Ancestral Prayers
Ancestral Prayers by Robin Armstrong
Chanting to the Ancestors is a particularly powerful chant. When you say a name of God, God is there! God is always there, of course, but chanting gives us a personal affirmation and increases our connection to and awareness of God.
When we chant to our ancestors, we send a blessing back to them, and they, being touched, send blessings back to us. We are the result of all the ancestors before us, and we are the justification of their lives.
Every human alive has their ancestry in common. We all have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents, 16 great- great-grandparents, 32 great- great- great-grandparents, 64 great- great- great- great-grandparents, and so on.
Chanting helps to purify our ancestral presence, and it also clears a little bit of each person’s karma. As we clear the ancestors’ karma, we also improve our own karma with its myriad roots into the past. This is a deep and profound process. If you want to move soulfully into the future, it would be helpful to improve or elevate your relationship to the past.
The Ancestral Prayer Wheel puts the appropriate Hari Om chant in its place around the circle of one’s family tree. The entire wheel covers 8 generations going back. In the outer circle of the wheel there are 256 chants.
It starts in the inner wheel. The first circle of two chants is for the father and the mother. The second circle moving outward has four chants for the four grandparents. The third circle has eight chants for the 8 great-grandparents. The fourth circle has 16 chants for the 16 great-great-grandparents. The fifth circle has 32 chants for the 32 great-great-great-grandparents. The sixth circle has 64 chants for the 64 great-great-great-great-grandparents. The seventh circle has 128 chants for the 128 great-great-great-great-great-grandparents. The eighth circle has 256 chants for the 256 great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents.
The Prayer Wheel shows all of the chants for 8 generations and it is empowering just to see it.
If you are interested in obtaining a larger more detailed copy of the Prayer Wheel, it can be ordered at the e-store. https://iastrostore.com/product/ancestral-prayer-mandala/
You will have to get it colour printed. It is 24 inches by 24 inches in size.
There are videos to accompany this mandala, and they guide you through the chanting. I chant one chant and leave a space for you to repeat it, then I chant the next and you repeat it and so on. As you progress it takes a little more concentration, and when you have completed the wheel, you will have integrated God into your family tree. In the process you have changed the level of God Consciousness in your life. You have to some degree restored the soulful connection to your ancestors and they to yours. You will have increased the texture and depth of your being. How holy is this?
It takes about 80 minutes to complete this chanting. For a start it is probably enough to do the first six generations of 2-4-8-16-32-64 chants. This will take about 12 minutes.
When you are ready you can progress to include the 7th and 8th generations.
If you are interested in chanting and want to be added to my e-mail list for future live chanting sessions simply email me and let me know.
I have chanted this complete prayer wheel every morning for many years. It makes the mandala a living one. I takes a little while to get it memorized. It happens when you have done it for long enough. This is the sadhana of chanting. Enjoy it as much as you are able to.
Hari Om
Robin
You tube links for Ancestral Prayers
Ancestral Prayers Lvl 1to6
Ancestral Prayers-Lvl-7a
Ancestral Prayers-Lvl-7b
Ancestral Prayers-Lvl-7c
Ancestral Prayers-Lvl-7d
Ancestral Prayers-Lvl-8a
Ancestral Prayers-Lvl-8b
Ancestral Prayers-Lvl-8c
Ancestral Prayers-Lvl-8d
Ancestral Prayers-Lvl-8e
Ancestral Prayers-Lvl-8f
Ancestral Prayers-Lvl-8g
Ancestral Prayers-Lvl-8h