Introduction
What if, by just repeating a sound or series of sounds, you could clear negative energy, make progress towards your goals, evolve spiritually, and even heal?
This is the power and wonder of mantra – which are sounds designed to have specific effects on the energy of your body, your environment, and the universe.
Mantras are like energetic keys to the universe that can unlock new experiences and allow new energies to flow into your life. Mantras are gifts from Spirit that have been passed down through sages, spiritual masters, yogis, buddhas, and more.
Mantra meditation is a wonderful tool and gift available to all who choose to practice it. Chanting mantras can help you achieve constructive change in your life, resolve all sorts of issues, and evolve spiritually.
You can find mantras specifically for your issue whether it be a mental, emotional, spiritual, energetic, material, health, relationship, family, career, financial, or any type of issue. There are 1000s of mantras available. Each is designed for specific types of issues and goals. When you recite mantra with a specific intention, it will help you with that intention.
The following article is a brief guide to help you quickly get started with mantra. For more information, we recommend this book, Healing Mantras by Thomas Ashley Ferrand.
The benefits of mantra
It can be helpful and inspiring to understand mantra’s unique benefits and how they work. Truly, mantras are a very unique tool. For individuals who are motivated to work through issues, evolve, and experience their spiritual nature, mantras are hard to replace given that they offer so much in such an easy to practice package. You can practice mantra anywhere you are, whether you’re in bed, cooking, cleaning, on your way to work, meditating, working out, or even in a meeting.
Did you Know?
Many mantras originated as gifts given by some of history’s most respected sages. Many of these sages achieved enlightenment and a transcendental understanding of our physical existence. Others had received the mantra as a gift during meditation from even higher benevolent spiritual beings. These mantras were then handed down generation after generation in the oral tradition, often kept secret from most members of society. In some cases, a single person would “carry” the mantra and build its energy by reciting it for, literally, a lifetime. Near the end of their life, they would pass on the mantra to a child. The child would then recite the mantra constantly for the rest of their life. Such devotees would develop extraordinary empowerments in the gifts provided by that mantra. They would also charge the mantra with great energy. When you recite a mantra, you not only add to this reservoir of energy, you receive it as well.
The benefits of mantra continued
Mantra is an excellent tool for today’s world because it helps reduce stress, create positive energy, resolve issues, evolve spiritually, gain new insights and understandings, and can be practiced in the busiest of schedules.
- You can find specific mantras for any issue or goal including:
- Resolving issues such as stress, anxiety, negative emotions, negative thoughts, health issues, relationship dynamics, financial concerns, career issues, and any other issue related to the physical, emotional, mental, energetic, and spiritual planes. Energetically speaking, mantra can help resolve illness and disease and restore harmony and balance to our mind, body, emotions, and spirit.
- Cultivating a happy life and evolving spiritually. Mantra can help us develop greater happiness, intuition, harmony, balance, joy, love, positivity, success, financial prosperity, relationships, health, wellbeing, peace of mind, clarity, consciousness, wisdom, compassion, consistent inner-peace, connection to our soul, connection to spirit, and alignment with spirit. Again, there’s different mantras specifically for each of these and more.
- Mantra gives you energy
- Millions of people have likely used that mantra before you. All of these people have built up the energy of that mantra. You benefit from this energy when using the mantra.
- Mantra is accessible and easy to practice.
- You don’t need anything to practice it – Not even a mat, computer, or pen and paper
- You can practice it silently without anyone knowing. You can recite it to yourself wherever you are, whatever you’re doing and immediately receive help, support, and benefit.
- Mantras are powerful with a holistic energetic effect.
- Mantra influences the fabric of reality. It creates change in our energy fields, the energy of our environment, and more.
- When reciting a mantra with a specific intention, you’ll notice all sorts of changes in your life. People around you will change, new people will come into your life, you’re emotional process will shift, you’re mental process will shift, you’ll start to gain new insights and understandings, and you’ll experience transformation.
- The more you practice a mantra, the more power you’ll develop with it. Therefore, overtime, it will bring you more and more benefit and have greater effect in your life.
- Mantra is safe with no negative side effects.
