Mantras with Lily Cushman

(upbeat music)

This is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity. (upbeat music)

Welcome to Synchronicity. My guest this week is Lily Cushman. She's got, she's been on the show before, you know her from a year ago, somewhere around there. I don't know, I've got a list in front of me of when people appeared, but Lily is on the show again. She's great, I love Lily. She's a wonderful person for many reasons, but a new book has come out and she happens to be the author of it. So that's what we talk about a little bit, but we mainly talk about mantras and what that means and how they practically relate to our lives and some of the more kind of esoteric elements of them and the etymology where it comes, where mantras come from and what they may mean and what they can do for you experientially and why they've worked for Lily.

That's I think a key component of this too is we get into this a little bit in the show that a lot of people, there's a lot of cool, mantras are cool, right? The idea that by saying some words over and over again, we can affect some type of change or use it as a tool for better understandings of ourselves or the world, that's just a cool concept inherently. But what is actually going on underneath that and why it works and then why you're attracted to it and your aspiration, which is one of my favorite words to come out of this conversation that I've been thinking about a lot subsequent to the conversation is this idea of aspiration and intention and why one finds the practice that works for them.

The thing they can't, I've talked about this before with artists, right? And Lily gets this too because she's a musician, but not everyone who makes art is going to be famous. Not everyone who makes art is going to be financially compensated in which they can earn a living for their art. And that's just them, it's the facts, the way the system's set up. However, for those of us who feel compelled to create, it is exactly that, it's a compulsion, it's something that you kind of have to do, you can't not do it, is the way I've described it in the past. And this is very similar in terms of finding a healing modality or some type of formal practice that can provide some benefit to your life.

And hopefully because your life is better, the people around you, their lives are better. So mantras is that thing for Lily that provides that stability and that thing she keeps coming back to, I guess is a good way to put it. 'Cause it works 'cause she didn't find this stuff because it sounded cool and she wanted some spells and prayers, maybe there's some, I don't know exactly all of her motivations, mine probably would have been some aspect of that. But because she was like, I need something, like I need to find something. She was in a place she describes where, she was very active with yoga, but was at a point where she couldn't physically do yoga.

So these mantras really provided kind of a life raft in a lot of ways for her and continue to. And what's cool about this is she describes it like, she didn't have to try to write the book, right? When you're living the experience, communicating it back, reflecting it back to the world, I don't wanna say it's effortless all of the time, but it shouldn't feel like something you're, oh, I gotta do this, it's a chore that I have to do. I've set myself because then I think something else is going on with that process and we can get to that another time. But generally this conversation is just a, it was a real pleasure for me to have a love connecting with Lily and just check out her book.

So speaking of book and how to check these things out, I'm doing some, I don't know if you figured this out, but I'm kind of a dope sometimes, kind of an idiot. I don't know if it shines through fully in the podcast. But I just, that's so smart sometimes. So I haven't really been checking my email lists or the website traffic for any of the sync podcasts or mine pod network. And I looked the other day, 'cause I was like, yeah, I should probably look at this. And little behold, there's people coming, there's people doing stuff, even crypto sync is having people sign up. And so my apologies for people who've been signing up for this stuff and have just been getting a whole lot of nothing back from me.

But one thing that I'm going to do on both of those sites is feature a book or a project every month. And yes, it'll be a pop-up, but once you say no or you click on it, you won't see it until next month. So it's gonna be once a month, it's gonna be a book or something that, I think it's like, I wanna feature this. And I think this is a cool way, 'cause like people are coming. I can see it in the web analytics, people are coming. So I'm gonna start showing something. And I think this is a nice way to promote people and projects that I think are doing cool things. So if you wanna check those out, you're gonna go to syncpodcast.com.

There'll be a link to that. The first one I'm doing, I'm kicking this off with Lily's book, Madras. It'll be up for the entire month of March. Are we in March 2019? If you're carrying this later, this was happening in March 2019. I'm sure the book's still on Amazon, you can go get it. If it's really in the future, maybe Amazon doesn't even exist. What would that world look like? Jeez, post apocalyptic, who knows? Okay, so that's it, that's the episode. I gave you a really nice little recap here. Thank you to everyone who's been rating and reviewing the show. I see them tick up, it makes me feel good.

That's all I gotta say about that. Game of Thrones, read by Roy Deutris. I don't have an Audible thing. This is not a promo for Audible. It's just how I actually, I've been listening to these things. Go use someone else's Audible. Duncan has one from a long time ago. Go use that to sign up and get these books. The holy shit, the books are good. Holy shit, I'm just saying. The show is good, but the show is good because they basically wrote the show with the books. Oh, yoy, George, or Martin, Game of Thrones, A Song of Ice and Fire. I'm on book two, A Clash of Kings, I'm almost done. Really, really looking forward to it.

Okay, that's it. Let's get to the episode without further ado. Here is Lily Cushman. (upbeat music) I have a lot of things to crop up when you talk. Well, let's just get started with it. Let's get started. Welcome to the show, Lily. Thank you, so nice to be back. We spoke a little bit off air right now and I kind of want to just jump on these threads here that we're talking about. A lot has happened in your life. Just since we last spoke, I don't know what, four, five major life events. Could you talk about some of them just to give people some perspective so they can jump in and realize that we're not being hyperbolic when we say major events?

Yeah, so the last time we spoke was what? It was like two years ago or something like that? Yeah, on the podcast. We spoke briefly since then, but yeah. Well, yeah, yeah. No, I mean, on the podcast. I'm not going to reference all of our private conversation. Yeah, okay. Yeah, now I've gone through this, kind of the last three, four years has been a significant amount of change in my life and a lot of tumultuous things and, you know, some changes in life are like real fun. Yeah, yeah. And then some like drag you kicking and screaming and that's sort of been a lot of what's been happening for me and, you know, like I went through a really tough divorce and a partner I'd been with for most of my adult life and taught with and then, you know, had saw the ending of a 10 year project of the Brooklyn Yoga School.

