Sacred Sound: Discovering the Myth and Meaning of Mantra and Kirtan [Paperback]

In yoga practice, mantra and kirtan (call-and-response devotional chanting) get short shrift in the West because they aren’t well understood, though they are an integral part of almost every Eastern spiritual practice. They are designed to provide access into the psyche while their underlying mythology helps us understand how our psychology affects daily life.Sacred Soundshares the myths behind the mantras and kirtans, illuminating their meaning and putting their power and practicality within reach of every reader.

Each of the twenty-one mantras and kirtans presented includes the Sanskrit version, the transliteration, the translation, suggestions for chanting, the underlying myth, and its modern-day implications. Based on Alanna Kaivalya’s years of teaching and studying the myths and sacred texts, this book offers a way into one of the most life-changing aspects of yoga practice.

Asato Ma Sad Gamaya (entry for the mantra)

In the Beginning…
The universe is sleeping. As a cosmic ocean, it lies dormant and quiet. Completely still and absent of light. There is no time and space, just the absence of those things. Lying dormant at the bottom of this ocean of nothingness, imagine there are millions and billions of tiny seeds, which in and of themselves are also nothing and without time, space or light. However, within those seeds is potential. Just as the great Banyan tree’s potential lies hidden inside each of it’s tiny seeds, those seeds require a certain kind of maturity and proper conditions to eventually sprout. Without these things, the seeds remain hidden and quiet and nothingness ensues.
In this no-time of the Cosmic Ocean, literally nothing exists, which is so hard to imagine! Scientists refer to this point as the origin of the universe, or the Big Bang, at which point everything in time and space existed as a sort of pre-singularity…a pre-potential state. In the yogic view, this pre-sl£3