I am fortunate to share the below essay that was written by a fellow yogi after her experience at the Sanskrit for Yogis workshop. She asked that her name not be used, but I'm very thankful for her words. Namaste.


Above photo: Shruti Institute presents Sanskrit for Yogis in Anchorage October 2009

I had opportunity to attend the weekend workshop; Sanskrit for Yogis. At this workshop I was introduced to the vedic chanting of the word AUM. This class was remarkable and I  was very happy that I attended. In class we practiced saying the proper pronunciation of each letter a u m.  We also chanted it together as a class. This stayed in my head for days after the class. During the class I had a hard time getting the “A” correct.  So during my morning walks I began practicing my a u m over and over for the entire 30 to 45 min walk. Over a couple of days I slowly realized a change in my thought patterns.  I even remember saying to my husband that my new word for the month is surrender, not really knowing why I said this, but we discussed what the word surrender meant to each of us.  Mostly stating that it meant to let go of worrying about things that we have no control over or things that others do and say that we do agree with.  Also during our night walks with the dogs, my husband begin saying aum with me while we walked we had fun with this so we continued to do it.
Later that week I started on my homework for this weekend yoga class, which required me to read yoga sutras 23-29 on Isvara, which translate to "The citta may be restrained by profound meditation upon God and total surrender to Him." I was profoundly surprised to feel the effect repeating aum constantly had on me, as stated it would, in the Sutras. I am now a total believer of the power of aum, I experienced that clearing of my mind.