- As long as you use mantra according to instructions from a trusted source, it’s very safe to practice.
- Mantras call upon the help of spiritual beings who have attained mastery over issues that we are facing. By using the mantra, we request their help, love, wisdom, guidance, intelligence, insight, and energy.
- You can use mantra instead of worrying about stuff.
- You can replace your tendency to stress, worry, or feel negatively with mantra practice. This not only helps resolve whatever issues you were worrying about, it also helps you transcend the habit of stress, anxiety, worry, and negative emotion.
- Mantra can help you dissolve negative karma, create positive karma, and expedite your process of soul evolution and enlightenment.
- Mantra can help you with the law of attraction and manifesting in your life.
- Mantra helps clear and evolve our spiritual body.
- Mantra can help open, activate, clear, heal, balance, and integrate our chakras and therefore open us up to wonderful new experiences, more positive emotions, intuition, gifts, and connection to Spirit.
- Mantra also helps awaken kundalini – a spiritual energy that resides in your tailbone and rises up your spine as you develop. This is why you may have heard of mantra practice from yoga and meditation class, or kundalini meditation.
Example of a Common Sanskrit Mantra
An example of a well-known and very effective mantra is the Ganesha mantra. This mantra is for breaking down obstacles and calls upon the Hindu deity Ganesha, the remover of obstacles, who is often depicted with the head of an elephant.
Ganesha mantra
Om Gum Ganapatayei Namaha
Pronunciation
(OM GUM GUH-NUH-PUH-TUH-YEI NAHM-AH-HA)
You don’t need to know what the words mean in order to practice the mantra. In fact, mantras are not about meaning and their translations are never truly accurate. That’s not where their power lies. The power of mantra exists in the energy produced by the sound of the words rather than their meaning. This is counter intuitive to most people who have grown up with languages based on meaning rather than sound or energy.
As you recite a mantra, whether internally or out-loud, the energy of the mantra radiates out into the universe affecting you, your relationships, your environment, and the past, present, and future. All that is required is that you focus on your intention while reciting the mantra.
In order to practice mantra, all you have to do is:
1. Choose a mantra that fits your goals.
2. Create an intention to focus on as you recite the mantra.
For example, if you wanted to break down all obstacles achieving something, you might use the Ganesha mantra we provided above. This is a useful and versatile mantra that you can use for several intentions at once. Some example intentions could be…
To break down any and all obstacles to:
• receiving a loving relationship in my life
• losing weight
• healing from any illness, having good health, and living a long life
• loving myself and feeling joyful
• being present
• generating financial prosperity
• releasing stress and anxiety
• being more grounded
• working through issues and getting along with my partner
• achieving success with my business
• clearing any and all negative energy from my system
• and much more…
The Ganesha mantra is an excellent mantra for beginners because it is short, effective, and versatile. You can apply it to any personal goal. We would recommend choosing 1 – 4 intentions to focus on.
Typical Mantra Practice
For a standard mantra practice, you would recite the mantra 108 times in the morning and 108 times in the evening for 40 days, typically using a mala bead necklace for keeping count.

Mala Bead Necklace for counting 108 repititions of mantra
You can do 108 repetitions of a short mantra in under 5 minutes. Once you do this for 40 days straight (216 repetitions per day for 40 days comes out to 8,640 repetitions) you’ve attained your first level of attainment, or siddhi, with that mantra. Congratulations on that! At that point, that mantra and its benefits will be with you forever! While doing your siddhi, it can also bring added benefit to recite the mantra throughout the day when you can for example in your free time or while doing chores.
After the 40 day mark, you are free to continue practicing the mantra on whatever schedule you choose. You can also move onto another mantra. Generally speaking, it’s recommended to attain first level siddhi with several mantras. It’s also recommended to specialize with certain mantras to build higher level attainments, or siddhis. Over months or years, this can include repeating the mantra 500,000 to a million times or more.
It can be helpful to choose mantras that match your goals and life situation. Being patient with yourself and treating mantra as a positive, opportunistic, and long-term tool will help you get the most benefit. There’s no need to beat yourself up about doing it or not doing it. It will be there for you when you’re ready.