “I”, “am”, “safe”, “calm”, “awake”, “nourished.” Each word truly felt stills you and invites you to unfold .

Begin each day with this mantra. Let it be your lullaby that hums you into sacred sleep. Before you need to make a choice or a decision, take a deep inhale and a long exhale and then speak the twelve words of well-being.  Speak the mantra before telling the truth, making love, meeting with your colleague, paying your bills. Say it while taking a shower, doing the dishes or folding the laundry.

One of my clients calls this “the miracle mantra” and will repeat it over and over while she takes her morning walk.

Another client thinks of it as tuning her instrument of life so her being makes harmonious music that calls her soul to dance.

Yet another client pointed out this mantra offers an acronym — SCAN. The root of the word scan is to look searchingly. So confidently invoke the mantra while scanning your body and soul for the safe, calm, awake, nourished presence of “I am”.

I am safe.

I am calm.

I am awake.

I am nourished.

Please leave your thoughts and feedback here.

Inner work is tough work and moving through the mysterious and labyrinthine pathways of your soul requires guides, tools, support, creativity, humor and perseverance. 

Books, prayers, coaching, counseling, meditation, workshops, good friends...every kind of help is needed and available.  But ultimately, only you can do the work of becoming you. 

Below are the ways I can help you with your 2015 inner work of finding, knowing and becoming yourself… and making sense of it all. 

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Conversations with Me

Is this the year to answer a question, solve a mystery, survive a crisis, take a leap, imagine a future, find self-compassion, balance inner extremes, connect with a spiritual mentor and friend???  Can I support you, guide you, mentor you, celebrate you as you take on this threshold experience consciously and creatively.  I will bring a cosmic and spiritual context for understanding the challenges and realities of your life, your karma and your destiny, and make the cosmic and spiritual intimate and practical. 

Why don’t you schedule a complimentary 20 minute conversation here...let’s talk about what you are seeking and how I can help.  

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The Imagine Self Academy

All Imagine Self Academy courses are offered online through recorded presentations and loads of valuable materials. Some include live group conversations and Q & A with me. Everything is downloadable. 

I just want to give you a brief rundown of the major courses available in 2015. I’ve included dates and costs so you can plan and budget.  I will be sending out detailed descriptions for the courses closer to when each one will be opening registration.

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Core Imaginations

the Imagine Self Curriculum for Imagining the

Whole Core Reality of Yourself

Registration opens September 22.

...the most powerful, healing, liberating curriculum in the Imagine Self Academy.  You will want to come back to these courses many times throughout your life.

Core Imaginations is a year long, life long, curriculum that teaches you how to do self-compassionate observation and guides you to a fully alive imagination of yourself in ten core expressions: 

Your Image of Self in each of the Four Realms of Existence:

1. As a Physical Self in Dimensions of Space,

2. As a Living Self in the Flow of Time,

3. As a Conscious Self in the Possibilities of Relativity,

4. As a Divine Self in the Absolute

Your Image of Self in the Three Activities of Consciousness:

5. As a Thinking Self with a desire to know the heights of Truth

6. As a Feeling Self with a desire to seek the expanse of Beauty

7. As a Willing Self with a desire to act in the depths of Goodness

8. Your Image of Self as a Personality shaped by the Four Temperaments

9. Your Image of Self as a Perceiving Being experiencing yourself, the world, and others through the Twelve Senses

10. Your Image of Self as a Processing Being engaging with life  through the Seven Life Processes

 Cost is $477 for lifelong access to the entire curriculum (monthly payments available).

Click here for the description.

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Holy Imaginations & The New Festivals

I have found that the Christian Festivals (including the Marion festivals) offer extraordinary insights for individual inner work. I offer blogposts and courses inspired by the festivals. I approach these with an esoteric, non-religious, universal, 21^st Century understanding, not for belief or tradition, but for a brilliant yearly path for self-development.  The blogposts including the Inner Christmas Messages are a gift (but again, donations are so very welcome.)

The New Festivals courses are for self-study with one or 2 live Conversations with Lynn. Cost is $47 each.

Inner Lent 

5 lessons on facing the mysteries of temptation and overcoming all that challenges the well-being of your soul. The work of Inner Lent can serve your soul at any time of the year. 

Learn more about Inner Lent here.

Inner Advent

begins November 25^th 

4 lessons for recollecting, reviewing and releasing your year...preparing for Christmas and the Holy Nights 

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Wisdom Imaginations

the Imagine Self Curriculum for inner love and inner freedom

Imagining Your Inner Misfit

available now

guides you into a new relationship with the difficult parts of yourself. $27

 click here to register

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The Swan's Journey

A Yearlong Program for Women Seeking Outrageous Wholeness at the Key Turning Points in Their Lives

Info will be available soon.

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Here’s to your inner work and becoming new in 2015!

Blessings & Imaginations,

Lynn