Yeah, yeah. Just recently that I finally closed. Yeah, and just tell people what that is so they know because it's particularly awesome. Yeah. Well, this was a yoga center that I started under really specific circumstances, which was that I wanted to be able to offer classical yoga in a way that was really accessible and open to everyone, especially in the climate of the sort of the commercialization of yoga that had been happening in the US for some years at that time. And so I opened a totally donation based center. And at the time it was just, it was just a big experiment. I have no idea how long it would even last or work.

There were only two other places. I'm gonna wait for that motorcycle to go by. So nice. There were only two, three other places in the country at that time that were. It's a cool, it sounds like a cool motorcycle. Yeah, no, that guy's definitely making up for something. There were only two or three places in the country at that time that were donation based. Is that right? Yeah, Brian Kest did a bunch of donation based centers. Bakti Yoga Shala, which I very warmly refer to as BYS West 'cause we have the same initials. And then yoga to the people here in New York and that had a couple locations that were donation based.

But it was really, really unusual. And on top of that, I was just interested in doing a lineage school that was based on my teacher, Dharmamitra, like his transmission of classical yoga. So that was just a really specific offering. And I thought maybe at best it would work for a year. And I just somehow managed to keep it up for almost a decade. And which was a whole journey and amazing period of my life. But I just was never interested in going outside of those parameters in order to make it work. And it was real, having a donation center is, it's like having just like a high needs child. Like it's, you really just have to feed it all the time and fight for it all the time.

And there was never a point when I made money. And that was one of the biggest things. It was part of it. It's like, I literally worked for free, like eight of those years, eight of those almost 10 years.

Yeah, of course.

You know, you can only do that so long. And I thought it just sort of came to a point where I was really tired.

Yeah, understandably so. I mean, you can do a benevolent act and give to the people. But I mean, if you're sacrificing yourself, I mean, it's not.

Yeah, and I was kind of ready to just start, you know, having those resources put towards teaching again, because holding community is a very, like that's a role that someone has to play and is really important, but that's very different than a teacher. And that's really kind of where my heart was when I started it was to teach. So yeah, so we closed last month and it was a really beautiful closing. And so that was a huge, you know, that's, I'm still--

Chapter, huge chapter.

Yeah, you're having time to fully process it, of course, it's like a major.

No, of course, yeah.

And then also this last year I wrote my first book, which was really just kind of, I mean, I'm gonna use the word synchronicity. I don't know if you know that word.

I know, it's weird. We can look it up afterwards and I'll--

Let's look it up.

Yeah, yeah, check it out later, you might like it. But that really just showed up in my life in this, like we occasionally have those moments where, you know, the doors just swing open and suddenly like, here's some goodies for you and that really is what the book felt like. So that was, you know, kind of a whole new opening and then also for the listeners out there and I don't know, I also am the director of operations for Sharon Salzberg's world and she also had a major health situation this year. So there's just been a lot of big pieces and flux and I was like talking to my, I have a astrologer that I talked to everyone.

I was gonna, it's, you know, Lily, it's so funny. 'Cause I was like, I was literally gonna ask the question later, like, do you have an astrologer or no need that you speak to just because like, it's so clearly like, I mean, it's like, how could you not look to some cosmic influence?

Oh yeah, amazing, amazing.

Yeah, no, I have this amazing Jotish astrologer, which is not the Western method, it's Vedic astrology, Marga, who's brilliant and yeah, no, I'm, I'm going through it.

Yeah.

But it's interesting because like, I think astrology as something as simple as getting the weather report for your life.

Yes, yes.

So then you know, like, okay, do I need to wear my rain boots or can I wear some sandals? 'Cause you still have to go through your life. Like it's not like you're getting, you know, a cheat out of it, but you at least know what's coming down the pipeline.

Yeah, you could be a little more prepared.

Oh really? - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, what's interesting to me about this book is that it's kind of like a reverse time thing for you because it seems like you wrote yourself a book, right? Before, not like, obviously some of these happened before, but right now when we're talking about it, when it's out, when it's out there in the world, like this is your core practice, right? I mean, this is one of them, especially, and I mean, we'll get to some of the differences, maybe between physical yoga and Asana's and breath and that practice and sound, but I mean, it's really interesting that you've manifested this book here. So I mean, like, what do you make of this?

Yes, yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, I originally, when I kind of entered the world of formal practice, it was initially through doing yoga, doing Asana, the postures, and then eventually my teacher, my first teacher, Dharmatra, who came about 10 years later after I had just studied on my own and had a daily practice for a long time, he kind of opened the doors up for me in terms of the broader philosophy and practices. And so that was like a full platter of kind of all of the tools of classical yoga, which is Pranayama, meditation, chanting, and then the philosophy of it, yamas and yamas, and then the postures.

And so for many years that I did all of those things, and that was like a period of time where I was doing upwards of three, four hours of formal practice a day.

Wow.

And that was like my ashram time.

Yeah.

I mean, I wasn't living in ashram. Yeah, but that was like I really went in. And so after that, I think I slowly just, you know, when you do practices over time, you just figure out for yourself kind of what they do and how they all fit together and what works best for what and in combination with your own tendencies, because everyone has their own, you know, their own makeup, their own internal cosmology, so to speak. So, and then I just started to, you know, after some years, I started to have some health issues, some chronic health issues, and I have a genetic anomaly in my spine that's given me chronic pain for many years.

Oh, damn. And as I was dealing with that initially, I kind of had to, it stripped away some of the practices that had kind of been more core for me, which was more of the physical stuff.

Yeah, right, right, right.

