Om Shanti
Shanti
Shantih

Reciting the Om Shanti Mantra is one of the most popular techniques of Santosh Recovery

 

What does Shanti mean? Shanti is the Sanskrit word for Peace. It is used to send out showerings of peace. We can bless our food with peace; either as you sit to eat the nourishing meal before you or as you are preparing the meal. Just as you add a spice to the dish that you are preparing, add a dash a peace to the meal! We can bless our minds with peace; offer yourself peace instead of judgment (ahimsa). We bless each other with peace; peace to you my friend! Shanti! And maybe the most difficult thing to do but most important for becoming accepting and content is to bless those who make us angry with peace. Goswami Kriyananda says that the surest way to soften karma is to pray for your enemies and bless them with peace. What?  Pray for peace of your enemies ?! This may not seem a simple task but as you move through the teachings of Santosha Recovery, you will begin to understand the importance of this to not only soften your own karma but to ease and eventually eliminate the fear and anger in your own being. People are born to this Earth plane to soften their karma. To heal and mature spiritually. Your healing may involve healing from addiction. Others may be healing from anger or wrong doing as they were wronged at some point. Please understand that we are all here to heal from different things. And to help someone on their journey is to give acceptance and compassion for their journey. To not assume that we know what another is healing from and to send out peace to each as much as we can. Healing from the past goes far beyond this lifetime. And just as you wish for others to try to understand you, you can do a great deal of helping the evolution of souls on this earth plane by sending them Peace instead of judgment. Om Shanti!

One of my most revered preceptor, Ram Dass, states that ‘people have good action and wrong action but people just
are. Sometimes a person acts from some very dark karma that makes them behave in the world with some immense
suffering. But there is a point in your being where you feel this incredible compassion for the horror of that
predicament of that being. The minute you identify them with the acts of that suffering, you lock them in to
continuing to be who they are, with your mind.’ See actions as inharmonious or see actions as Karma, but see
people as spiritual beings here on this planet to heal, evolve and mature.'

How do we use the mantra Om Shanti, Shanti, Shantih?
• As you are preparing food, planting a garden, or even picking out food at the store, mentally or out load say:
Om shanti, shanti, shanti. This will energize your food with peace and santosha.
• When you become aware that you are judging or should-ing yourself, stop that momentum and chant Om
shanti, shanti, shanti. You can just say it once or chant it as many times as you need to, to stop the groove in
your mind that you are creating by negative and inharmonious thinking.
• When you feel yourself judging others or getting angry at others, mentally or out load chant Om shanti,
shanti, shanti. In sending someone peace, it allows them the space to change their attitude and to soften
their own karma. This may not happen in the moment or even in this lifetime, but it will happen. Sending
peace to others says: I believe in you and I believe in the very act of healing and maturing that I am also
engaging in at this time. And just as I wish to be seen, heard and given the opportunity to change and free
myself from the predicaments that I experience, I wish that blessing upon you. May we all be free from the
karma of our past, from our samskaras and from the illusion of separateness.

How does sending blessings to others help us live a life of Santosha?
• Chanting Om Shanti towards your food and water not only infuses prana (divine nourishment) into the food
but it also brings us into the present moment enough to appreciate what we have. Appreciating what we
have is very important in living a life of Santosha. Being in the present moment is essential for living a life
of Santosha!!
• When we begin to see actions as actions and then ourselves and others as beings that exists inside the heart
where everyone wants to love and be loved, we find compassion and acceptance for the predicament that we
are all in at this time. Acceptance does not mean placidity, it means that we can see clearly what the karma
is and then we can see clearly on what and how we can heal. We heal in a place of the present moment and
in a place of acceptance. We do not heal in a place of the past and in a place of anger and resentment.
• Sending out the peace mantra when we feel harshness or judgment towards ourselves and another, frees
ourselves from negative thinking. Karma is produced by our attitude. Put simply negative attitudes produce
inharmonious karma and positive attitude produces harmonious karma. Free yourself from negative thinking
so that you do not pass that negativity onto others. Free yourself, and free them. Free them and free
yourself. Send peace blessings instead. Open the energy pathway to harmonious karma and spiritual
maturity!

In review; Om Shanti can be used volitionally to infuse our day with peace, used as prayer for ourselves and others as we try to remove the negative judgements, and it can also be used as a Game Changer Skill  as a way to bring yourself into the present moment when your mind is scattered and you are being emotional and judgmental. Om shanti will stop the momentum of negative thinking and bring you to the present moment and to a place of gratitude and contentment. When we stop the momentum of our negative thinking we free ourselves from negative karma and we free others from our negative judgments. 

Free them, Free me,
Let the hurt be healed,
Let the karma be dissolved.
Free me, Free them,
Let the hurt be healed,
Let the karma be dissolved.