Chanting The Mantra of Love and Compassion Is The Easiest Way To Achieve Peace of Mind and A Loving Heart
Chanting the mantra “OM MANI PAYDMEH HUNG” is one of the easiest and most powerful spiritual practices that anyone can do anytime anytime
THE DAWNING LIGHT # 289 Wednesday June 21, 2023
SPIRITUAL SOUP KITCHEN Section # 17
Image Credit: Pixabay
One of the greatest gifts I have ever received from anyone in my life is when Kalu Rinpoche taught and transmitted “Om Mani Paydmeh Hung”, the mantra of love and compassion to me fifty years ago.
This mantra has completely transformed, uplifted and shaped my life for the good ever since. I consider it as the greatest and most effective of all the spiritual practices I have been fortunate to receive because it is simple, sweet to use and definitely opens the heart to experiencing life from a loving and compassionate place.
The Beginning Of A New Day
I have just gotten up from the warm sweetness of my bed, poured myself a cup of espresso and made my way to my desk, with its expansive view of the wide green fields and mountains.
As my body and brain clear from the inner fogginess of deep slumber, I begin singing and chanting “Om Mani Payd Meh Hung”and raise my voice in prayerful invocation.
Like sipping the dark rich espresso which wakes up my body, this mantra that I have been singing for the last 50 years since receiving it from my teacher Kalu Rinpoche is a powerful way of awakening my consciousness.
As I sing, it is like being in a rocket plane that is igniting its rockets, which have the capacity and ability to take me to the highest heights of human awareness, and feeling the surge of powerful acceleration as it kicks in and soars up towards the stratosphere.
This rapid climbing as we fly ever faster on my spiritual wings is familiar, comforting and desirable because I have made this ascent many many thousands of times before.
It is the first thing I focus my mind and lips on everyday as soon as I wake up, singing it out loudly as I am still in bed, to give a super charged start to every morning.
It is on my lips all day, wherever I go, whatever I am engaged in and it is the last thing I focus on as I lay down to sleep and slip away to the sphere of dreams.
Singing this blissful, heart opening and consciousness clarifying mantra is one thing I can never do enough of.
At this stage of my spiritual journey, the mantra is so effective and so profound in its effects that it is as important to my life stream as my breathe and heartbeat.
Image Credit: Pixabay “Om Mani Paydmeh Hung “ in Tibetan
I Received The “Mani” From Kalu Rinpoche in 1972
The “Mani” is so powerful that the masters say that even just seeing it written, on prayer flags or carved into stones will have a huge positive effect on your life.
I shudder to think of what my life would have been like if I had not received this greatest gift from my first teacher, Kalu Rinpoche, back in 1972, when I was 22 years old.
I was already well launched on my own spiritual path since my early teens and had advanced enough in natural progression under the influence of having been a totally dedicated yogi for many previous lifetimes, to be aware that I needed to reconnect with the teachers of my lineage.
My journey to the moment when and how I was brought together with Kalu Rinpoche is a miraculous and beautiful story that I will share at another time.
I can say from experience that the classic saying in the world of practitioners that “when the student is ready, the teacher will appear” is absolutely true.
Photo Credit: Pixabay “Prayer flags are said to spread the blessings of the mantra into the world on the wind while reminding us to practice and think of others lovingly and compassionately”
The “Mani” Comes Down To Us From An Unbroken Lineage of Enlightened Masters
Rinpoche was always chanting the “Mani”, as we call it, every minute of his days, except when teaching or eating, and then I am sure it was being repeated mentally in the background.
Of course, there are many mantras which have come down to us from masters that achieved their own enlightenment through using them as part of their own spiritual practice.
And then taught them to their students who used them to become masters themselves before passing them on to their students in unbroken lineages down to the present day.
I received many of the most powerful ones directly from my own teachers during my training during “initiations” into the meditation practices they are the core of.
In this way, the full power and blessing of the lineages are imparted to the student into the very center of their being as a vibrant seed.
Image Credit: Pixabay
The “Mani” Is Simple and Easy to Practice
Then, as we practice the meditation and mantra connected with it, the mantra becomes seated into the mind and heart, and while being watered by daily practice grows more and more effective.
It is said that the Mani is so potent that every repetition of its six syllables has a powerful positive effect on your own stream of consciousness but also reverberates its positive energy throughout the world.
Though I have received most of the great mantras of the Vajrayana path, the one which is by far the most important and most used is the Mani.
The “Mani” Can Be Used By Anyone, Anywhere, Anytime
It is only six syllables, is easy to learn and practice, can be sung anytime anywhere, fits almost any melody and produces a gentle reliable result.
I am sharing about this mantra with you because when it is sung, chanted or repeated silently in your mind, it will immediately begin a gentle transformation inside you by replacing most of the random thoughts flowing through your mind, while sweetly opening your heart to feeling greater and greater love and compassion.
Life is so much better when you are experiencing it from a loving and grateful attitude, which is what this mantra does—gets you out of the normal mundane mind to higher and higher levels of consciousness….simply by repeating this sweet and safe mantra.
Image Credit: Pixabay “Mani Stones: OM MANI PAYDMEH HUNG craved in stones in Tibet”
HERE IS A SPECIAL VIDEO OF CHINMAYAN SINGING “OM MANI PAYDMEH HUNG” while driving back to Still Mountain as the sun sets:
Chinmayan Singing “OM MANI PAYMEH HUNG” While Driving As The Sun Sets…40 seconds long
A VERY BEAUTIFUL MUSICAL VERSION OF “Om Mani Paydmeh Hung”
This upbeat and joyful version of the Mani by Mercedes Bahleda is easy to sing to and learn if you would like to sing and chant it yourself…
This song will definitely open your heart to feeling the love flowing inside your heart!
‘Om Mani Paydmeh Hung” by Mercedes Bahleda
Original Revelation and Calligraphy by Chinmayan
Image Credit: Still Mountain Meditation Center/Inner Resource Institute
Thank you for being here with us today!
If you’d like to explore any of our other published “Dawning Light” poems and stories, you can access our wonderful homepage and library anytime at:
If you loved this transformational story or poetry, please click on the little heart so we and all our readers know you did…
If you know anyone who would love this work or be helped by it, please feel feel free to share this or any other issue…
We would love to hear your responses to our writings, so please leave us a comment and reach out to our Dawning Light Community…
We encourage you to download the Substack Reader below because it is a much better way to get your issues of “The Dawning Light”…It is easier to read, won’t get lost in a sea of emails, will archive all issues in a neat library, will put a notice up on your screen when each new issue is published…and to read any past or new issue, you just open the Reader…plus, the Reader has all kinds of cool features and makes exploring Substack for other great newsletters an adventure of discovery. Just click on the App Link at the very bottom of the page!
“Your greatest service to humanity is to attain your own Self Realization!” Ramana Maharshi
“When you change the way you think about things, and the things you think about change”
—Wayne Dwyer
“I see my life as an unfolding set of opportunities to awaken.” —Ram Das