And that's when mantra kind of came front and center for me because I had a period of like about a year where I was essentially on bed rest and, you know, it was just kind of climbing out of this really low physical baseline and it took me many, many years to heal my body and get back to a point where I'm like a functional person. But at that time, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't like, oh, this is cool. I'm gonna do this to feel better. Like it was a really heavy, heavy dose of life and prior to that, I had been teaching full-time at Brooklyn Yoga School and was in like peak physical shape. I was like a professional athlete.

Like I could do any posture, I could do anything, I was teaching 25 classes a week and then I went to the other extreme. So you might imagine what that does to your heart and your mind.

Oh my God, no, it's the big blow, it's a really big blow. And just in terms of what it does to your confidence in yourself and your confidence in, you know, life.

Yeah.

And so mantras really helped me crawl out of that hole because I just, I would try all those things that I'd done before and like, it was so interesting to see like, I really was the experiment. And when you're dealing in those really dense states, dense physical states, dense emotional states, you know, the real heavy ones. You see right away what a little pranayama is gonna do or what a little meditation's gonna do. Like, right, right, right. Like it either pulls you out of the hole or it doesn't. And mantras did. It was the one thing that did. And I kind of jokingly, 'cause I don't always speak about, you know, I tend to be a little private with my health.

Yeah.

So I don't often share all of these details, but I do tell people like, yeah, mantras the thing I do when nothing else works. And that came out of this period of several years where quite literally like nothing else worked. And so that started a really deep relationship for me of kind of taking another look at these things and the world of mantras and really leaning on them for my life. And as I kind of rebuilt physically and, you know, moved back into, you know, being a person in the world and starting to work with Sharon and then go back to teaching. I think I was really changed. And so when I went to write the book, it was so interesting 'cause it's just in me.

And because it's something that has been such a necessity for me, so it was really fun and actually kind of easy to write it because this is just what I do. Like I didn't have to like--

It's real, it's authentic. Yeah, yeah, you're not like, what do I write about now? Yeah.

And the book goes through a lot of, it covers a lot of territory. It's really like a handbook. But there at the very end of it is this kind of fun list of like creative ways that you can use mantra throughout your day. And that list, that's all stuff I do. Like it's not like, oh, what's a good way to do mantra? No, like those are literally things I've done for years. And I actually had to edit the list down from a larger list. (laughs)

That's good to have a list so long, it's awesome.

Yeah, yeah, and so that was really cool to see because like I think for me that was a, it was kind of just a natural gradual expansion into like really integrating that practice through all of me that you don't notice so much because it happens gradually. So seeing something like that list was like, oh, that's cool.

Yeah, yeah, you've like acquired all of these cool neat little tricks and skills. So what is it about mantra and sacred sound and sound just in general that you think, I mean, I know you have the experiential, just like this is what worked for me, but you've been doing it now and the cool thing with the practice where it's not just like, I like to listen to music every day. It's like you get this opportunity like a mindfulness practice. I mean, it is a mindfulness practice to recognize these changes both in the moment but over time kind of cumulatively. So like what do you have any like insights into what it is about how this works or why it works that at least for you has been so like powerful as an ally?

Well, I think I'll start by saying, I think it's good to just kind of define what practice is because so many people teach about different practices and it's a little wiggly sometimes how that gets defined.

A little.

A little, yeah, a little. We'll go with a little.

We'll be nice.

Yeah, we'll be generous.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, it's especially now in like the world of like Instagram teachers, like please don't believe everything you hear, you know, please do not. So to like go back to just like a simple core definition of kind of what a practice like this is for and like why you would even do it and what's that includes mantra, that includes meditation, it includes yoga, mindfulness, all these different things.

Yeah.

Is you're really training the mind and some of them you're also training the body but you're building this skill set with the mind and it's not about generating like ecstatic blissful states. It's not about trying to change the circumstances of your life with like a magic silver bullet.

Yeah, like a spell.

Yeah. It really is learning how to work with the mind in a way that you can be more connected, that you can kind of open into a deeper place in yourself and interact with your life in that way. So a lot of the, in my book, there's just kind of a broad introduction to mantra in different cultures but then right away there's a whole chapter that's just about practice because you first have to kind of lay that groundwork like what even is this? What is this for? And that's a, you could apply that all those same things to other practices but it's really important to set that as the context because I think a lot of people come to a practice because they've tried a lot of other things that haven't worked and they're just having a hard time in life.

They're miserable, they keep having bad relationships or they keep trying to get a certain job and they're not or hardship is just happening and they don't know how to deal with it. So practice isn't about forcing yourself to do something, it's not about becoming someone else. It really is working with the mind in such a way that you become more you and you can relax and enjoy things more and sort of like be more human in a lot of ways. So there's some core skills of concentration and compassion that come out of that but that's our context.

Right, right, we're actually setting in a dungeon with the practice and what it's--

Practical use could be too, right?

Yeah, so we don't have some bizarre expectation about what we think this is gonna do. And in the West, it's a very, we're culturally trained to look through a binary lens of good and evil and that's got a lot of issues with it, as I'm sure you know, but--

Oh yeah, yeah, just a--

One of them is just like, we think of undertaking something like this to get some like cookie or some reward at the end of the day-- - Yeah, yes, yes.

So it takes a little bit to kind of step out of that model and shift into another place where it's more process-oriented and less goal-oriented.

And that's a really interesting point too because it teaches you to kind of learn how to be with what is rather than expectations or you know, and that's, I don't want that to be overlooked because it is this idea of what we're doing this to get this and if I do these things then good things will happen to me. My feeling on this is that good things will happen to you. So we'll bad things, so we'll neutral things like it's life. This is how it works and there's some very awesome mysterious and you know, things behind this of course, but to think that we're going to be casting some like incantation and then magically booms will appear for us, that could happen, but that might have happened anyway.

