In case you are freaked out at the thought of a chant, or the thought of using a chant from a different religion or path, let me put you at ease.

If you’ve never chanted before, this could seem really weird. I remember thinking of scary movies where bad people were hidden away in a basement chanting and conjuring up evil forces. 

However, chanting a spiritual word or mantra is the complete opposite of that. It connects you with love to either the beautiful part of yourself, or, perhaps with a bit of practice, to a higher plane than the physical one, or to God – and God is love. 

You'll experience that all religions’ chants will lift you 

You’ll find that chanting from any path or ism – e.g., the Gyuto Monks of Tibet, or Vedic chants, or Gregorian chants, or chanting the ancient name for God, HU – will give you a good and positive experience.

It is said that chanting will instantly take you to higher planes. But even if you’re not aware of moving to another plane, you can still enjoy an uplifting experience. 

Look, I’ve been chanting for 40 years, and I’m still not actually aware of going to another plane, but I sure do feel uplifted. Does that mean the same but in a more everyday way to express it perhaps?

The people in Eckankar, whose fave (er, perhaps ‘staple’ is a better word) chant is HU, say that HU takes you to the soul plane, whereas OM (AUM) takes you to a lower plane, the mental.

I can’t vouch for that though, seeing, as mentioned above, I’m not aware of moving to a different plane. However, I have found that HU is the most powerful and quickest to facilitate a change in my own demeanour.

Fun fact! We used to chant HU with our team at work way back when. Here’s an edited excerpt from my book, Seven Angels Helped Me — They’ll Help You Too:

“You’ll never guess what we did at work today”

That exclamation is from one employee who shared with his housemates at the end of his first day at work with us.

We chant HU at work each day. We put the phones on a mode to give callers a message and have a meeting where we start with a chant, and then go into a silent contemplation, each for only a couple of minutes, and then one person pulls a card for the day for a little reading. After that we discuss business issues. When we don’t chant, because the phones have been running hot or we’re about to go to press and it’s panic stations (probably the very time we should stop and chant), we notice the difference. People, who are not chanters normally and not in Eckankar themselves, will ask to chant, saying things such as, ‘I’m having a ratty day. Can we stop and chant now?’

I’ve been chanting HU for many years now, since I joined Eckankar. Sound is more important for our spiritual well-being than we realise and than most religions recognise, notwithstanding that right at the beginning of the Bible it says, ‘In the beginning was the word, and the word was God’. It is said, though, that words like “hallelujah” were derived from the HU.

The point is that it’s an ancient word that anyone can use with powerful effect. However, if it doesn’t feel right for you, or if your religion frowns on it, you can simply use hallelujah, OM, or any other meaningful spiritual word, but you really ought to try for yourself the power of chanting. It focuses your mind, or perhaps it simply calms it. If you’re an Aspie, you’ll understand how important that is. 

After you’ve been using the same chant or mantra for quite a while, you need to say it only once, and it triggers you to go to a loftier place in your consciousness. Then, if you’re like me, you’ll reach the point where anyone else’s chanting, e.g., the Gyuto Monks of Tibet, will instantly take you to higher planes too.

However, the HU is my chant, the one with which I’ve had most experience. I tend to think that, because it is the entry point into the soul plane, it is going to be more powerful than other mantras, but I cannot prove that.

Would you like a key to take you a step forward in your spiritual growth?

I share HU more fully in my free introductory course because it seems to be a magical word – it turns a key, it opens your heart, it connects you with God, it helps with daily problems and life’s irritations.

Like a fine wine, it gets better with age. Well, a duller way to say that, though perhaps more correct, is ‘practice makes perfect’. So it’s really you that gets better if you age with HU.

You may ask, What if I’m letting myself into coercion?

Just like you don’t need to be a Buddhist or Hindu to use OM, to use HU you don’t have to be a member of Eckankar (or the other paths that chant HU). 

I’ve heard of a Catholic priest and a Protestant minister both enriching their own paths with the HU. To me, it is a panacea, and that is why I wanted to share this with you – so that you can benefit from that knowledge without enrolling in any of my courses or buying anything, and importantly, without interfering with your beliefs. 

However, if it doesn’t feel right for you, or if you think your religion would frown on it, you can simply use hallelujah, OM, or any other meaningful spiritual word – anything so that you can try for yourself the power of chanting. I cannot recommend it highly enough. In fact, the famous Dr. Deepak Chopra has done studies to show that people who chant regularly age more slowly.

You may find that it feels a bit weird at first, but you can try chanting a sacred word under your breath. It doesn’t have the power of the sound current with it, but Soul sure knows that you are chanting.

Would you like to hear what it sounds like?

Here are two examples. 

https://www.eckankar.org/experience/hu-the-sound-of-soul

Here’s another link to hear the HU.

The first one lasts for 5 minutes and is lovely to listen to, but the second one is easier to chant along with IMO. There’s also a free HU app for download at the first link. 

The second one, from YouTube, is 20 minutes long, and it may be easier to sing along to, as the people are all more or less singing the same note.

Harold Klemp, the leader of Eckankar (1981 to 2025), in his book, How the Inner Master Works, points out how HU can help in today’s milieu: “It’s more important than ever to let people know that there is a way to bring peace and harmony to themselves even in the most difficult of times.”

BTW, Eckankar sometimes promotes the HU as the 'HU song'.  Presumably this is to break the barrier that may come up for people brought up as Christians, and thinking that chanting is weird. So if that helps you to leap the hurdle, go for it. Then you can get the goodness without fear.

Two practical ways to use this as a tool

1. You can use the HU for extremely difficult situations by singing just one syllable each and every time you catch yourself thinking about the problem — and do this as needed over two days. (More details of this in Unit B.3 of my free course.)
2. You can also use it simply to clear and spiritualise your mind before going to sleep each night. Harold suggests this in his book, How the Inner Master Works: “[Sing HU] at bedtime for five or ten minutes before you go to sleep. … Fill your heart with love and go to sleep. Do this continuously, night after night, and soon you will find your dreams take on a different meaning.” Below are the links so that you can sing along with one if you like. Oh, and if you are sleeping with a partner who is not interested, then do it silently after your head hits the pillow.