If you are a yoga student, teacher or a student of Vedanta, this mantra will probably be very familiar to you. Recited at the beginning of classes, it is an extraordinary prayer by both teacher and student to be blessed with protection, nourishment and a luminous study together, overcoming all obstacles along the way.
Here, we break this mantra down in full detail so you can learn it!
First of all, download the text along with its meaning here:
You can repeat after me and learn the recitation of this mantra here:
Saha nāvavatu - repeat twice after teacher
For our more advanced students who are used to a syllable by syllable break up of the pronunciation, this short video will give you all the details of the Vedic phonetics involved in the recitation. You can see our famous colour coded pronunciation guide under the video!
Keep going back to the audio practice above to refine any corrections you may need to do after learning the Vedic phonetics in detail!
This video is a little extract from one of my classes in Brussels, explaining briefly the meaning and purport of this mantra.
And finally, my most favorite recitation of this mantra, my Veda chanting teacher, Guruji Sreenivasan and his brilliant daughter (who has been chanting since she was 2 years old!). Enjoy the clarity, the power, the truth and light in this recitation.
Namaste Shantala
Your blog has been very encouraging and motivating for me , as a infant beginner to vedic chanting. In your video explaining the saha navavatu mantra, you mentioned that tapas can become our own obstacle – could you explain this further please ?
Thank you
Bharathi
Dear Bharati, I’m glad the course has been useful! Our teachers present tapas as a prayerful discipline. Tapas is doing something beyond our comfort zone in order to transform, but sometimes we can take it too far to a point where the tapas itself is causing harm. For example, someone practising “mouna” – silence, but in a household environment – becomes angry at others in the home etc for not keeping silence or helping him keep silence! Practising too much āsana leading to injury. etc. Hope this helps.