Soham or Sohum (सो ऽहम् so ‘ham or so ‘Hum) is a Hindu mantra, meaning “I am He/That” in Sanskrit.
From Wikipedia
In a previous post (meditation as a cure to depression) I wrote about a meditation mantra I have now followed for 4 weeks, pretty much since beginning of Covid isolation time. This morning, after waking up (and watching the stars to check more or less what time it was – I’ll talk about that another time, really nice btw) I went back to my bed and started my morning meditation. Ok pause there. I never thought in my life I would say “I had my morning meditation”, wow, how things can change. Good change.
Back to the mantra, this session was 7 – 21:
Sooooo: you breathe in for 7 counts
Hummm: you breathe out for 21 counts.
I started with lower ratios, 2 in 2 out, 4 in 4 out, then after a while 6 in 18 out, 10 in 10 out. This mantra is supposed to make you control your breathing, go deep into your breathing pattern, and focus. A professor’s lecture I found on youtube explains really well what focus means, and what meditation is about. I highly recommend to listen to it: Dr. Denise Compton, clinical psychologist, at the UAMS Reynolds Institute on Aging.
One thought after another: that for me is meditation for now. Forget about not thinking, for every 5 seconds of meditation I am happy if one thought only has surfaced. This is progress, my friend, let me tell you!
So, while I was meditating this morning I thought (right..) that I would want to write down my incoming thoughts in my diary, and share them with me (and you). More than that, I want to observe as they go through my mind, and understand why some thoughts are recurring every morning, and what the subconscious (or whatever we want to call it, help me find a name, ’cause I don’t think it’s that “sub”conscious) tells me. The more I meditate, the more I enter in a space within me, where my “me” talks to my other “me”. Of course I am one, but part of my one is separated, and I start thinking that this separation is ancestral, that it’s due to survival, evolution, a mechanism that self ignites when things go bad. It’s as uncontrollable as the heart beating; it’s so powerful because it is still us, but we don’t have easy access to it. And all the daily noise, the hustle and bustle, the modern life, the inputs we receive every single day, the influence our peers have on us, the social obligations, the moral constraints, the religious beliefs, the subjective elements of our own cultures, etc.. make us strain from that “me” that is there but hardly audible. No wonder that the rare people in this world who are able to really control their mind (and heart, remember Siddharta?) are the monks in the isolated monasteries. And that’s where many of us strive to go, to regain control of our life. I haven’t thought about this until recently, when a German Couchsurfing friend visited me just before the Covid lockdown, after spending 6 months in a monastery.
All that to say, I am starting to appreciate meditation, and the change it can bring me. This powerful method takes definitely longer (a lifetime of constant practice?), but I believe it can heal depression. It can actually avoid it. It can make us resilient. Meditation, yoga, psychological sessions with a pro…, whatever makes us go inside instead of outside helps. And now that I am not depressed, and that this lockdown is giving me a monastery-like environment (I see nobody, I don’t go out, I am with myself), I want to take advantage of this situation and meditate, learn about myself.
Diary of a Depression Fighter 