Healing mantras (Ballantine Books)

Mantras, or simple chants, are short phrases packed with energy and intention -- specifically designed to generate powerful sound waves that promote healing, insight, creativity, and spiritual growth. Healing Mantras is the practical, how-to guide that makes the strengths and benefits of mantras available to everyone. The transformative power of sound has been passed down to the present from the sages of India, the classical scientists of ancient Greece, and the medieval monks of Europe. Even though the science and discipline of chanting and formal prayer are practiced in every religion around the world, this is the first time that ancient Sanskrit mantras have been explained and adapted to Western needs.One of the few Western experts in Hindu and Buddhist mantras, Thomas Ashley-Farrand has practiced mantra-based spiritual disciplines for twenty-five years. In this illuminating book, he explains how and why mantras work and shows how to use them for everything from controlling habits to overcoming fear, from curing specific ailments to finding inner peace, from gaining wisdom to increasing mental clarity. In each of the more than fifty mantras, all translated from the original Sanskrit, Ashley-Farrand unlocks the power of every word, explains its appropriate application, and tells you how to pronounce it in easy-to-follow phonetic symbols.These mantras can be repeated aloud or in silence and can be used by people of any religion or spiritual practice "as you wash dishes, as you drive on the freeway, as you meditate, or as you cook". Sound can help and sound can heal, and Healing Mantras now makes this sound medicine available to everyone.