The ancients have known it for centuries — sound heals and harmonizes the body, mind and spirit. If you’ve sat in a temple listening to monks chant Tibetan invocations or hearing the Vedas, you can feel the powerful vibrations and notice the calming effects. It’s as if one whole being tunes into the universal absolute and moves back into balance. In the  monastery on St. Honorat Island off in the South of France off of the coast of Cannes, the monks’ Gregorian chants echo out through the chapel carrying light and beauty on the sea breeze. 

My most powerful experiences with sacred sound took place in India at Prahshanti Nilayam an ashram in Andhra Pradesh. At three a.m. I gathered with others to enter the temple and before dawn two very old Indian women chanted the song to awaken God every morning lest He/She might sleep and our world would no longer exist. Then in unison with a hundred other people we changed “Om” twenty-one times. That powerful sound combined with the voices of other women and men elevated my spirit and I soared into a place of expansion and deep peace. The gilded ceiling of the temple seemed not to hold me and the altar was merely a tool to focus the mind.

At home in my practice, I continue to repeat the twenty-one “Om’s” in the morning. As the sound rises from deep within I feel it move energy blocks and bring a greater harmony to all of my being. It’s a good way to start the day – feeling more balanced and content. Kirtan, chanting of the sacred name in the Indian tradition also has a powerful effect of combining breathing with sound to elevate the body, mind and spirit. Some people also use the sounding of crystal bowls to harmonize and heal the levels of the human being.

We often forget that sound is sacred. But it has the power to transform is in both positive and negative ways. For this reason paying attention to speech and the words spoken becomes essential to carrying peace and contentment and sharing it with others.

Bio: Debra Moffitt is author of Awake in the World: 108 Practices to Live a Divinely Inspired Life. A visionary, dreamer and teacher, she’s devoted to nurturing the spiritual in everyday life. She leads workshops on spiritual practices at the Sophia Institute and other venues in the U.S. and Europe. Her mind/body/spirit articles, essays and stories appear in publications around the globe and were broadcast by BBC World Services Radio. She has spent over fifteen years practicing meditation, working with dreams and doing spiritual practices. Visit her online at http://www.awakeintheworld.com.