So using this as kind of a tool for knowing how to sit with the bad shit too is to me like, you know, I've done so many of these episodes and spoken to so many people who do a lot of different things, modalities for healing and just overcoming this stuff. And you realize that the people who really seem to have latched on or like found something that they're really sharing authentically, aren't the people who did it because they wanted to be wealthy? Aren't the people who did it because they wanted more power to be known or famous? It's the people who are basically like hitting rock bottom or bouncing off of rock bottom so many times that they're like, yeah, I found this thing and it actually helped me.

And paradoxically, but a lot of time I think these practices also just reveal who we are, that idea of what you're saying that you kind of relax into you. Like that's us, that's kind of always eternally there. And if these practices help us get there, that's like an amazing tool. So I love that you bring that up.

Yeah, and it's interesting to see, you know, I often then ask the question like, well, why is it that people who hit rock bottom are the ones who can kind of move outside of their conditioning? And I think it's just so because of the nature of how the mind works, that it's just so difficult to kind of take apart the structures of our conditioning that it often takes something that kind of blows that all apart, which is, you know, for people hitting a rock bottom, like really losing something that maybe their identity was built on, whether that's like a career falling apart or a relationship falling apart or encountering death, all those things.

I think it kind of, it fractures the bedrock of our identity in such a way that then we can start to ask some questions. Like, is that really who I am? And that is one of the beauties of formal practices. It gives us a space in which we can ask those questions because it's just not built into our lives. Otherwise, you know, we're just in motion so much of the time. So it's pretty remarkable to get in there. And, you know, I think people are often a little shocked when they first turn and look inward. It's like, whoa, this show is real fucked up. But once you kind of get through some of that initial, just like, what's going on in here to then just start asking for yourself, these, you know, really big timeless questions of like, what is meaningful and what is lasting and what really matters to me outside of all these things I've been taught and told.

And so that's a really beautiful path of seeking that comes kind of, I think, naturally, regardless of what practice you might be doing, that some of the best parts of it and to just discover for yourself. And then you can, you know, you can kind of reroute your life in a way that is connected to that. So when I talk about like that these practices connect you, the first thing that connect you to is yourself.

Yes. - Yes, yes, yes. That is, you know, not something we're taught in preschool. But that I often think of is the root of a lot of unhappiness because people don't even know what they even really like. You know, they've never even had that space to just ask those questions. So it's cool, 'cause like you can do something as simple as like, oh, I'm gonna do some Sri Ram Jay Ram Jay Jay Ram.

Right. - And after some time, after a year, like a lot of pieces are shifting around. So yeah, that's like my, I'm a fan of practice, I'm a fan of practice.

Well, it's interesting to me too because I, you know, I'm a very big Carl Jung fan and managed to get through a lot of his denser stuff on the unconscious and, you know, his stuff relating to complexes and archetypes and projection, at least for me, when my mind was still developing when it was like 16 to 18 and taking psychedelics, which is a hell of a time to read Jung, it became clear to me that like, this is really true. Like our unconscious, the things below our threshold of what we process on a regular day, things we can find in dreams perhaps, but that really runs our life. Like we like to think that we're doing everything.

Oh yes, I will do this and this will happen, which is why we're so often caught off guard by momentous shifts or things like that. And clearly there are events that you can't see coming, right? But for the most part, I tend to think that we really do have this kind of deeper level of understanding that kind of dictates an activity that dictates kind of how our life looks. And from my own experience with mantra, you know, since I really committed to doing the Hanuman to Lisa every day and did it for like, geez, four or five years, like every day straight. And that's a real, it was probably the only time I stuck to a real practice.

I noticed that it tended to quiet down. Like you said, and I'm glad you pointed this out. Once in a while I'd get into like a very blissful and ecstatic state and it was wonderful. But a lot of the time it was just kind of clearing the space for me to like hear what was actually going on internally. And then letting me like kind of get a glimpse, maybe not the full picture, but a glimpse of what is exactly. So yeah, it really resonates to me when you talk about that. So what practices do you do that you find to be particularly effective for you?

Well, I have also gravitated towards the Hanuman chalisa for a long time. And for people out there who have no idea what that word is, it's a longer prayer that is quite popular in certain circles. We're kind of part of, there's a certain circle of, I mean, you always find communities in different worlds of seekers and spiritual communities. But this is all centered around Guru named Karole Baba, also known as Maharaje, who is the Guru to Ram Das and Krishna Das and many others. And that has been a real home base for me for a long time, that community. And I spent chunks of time in India and Kenchi.

And so the Hanuman chalisa is kind of one of the core practices out of that world. And yeah, I think for me, I entered into the flow of that practice long before I really understood what it was. I was just really drawn to it. And when I first started working with mantras, I had this like funny aversion to, I did not want to know what they meant. I just did not want to know.

That's kind of cool.

Literally, I would be singing like omni-mashi-vaya had no fucking clue what I was saying. And I loved it.

I used to do that too. Isn't that fun? I did it in college. That's when I was doing omni-mashi. I did a whole song about it. It's like one of the only songs I ever finished. Back then, like eight minutes, electronic song where I took Chila Chandra. Yeah, so funny, so funny. Had no idea what it meant.

No idea. And I think, you know, like the most obvious reason is that I didn't want to engage that part of my mind. But I also, I think that for me, and especially since I am a lifelong musician, like I'm tuned into music in a certain way. I understand, you know, the just the experiential power of the difference between a major chord and a minor chord. And there's a whole world you can open into of how the like sonics and frequencies and vibrations, just what they do. So when you're listening to like Britney Spears' toxic, what that does to you physiologically, as opposed to listening to like, you know, Chopin or something.

So when I was doing the mantras, like that was sort of the lens through which I approached them initially. And I have a certain trust in music because of that. So it was cool with me to just like, I'm going to say this and I would sing along with things. And I think that's kind of a fun way to approach it actually because the reality is mantra practice primarily, what we know of mantra practice primarily comes from the Eastern traditions. And there are plenty of other mantra practices from around the world and many different traditions. But this was the one I was drawn to, but like it's a little weird to just like go and somebody else's culture knock on the door and be like, hey, can I borrow this and take it out?

