How to Make a Camel Happy and Train Your Mind Yogi Bhajan regaled us with stories of how training the mind is like riding a camel. The camel is a miraculous beast able to travel for days through challenging inhospitable climates, over rolling perilous terrain and carrying enormous loads and passengers. But it also has an ego-and a famously nasty temperament. If you do not know how to lead it or ride it, a camel will topple you to the ground, spit and then sit on you, and grind its pelvis as it marks you and reduces you to sand. Not pleasant. When you do not take charge of your mind, and allow your ego to lead, this is what happens. Emotions and reactions lead. Every thought pulls you into its path. The best approach to training the mind and taming the ego is mantra. Like the nose ring, which leads the camel on its journey, mantra leads the mind toward submission. Interestingly enough, camels love music; it's even more powerful than the nose ring itself. Second only to silence, the most effective intimate expression of the soul is music. In its rhythms we feel our emotions, passion and movement. In its harmonies we find our relationships. In its resonance and timbre we recognize our scope. In its joy we experience our ecstasy.
The shepherds of the Mongolian deserts discovered this and shaped their culture and music, over millennia, to soothe their camels and uplift their spirits. There are many art pieces that show the camels of that region laughing and singing with the gentle tunes of their riders. A recent movie, The Story of the Weeping Camel, captured the power of this music. A camel, dispirited by hardship and an extremely arduous birthing, could barely lift her head or nurse her calf. The shepherd played an evocative, simple melody that touched the heart and brought tears to the camel, the player and the audience. Gradually, as pain and confusion melt away, the camel tapped the energy of her instinctual soul and revived the newborn. This simple miracle brought joy, hope and new life to the family and the journey. In Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan�, we integrate sound, music, shabd and naad into the texture of our classes. When the mind is cranky, dispirited, insecure or scattered, a simple mantra gathers its dispersed strains and aligns it with your intention. Soothed, it can carry you across the perilous terrains of life, help you endure over the long challenges and bring you added strength when you most need it. Your brain on music is wondrous to behold. It slowly forms new, more complex, patterns. Listening to Mozart increases the repairing, growth hormones by as much as 60%. The immune system relaxes, with interlukin-6 dropping by more than 80% and anxiety producing epinephrine dropping by half. Meditation on the panj shabd-sa ta na ma-or the doei shabd-sat nam wahe guru-has been shown to ignite the central brain: areas like the hippocampus for memory, the cingulated gyrus for complex attention and decision making, and decrease the amygdale response, which reacts with fear and anxiety. The brain uses both hemispheres to process sounds that are attentively listened to, not just the left hemisphere's language areas. More and more discoveries are being made about the complex patterns and power of music and mantra. Add to this the essential social dimension of chanting together and we are able to call on the deepest reservoirs of energy to heal and uplift our Self as we tame and direct the mind and the brain.
Message by Gurucharan Singh Khalsa, PhD Director of Training Kundalini Research Institute
If you want to tame your camel here
is a simple, powerful practice:
Sit straight in Gyan Mudra-thumb and forefinger tips touching. Look down the nose with eyes just a little open. Take a deep breath. Chant: ANG SANG WAHE GURU The sounds ANG and SANG must vibrate fully in the upper mouth, nose and sinus cavities. It will feel like an insistent pressure near the top of the nose and across the Brow Point. It's a very nasal sound, with most of the breath moving out through the nose. It is like two strokes of a gong. But the NG sound is steady like a drone over it all. The navel pulls naturally on ANG and tightens more on SANG. Pull the diaphragm with WAHE and release everything with GURU. THE WAHE sound spreads out and vibrates the wings of the sphenoid bones in the center of the skull and exits with a release through the crown of the head. All this is natural and automatic if you merge into the sound. This mantra works on your vastness, calmness and divine presence. It opens you up to become a space for blessing and healing. It works on the Golden Chord, the connection between the pituitary of the Sixth Chakra and the pineal of the Seventh Chakra. It prepares you to transcend the Self and experience how all is done by the One. If you practice 11-31 minutes, then sit still in shuniya, you will feel the universe, you will open to your intuitive nature and make your mind a happy camel! |