When I visited my aunt Donna this summer, she could not breathe. She had been diagnosed with lung cancer just two months earlier, and, since that time, was never without the support of an oxygen tank.
I had come from Chicago to care for my aunt for 10 days as she took chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Although this aunt was my favorite, I had recently found it very difficult to talk to her. A highly respected business professional, my aunt was my role model when I was in my early 20s. I wanted to go into business just like her, but after working in a corporate setting for 10 years, I decided to do something different.
I wound up getting a certificate in holistic health care, and began living more naturally. I let my hair grow into dreadlocks instead of making it straight with relaxers. I donated my business suits to charity and instead of wearing designer suits to work every day I now wore cotton T-shirts and blue jeans. I also gave up eating meat and became a vegetarian. Because I had become more of a hippie than a corporate high-roller, my conversations with my aunt were often short and shallow.
My aunt Donna’s inability to breathe made our communication even more difficult. Most times, we were unable to talk because her need for oxygen was so great that she had to write what she wanted to say on a notepad.
Although I lived with her for 10 days, her oxygen tank was really her constant companion. She used a portable one when she had to run errands, and there was a stationary tank in her bedroom where she spent most of her time.
When she was readmitted into the hospital during my 10-day stay, she, again, was hooked up to another oxygen tank turned to the highest level. I remember her writing on the notepad to ask if I could turn it up even higher. She was disappointed when I told her that I couldn’t. That’s when I realized that the oxygen tank was literally keeping my aunt alive.
Whenever I visited, the clear tubing of the oxygen tank was always hanging from her nostrils, or she wore a mask that covered half her face, obscuring the beauty that was still apparent even after several rounds of radiation and chemotherapy.
Her total reliance upon these oxygen treatments made me think about the importance of the breath. During a private yoga session, I shared my aunt’s condition with my teacher and how difficult it was for my aunt to breathe. To my surprise, my teacher suggested I use my breath to heal her. “How am I going to do that?” I asked. I was wondering if my teacher was suggesting I perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to heal cancer.
Then my teacher suggested I sing for my aunt. Not just any old song, but a tune that could breathe new life into my relationship with her. A strong believer in Nada Yoga—the branch of yoga that uses sound as a vehicle for healing and spiritual transformation—my teacher encouraged me to chant mantras, ancient Sanskrit sayings used for spiritual transformation.
“Mantras are like yoga poses,” she explained. “They have therapeutic effects on the mind, body and spirit.” She suggested that my yoga buddies and I get together for a couple of hours and chant mantras while all along keeping Donna’s well-being in our hearts and mind.
Having been introduced to chanting about 10 years ago while living in a meditation community, I experienced firsthand how singing these ancient words were uplifting. I had met a couple named Deva Premal and Miten. They were devotees of my guru Osho and well-known musicians in our guru’s ashram in India. They gave a workshop on chanting and later offered a concert. It was the first time I had ever heard of Sanskrit mantras. And that the names of ancient phrases or words sung over and over again could promote healing.
As I watched Premal and Miten perform on stage, it was as if they were all alone and that we, the audience, were just witnesses to their regular spiritual practice. “The true purpose of our music is to awaken a longing in the heart for that which is omnipresent: the experience of silence and meditation. It’s not about entertainment,” said Miten, whose spiritual name means friend of God.
Premal, whose spiritual name means divine love, says mantras are mysterious, life-changing, and have a life of their own. “[My] work is only in offering them as nourishment for the soul and connection to one’s own consciousness.
One of the mantras they sung that year is one of the most powerful mantras of them all, the Gayatri. It’s recited for the illumination of the intellect. Translated, the mantra means “May all beings on earth attain enlightenment.”
Before they sung the Gayatri, Premal urged us not to clap after they had finished, but to take the music inside ourselves and allow the words of the mantra to heal us. Premal and Miten called it “seeking solace in sound.” And that’s exactly what I discovered that day about singing mantras. Chanting the Gayatri and other mantras made me feel at peace.
After recalling this experience, I decided to invite my friends over to my teacher’s yoga studio to chant for my aunt Donna. I was still a bit skeptical of my aunt’s ability to become cancer-free through chanting, but I figured that even if her health was not restored, chanting could help resuscitate my saddened spirit so that I’d be able to offer something of value to her during my aunt’s remaining days on the planet.
On the night we chanted for aunt Donna, we played Premal’s CD, The Essence, and sung the Gayatri mantra with her. We also chanted Donna’s name and made up a little tune of our own in her honor: Breathe Donna, breathe Donna, Donna, Donna, breathe Donna. Although we were not able to sing to my aunt at the hospital, I’m certain her spirit heard our song.
When I visited her the next day, I discovered that she had not had trouble sleeping as she had most nights, and that she was in good spirits. She even removed the plastic tubing from her nose and talked to me instead of writing on a notepad.
Before returning to Chicago, my aunt Donna and I had one of the most meaningful conversations we had ever had. She shared insights about her illness, told me how proud she was that I had found my own path and urged me to always be true to myself, no matter what. A week before she died, I was able to hold my aunt in my arms and tell her just how much I loved her, and how happy I was to have had her as a role model in my life.
Chanting one of the most powerful mantras allowed my aunt to communicate with me without the aid of an oxygen tank and allowed me to speak from my heart without being inhibited by our differences. Instead of waiting until the funeral to pay my last respects, I was able to tell my aunt Donna just how much she meant to me while she was still alive.
Darlene Paris is a Chicago-area freelance writer and regular yoga practitioner.
Deva Premal and her partner in music and life, Miten, will be giving a Chant Workshop from 3 to 6 pm Sunday, Sept. 10, at YogaNow Gold Coast, 742 N. LaSalle, Chicago, and will perform a concert at The Music Institute of Chicago at 8 pm Saturday, Sept. 9, at 1490 Chicago Ave. in Evanston. Visit oshochicago.org for additional information.