Oh, you think it's weird really.

It's actually not, I think we have a mountain of evidence to the contrary that a lot of people don't think that's weird. I agree, it's weird, I totally agree. But yeah, I'm with you on that.

A little weird. I mean, because, you know, like you don't know what that culture is, like, so you're saying omnimashibai and you're saying like, I bow to the inner line or I bow to Shiva, but like who is Shiva? And in the Hindu pantheon, there's a whole lineage. There's a whole, like these deities are different archetypes and it took me many, many, many years to kind of approaching that and being with it in a way, kind of figuring out how to bring it back to my context and not just like, you know, steal it. And stealing it, yeah, which is what happens, unfortunately, a lot of the time, it's exoticizing, you know, other things.

And it's many, it's perilous traps abound with that type of thing. But I mean, and it does take years usually to fully like, or not even fully, just like to start to understand the context of what this is and how you can effectively bring it back for yourself. Yeah, no, totally, totally, totally, totally.

Yeah, so, and especially when you're drawn somewhere, I think a lot of people have this experience in different ways where they'll kind of just feel at home somewhere that isn't their native environment, whether it's like, oh, I really love, you know, Thai food or something, like, I don't know, some of that's just like a little mysterious, why we're drawn to certain things. And so I was very drawn to, you know, some of the Indian culture surrounding these mantras, but it took me a lot of time to unpack it. And there are a lot of things about Indian culture that I'm really not cool with, like at all.

So to kind of navigate that and just, you know, it takes time to be able to kind of understand the context of something like that enough that you can successfully translate it out into your own verbiage and your own mythology.

Yes, yes, yes.

So yeah, so I was singing the Hanuman Chilisa for a long time, though, without knowing what the fuck I was saying or doing or what it meant or anything. And it was just something that felt really calming and steadying to me. And it's not an easy practice to undertake. It's very, you know, it's like, at best, it's gonna take you like 10 minutes to just like your way through it 'cause it's not a simple, you know, most mantras are short and this is a longer prayer. So, but I just kind of went for it. And, you know, when you find something that works, like, you know, terribly need to know why. You just, you put your energy towards like, "Great, this helps, I'm gonna do it."

And then I kind of got more and more into the, like, I would say with other mantras, I've kind of just gone through different periods where for a long time, omni-mashivaya was a big one for me. And later I kind of shifted into a lot of the worlds of the different goddesses. And now I think about all of those different mantras as like I've spent enough time in a lot of them that it's like opening a medicine cabinet and picking up.

I was gonna say, yeah, yeah, it's like, you know, you've taken a lot of mushrooms and you get that signal that it's like, I think I don't need mushrooms really. Like, I get it, like, maybe I can go back at certain times if I want to, but I'm good on this. I'm like, did you kind of want to--

Gotta go back at different times.

Yeah, yeah, you know, put on the mushrooms, gotta throw it, hey.

But yeah, and now, so if, so I sort of, I have core practices, mantras that I do every single day, no matter what, but then I have a period beyond that that's, you know, maybe depending on time anywhere from like 20 minutes to a couple hours every day where I'll fill that with the mantras that feel the most appropriate for whatever's happening in my life that day, if I need something that's like, you know, a lot of like healing, a lot of holding, a lot of stability or expansion and clarity. And you know, that's what's really fun about mantras is there's kind of something for everything.

Well, and you glossed, not to cut you off, but you glossed over something that I think some people will probably miss, many of my male brethren, is that you're dropping into an intuitive faculty there when you're trying to figure out like what feels right and what you should be doing. And that's something that I think can easily get lost with a lot of this is trying to sense that out, you know, is not something that always comes naturally to people, but is certainly a muscle worth exercising regularly, like any other practice, 'cause you can get a lot of like wisdom and insights from doing that, not to mention if you can feel your way into that and incorporate it into your practice, like it can be very healing.

So that's cool.

That's huge. And I think, yeah, there's a lot of just horrendous conditioning for people who sit on the masculine side of the equation in our culture who have been deeply disconnected for a long time from the inner because of, you know, just how they were taught to behave, to get the cookie when they were kids. So, and I would say there are, you know, regardless of your gender, like that process of coming into practice and connecting with yourself. It's something to really, I think we said this before, but it's easy to gloss over, like you said just now. That's a big deal. That's a big deal to figure out how to sit with yourself and be with yourself because it's out of that, that this relationship kind of opens up that we can trust our own experiences, that we can feel into that like gut sense of, you know, a yes or a no or maybe.

Yes, yes.

And I think that in fact is one of the most empowering parts of undertaking a practice like this, that no one can take away from you. Like, no one can tell you like, oh, actually that thing you're doing isn't good for you. Like once you know, you know, no one can take that from you.

It's funny because like, the how much at least it to me is loaded for many reasons that have happened in my life and for some reason, so I hadn't actually done it for a few months, but right before our call, I was like, oh, dust it off. See if I still remember it and I did. And I was like, you know, it's one of these things that even if I wanted to discard from my life, like I don't think I can. And it's like, it's a much more deeply resonant thing. It's not just that like, yeah, I'll use it when it's appropriate and give me this. It's like, nah, this is part of you. This is something that's actually happening here.

Yeah, it's very interesting.

Yeah, so and I think like, it's fun to kind of try things out on that level because of course in our culture, we're in such a place of kind of immediate, you know, goal orientation. And so the lens through which often people are assessing things is like, does this make me feel a certain way right now?

Right.

And the reality is, is it takes, there's different levels on which a practice or mantra practice in particular is gonna affect you. And some of them are working on such a deep level that even the means through which you're assessing, whether it's working for you is being transformed. So that's kind of cool because like, I think at first, it's like, yeah, you're looking at obvious things and you're not gonna keep doing something that doesn't feel good enough, right?

