Think of a mantra as a mental instrument that fine-tunes your yoga practice.
Even single-word mantras-like Om-can be pretty powerful.
The good news: you don’t have to memorize a sonnet-length mantra to achieve positive results. (How exactly do you pronounce śāntiḥ again?) Gurmukhi, a sacred script used in Kundalini Yoga, is more straightforward than Sanskrit but can also sound like a mouthful at first. Reading mantras in Sanskrit, the ancient language of India, can certainly be intimidating.