Right, right, right. But once you have some confidence in the practice that it is having that kind of effect, I think it's really helpful to kind of put down the assessment for some time and just say like, okay, I'm gonna try this for a month and then see, see what's up, see what's changed, see what's different. And you use yourself and your life as the lab to really experiment with.

Yeah, you're empirically testing it.

Yeah, you're testing it.

And the reality is the place you're looking for those results is not inside the practice. You're looking at your life. So that I think is one of the biggest issues with any of our assessment tools is like, we're looking at that five minutes.

Yeah.

But that's not where you're gonna see it.

Right, right, right.

Yeah, you're gonna see it when you lose your shit at the post office.

Yeah, like that 100% is the place to go if you wanna see if your practice is working. You go, especially if it's during the holidays.

Well in New York, I mean, it's like, it's the next level experience. It really feels like a layer of hell. It is just, yeah.

Fully.

Acutely.

So what do you think, I mean, we'll get into speculation, Bill, a little bit, but what do you think is happening on either a physiological, a psychological, a psychic, a emotional level when we use mantra as a practice? What is the mechanism there?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, well, the first thing I'll say is that mantras are different from regular words and on the outside to see someone reciting a mantra, it's very deceiving 'cause it just looks like, you know, maybe you're singing or maybe you're just chanting something, maybe you're speaking it. But what's fascinating is it isn't actually the same thing as just saying like, flaxseed. Omnomashivaya has something else going on. And one of the, there's a whole chapter in my book about scientific research around mantra practice, which covers a variety of things, but one of the studies I call the Santa Claus study, which speaks to this very thing.

And in the study, they did a comparison between using mantra versus using a regular word. And so they had people, this is a little complicated, but I'll try to explain it in the best way. So they had people look at a neutral photo and then a difficult photo. And then they had people do those two things saying a regular word. Now, why they chose the word Santa Claus? I don't know exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

'Cause honestly, that's a pretty loaded word.

I was gonna say like, it's culturally super loaded. Like I'm Jewish, it's even loaded for me. Like, I mean, yeah. And so then they would look and see like what happens in the body, in the brain when they say Santa Claus looking at something neutral or something that's difficult. And the idea being that when you see a picture, like the mind thinks it's the same as though you're in a situation that's either neutral or difficult. So they do that with Santa Claus. They see, they get their baseline. And then they have the same process, but reciting a mantra. And they see something very different happen.

They see actually that for the neutral photo, the same thing happens as when someone says Santa Claus. But in the difficult one, when the people said the mantra instead, the body and brain did the same thing as when they looked at the neutral.

The neutral, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That is fascinating. Because what the fuck is that?

What does that mean? Like we can say certain, what, like, huh? This is so interesting to me.

Yeah.

So I think part of it is hard to really understand because like we don't know what the fuck is happening. So I'm gonna try to stop swearing.

No, you can swear as much. Are you kidding me?

Every single one of these episodes is explicit. Like they're all from my intros.

No, but once I get on the tear, I'll really be like a sailor, so.

Yeah, you should be around here and see what's gonna happen to my kid.

Yeah, I mean.

Yeah. But I think that's really interesting 'cause like that makes no sense in the normal framework. Like why would one word do something different? And presumably a word like, I mean, people have different meaning attached to different words. But that's just fascinating. So when you go back to the culture around Sanskrit mantras, which is the book focuses on Sanskrit mantras from the Hindu tradition. So I kind of went back deep, deep, deep in that framework to look at how they explain the difference. And the Hindu world has a lot of, I mean, like many religions and many cultures. If you go back and look at some of the like original source mythologies, it's often super fantastical and makes no sense in terms of like modern science.

But basically in that culture, they feel like mantras are... That they were sung by sort of the, how do I say this? That's the best way to say this. Like in that world, it kind of sources back to the creation mythology. And in that creation story, the mantra plays a very key role in the actual formation of the universe, which is the sound of Om.

Yes, and just to draw the parallels in the Abrahamic religions as well, right? Those words, Yahweh, those things are considered and the voice, first there was the voice, the sound was God, right?

Yeah. So yeah, so in the Hindu tradition, it's thought that the creation of the universe sprang forth from almost like the friction of the vibration of the sound of Om, and from that all of life came. So where does Om come from then? Like, so that's one thing to think about. And then also in that world, there's a whole idea that the universe was kind of dreamed into existence by these ancient seers, these ancient rishis, they're called. And that they were kind of so dialed in that they would hear these mantras. And so that doesn't explain anything to us, obviously, like that's fascinating. But it doesn't quite explain like, well, what's the difference?

And I just kind of love that because there's gotta be something there. I mean, this is the story of Om. It's like over 5,000 years old. They're saying that Om is like the first written record of Om is older than the woolly mammoth. Yeah, like it's very old. So I think that's always interesting when something stuck around as long as that, because it adds some veracity to it for me. 'Cause like, if it wasn't true, why would people keep, 'cause every time it gets sort of passed through another generation, they're gonna take another look, be like, really? Well, this is like the age old jumping off point or like staying on board point for a lot of people, which is like, like my dad is a really good example.

My dad believes in a lot of wild stuff, but he jumps off the train sometimes with Buddhism and Hinduism, because it seems so fantastical, like how could these people know it? Whereas when I bumped up against that, you know, when I was, I'd vied to Vedanta or Tibetan Buddhism, I dig in deep. I'm like, how are they saying this is real? Like, where is this coming from? Like, who is this being tracked back to? And not that different of a way, like if I'm seeing like a political ad or something like that, like who's funding this? Where is this coming from? Like who's the originator? Like, I wanna know, like, because this is how you develop your powers of like discerning.

So I personally, and I think a lot of listeners of this podcast would probably be like us where it's like, you know, I am willing to accept some of these things, even not fully knowing every intricate aspect of it, because like, I don't think the Dalai Lama's con in us. Like, I just don't, it doesn't add up to me. Like, it's like weird, it's like a really weird long time. So, I do, I mean, it's good that you bring that up, but I also think that like, you know, home and these kind of deep mythologies that are associated with these, like there's resonance there for a reason. Yeah, yeah. And I'm kind of playing devil's advocate, because I think that helps people approach mantra practice in a way they wouldn't otherwise, because even though I'm like fully into it, I just, I, I, and after working with students for so long, like I see that not everybody feels right at home there.

So is there a way to access this as a practice, you know, without those elements? And I think the answer that I kind of land on of like a more palatable response to like, well, what is the difference between this word and that word? Is that mantras have this kind of supercharged element to them where it activates certain things when they are repeated with concentration, with intention, something else kicks in. And I love this example that I've heard Krishna Das use for many, many years, which is that you don't see that many enlightened pop stars, musicians who go on stage night after night after night, singing the same song hundreds of thousands of times.

Very interesting, yes.

They're repeating it over and over.

Over and over and over.

And you know the hook, they're, at least in one song, they're saying like, you know, like thank you next, like whatever, 30 times in one song. And are they kidding these other benefits? And most of the time they seem super duper fucked up to me.

Yeah.

So that is very interesting 'cause that's probably the closest next example there is to someone who's repeating a mantra as a word. So yeah, it's like there's something else going on. There's like a activation. And I would say from my own personal experience that I've gotten to the point where I can feel a qualitative difference between what that activation is about. So they kind of, it's like they carry different frequencies in them, so to speak. And I think the fun part for people is to find that for yourself and see if that's true. I mean, that's always how I introduce practice to people. It's like, don't believe me, like check it out for yourself.

Yeah, yeah.

So.

Yeah, and that's kind of the fun, I think, of life or one of the qualities that we get to enjoy is like finding whether it's a mantra, a person, a community, an interest, a passion, like you get to find what's for you. Like that's awesome. That's really cool. It would totally suck if it's 1984 and we're all wearing suits of the same color. Like no one wants that. No, and I mean, I think that's really important too. And it also opens up or invites people to be a little more patient with some of these experiences and modalities we're talking about just because you may have to move through a few of them.

I mean, to this day, the only two mantras that have stuck with me firmly are, like I said, the Hanuman Chilisa, which is longer, and on Money Pimmi Home. Those are the only ones that really stuck with me and they don't stick with me because I think there's some magical divination prayers, but because when I chant them or say them, it qualitatively calms me down in situations. And it's not all the time I do that when I'm stressed out, but when it does feel like it bubbles up and percolates up, like it does have an experienced quality to it that is undeniable. You can't trick that. It's very interesting.

Yeah, and I think the more you do it and throw down at different times in your life whether there's different stakes at hand, you start to trust it more and more. And certainly for me, when I really went down and had this hard health stuff, the fact that that could pull me out was, that was really meaningful to me because it wasn't like, oh, this makes me feel calm and like I'm having a normal life right now. Like it was hard.

Yeah.

And none of the other practices had the same effect. So, you know, since that time and even in this past year since I last came on the podcast, I really looked to mantras as a pretty consistent support for my life. And just even when I know something's coming down the pipeline like, you know, two months ago knowing that I would be releasing a book and closing a studio, I knew it was gonna be hard on a lot of levels. I knew it was gonna be emotionally a lot. I knew that it was gonna be taxing in different ways. And I wanted to be able to move through that period, kind of bolstered. And so I undertook some practices beforehand that took me through and I'll do cycles of let's say 40 days where I was like, okay, we're gonna bolster.

We're gonna, you're gonna set up more of a perimeter for yourself psychically, energetically, emotionally so that your heart is protected, your mind is protected, your body is protected, that you have some deeper sense that you can lean into, especially when it's those big identity pieces moving in your life, like those shifts happen and they rock us the most. So to have something else to lean into when those shifts are taking place.

Like a question, yeah, such a good crutch, it's amazing.

Yeah, yeah.

And then like when shit got even harder, spent about that was really, really glad that I had that and just like kept reaching to it. And so that's beautiful. And part of that too is, I think, letting our aspiration to be able to walk through life in an open-hearted way, in a calm way. Like there's a lot of power in that and people often overlook that because they don't necessarily understand its magnitude, but even having an aspiration, that means something. And that's like, that's such a like a core barometer that we can live our life by.

It's interesting, 'cause I don't think I use that word enough aspiration. I think I use intention a lot, but you can have bad intentions. It's like a popular turn of phrase. I mean, so aspiration, I mean, hopefully people aren't aspiring on Ted Bunny, I'm aspiring to be the best serial killer, but for most people aspiration will probably have some like positive quality embedded in it for yourself or for the world. And that's, I'm gonna start bringing that into my life. It's gone a little bit more, it's wise, that's cool.

Well, I think of aspiration as orientation. And that's really essential because even if you're, way down in the deep end of the pool, if you know what your orientation is, that you know you wanna turn around and come back, like that can be the whole movement of your life. And that's really different because like on the outside, yeah, you're down in the deep end of the pool, but if you're aspiring to be a certain way, let's say your orientation is kindness, that doesn't mean you're gonna not lose your shit at the post office. But it's gonna change the way that moment happens. And maybe you lose your temper, but you apologize after or you get frustrated, but you don't stay frustrated quite as long because you're looking towards kindness.

Now, if you're looking towards something else, you're gonna move in that direction too.

Yes, yes.

So that's the beauty of aspiration I think of. And I think often when I'm counseling students who are going through really hard things or feel disempowered to make the changes they want in their life, I point them to that because it is actually a big deal and that we can have some authority over our lives, even if it's a small little step of like, okay, I'm gonna be gentle with myself today 'cause things are just real tough. I'm gonna do one little thing to be kind to myself and maybe I'll find one other person. That's like taking your power in your own hands, even if you have a really big mountain to climb, it will get you there eventually.

Well, I was gonna say like, what if you were your student, which you are, what would you be telling yourself, you know, having gone through especially this acute period of transition, whether it's you wanna say the last month or year, like what would you say to yourself to do this, to get through this or, yeah.

Well, one of the things that came to me as in this past month, which involved a lot of sleep deprivation among other things.

That's effective in its own way, yeah.

But I had this intuition that if I could relax my body that I would somehow make it through. And so I texted a couple of my closest friends and I asked them to text me, the phrase relax your body, whenever they thought of me in the day. And this was in like the most acute, you know, like in the hospitals, et cetera, et cetera.

Yeah, yeah.

And what that did is it triggered a softening in me whenever I would read it and--

What a cool idea. What a, this was like, this was a woe, this was a big woe for me because every single time. And so I last three of them. And so I got a lot every day.

I was gonna say I bet. I mean, I'm like, that's a really, it's cool.

And it was, once I thought I knew what to do. I knew like, okay, like, and the goal was that I was trying to be gentle with myself. And it was like, you have to walk through this. This is a lot. You've not done this before. So you don't know how to do it. It was all these things, scary and frightening and exhausting. And yet if I could just be gentle, that was coming back to my orientation. And so it was pretty powerful for me. And honestly, like, saved me a lot because part of it too is just on a practical level of resources when you can relax your body. It's like, you know, you run a little less on your adrenals.

You kind of like, just in terms of physiological stuff, it pulls you down a little from the flight or flight.

Yeah, yeah, right, yeah.

Right, or right, response. And so your body is like a little, you know, it's able to function a little better. And so yeah, relax your body is like my new favorite thing.

I like it, I like it a lot. My, I probably am going edibles, but you think your idea is a little bit better. So, you know, both, whatever, whatever seems fancy there.

Do each her own.

Yeah, there you go. Lily, I mean, I feel like we could talk from--

We could talk so hard.

I know, we like, it's so good.

It's pretty awesome, but I'm gonna wrap it up. Yeah, you'll get the kids soon. But I wanna ask you my ending questions. Oh, before I get there, hold on, hold on.

I know it, but can you just say the name of your book? There'll be links of course, but we haven't even mentioned the name of your book.

Yeah, yeah.

It's called A Little Bit of Mantras, and it's available everywhere that books are sold. I walked into Barnes & Nobles a few days ago, and it was on like the first table when I walked in the door. It was crazy.

That's so fucking cool.

Yeah, and the book comes with a whole practice companion, which is a really robust resource. There's 13 mantras in the book. For each one, there's the mythology, there's application, and then in the practice companion, there's all these resources, so you can learn how to draw the mantras. There's audio to learn the pronunciation. There's even fun like screen savers for your phone.

Oh, awesome.

Yeah, it's pretty fun.

Is there a reason you picked 13 for the amount?

That is another podcast.

Okay, amazing. We're setting it up. That's called a cliffhanger, we're calling the biz. Let's get to the ending questions here. What is your favorite color?

Oh, well, I kind of go for like a blue turquoise these days.

Yeah, yeah, that's a good one. What's your favorite number?

I would say it's kind of a tie between 108 and three.

Very cool, well, those are good things to be tied, to be honest, those are really good ones. What is your favorite animal?

Oh man, that's so tough. I mean, it's probably a cat, but I send like hundreds of cat memes to my friends every day on it.

Cats are really awesome. I like them on Reddit. There's some really good stuff on Reddit.

Oh yeah, oh yeah.

Last question, even though you've been sharing dozens of them throughout the episode, what's a practical tip that's helped you in your life that you could share with people listening?

A practical tip for what?

Anything, that's the beauty of the question. Duncan went with socks, he's like, "Get good socks." That was literally his tip.

Oh, that's so good.

Yeah. Let me ponder that first, let me ponder.

I set you up with the simple ones and then hit you with this. That's how I do it.

Yeah.

I think a nice one is to just give yourself permission. For whatever it is, for being yourself, for whatever it is you want to do, to eat the cookie, to get the nice socks, give yourself permission. Yeah, give yourself permission.

That's really awesome. Lily, thank you so much for coming on. I'm sure you things will just be getting better and better. Your astrologer can confirm this, look it up. Pretty sure. Awesome, really, really great.

All right, that's the level, we'll talk soon.

All right, bye-bye. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)

Thank you for listening past the music. Lily Cushman, you can find her at lilycushman.com. Go figure. You can also get her new book, A Little Bit of Mantras. You can find that on her website, on Amazon. You can also get it now, like I said, featured book of the month, sinkpodcast.com. It's there, go check it out, see if it works, tell me if it doesn't work, it should work. Lily, always a joy. You might've heard mentioned in the episode, Sharon Salzburg had some medical issues last month, and she's doing better. It was a very harrowing experience for everyone, Lily included, but send lots of meta, loving kindness, prayers, thoughts, Sharon's way.

I know a lot of people think those things don't matter, they matter. So do that, maybe, before your meditation practice, or as a prompt to meditate when you think of Sharon. There you go. That's it for this episode, got, I'm about to actually jump on another podcast, right after I'm finished recording that. So we definitely have episodes for the few next few weeks, cool people, I can attest to that, 'cause I know some of them, about to happen, very shortly. All right, I'll see you next week. Lincoln Tech provides career training that keeps America working. At Lincoln's Meanwhile campus, you don't just sit in a classroom, you train in fully equipped labs, work with industry leading technology, and learn the skills that hiring managers are looking for.

With personalized support and connections to top employers, your future in fields like advanced manufacturing with robotics, automotive, electrical, HVAC, and welding starts the day you enroll. Visit LincolnTech.edu for details.