My experience with Buddhist Chanting- NMRK

Happy New Year all! If you've been following my blog for a while (by which I mean, if you read it when I actually posted on it- apologies for the absence!!) you will know that spirituality has been a huge part of my life. I am a certified clinic hypnotherapist, having studied under the amazing Yuvraj Kapadia (who teaches at Illuminations in Dubai), have studied Reiki, am a Theta Healing Teacher (unfortunately that didn't work out too well for me), have gone to Pranic Healers, done Angel Healings, studied a bit of I Ching and went through a phase where I pretty much read any book on spirituality I could find. In the beginning I found I just couldn't get enough of the stuff.. it felt like this whole world had opened in front of me, a world I knew nothing about, a world that gave me a glimpse into other worlds, of worlds we will go to after this world ceases to exist. Needless to say, I was fascinated.
This went on for a few years and the whole point of "healings" really is as the name suggests, to heal. The more into healing modalities I got, the more disappointed I'd get with the people involved. Worse than an individual who is completely oblivious to their shallowness, is one who thinks they are very evolved and are completely blind to their faults, or justifying in their nature of it. A lot of the people involved in this business (make no mistake, it is a business) have money issues, ego issues, think they are better than others, and are riddled with insecurities. Of course there are exceptions, but having studied these modalities I realized I was very unqualified to be a healer, and besides, I HAD a day job. Many others around me studied for the sole purpose of then becoming healers and charging people absurd amounts of money per hour after investing in a few weeks of courses. There is no exam and no sifting process, and unfortunately with the stigma surrounding psychiatrists and psychologists in this part of the world, a lot of people opt to go to extremely unqualified and very immature "healers" for some serious issues in their life- be they medical or emotional. While you may think it unfair for me to bash them, please know that is not my intention. Please heed this as a warning if you're looking to go to one of them, find that you're paying crazy amounts of money to someone without any changes occuring or if you're obsessed with them thinking they have some extra ordinary powers. I need to reiterate again here- I could have been one of them so also feel I'm in a safe position to comment, and while there are some really great ones, they are few and far between. Also, despite the thousands I paid in not only undergoing, but learning different modalities, I found things in my life for many years just stuck, unmoving, and I guess it would be safe for me to use the word, unhealed.
I had completely snapped out of all things "spiritual" for a few years and had embraced living my life daily and accepting myself and my problems for what they were. In hindsight I'm SO happy I went through that phase, as that path of acceptance was more "spiritual" than the part where I was constantly trying to figure out the "why" behind things and trying to change them (although I'm extremely grateful for the knowledge I accumulated too as I'm able to make an informed decision for myself about what works and what doesn't). And one day, Nam Myoho Renge Kyo was introduced to me, and that's when the miracles began to happen.
A friend of mine who was not one of the most positive people I know (to put it politely) was visiting town and she was absolutely beaming. So much had changed about her, yet outwardly nothing had changed at all. "What happened to you?" I kept asking her through our meeting, and she kept saying, "I'll tell you!" I finally managed to pin her down for a coffee and said, "TALK!" when she told me about the chanting she had been doing. I was riveted. She was peaceful, positive, hopeful and had an amazing amount of clarity and insight about her life, something I'd never witnessed in the decade and a half I'd known her. "Try it," she said to me, and that evening itself, I did.
This meeting happened in Novemver 2012 and around January 2013 is when I really got into chanting properly, so have been practicing it for around a year. While my friend lives outside of Dubai where there are many meetings and an amazing support system of SGI (the organization), I have been practicing it for the most part alone by myself. It is said that in the beginning you see amazing changes and great victories and there is a name for it called "beginners benefit." As I didn't have anyone to tell me that, I think I blocked the fear that my beginners benefit had a cut off period, and honestly 2013 was a year of magnificent miracles. Don't get me wrong, I had many, many low periods and many struggles, with some amazing circumstances and learnings come out of it. For me, as I said earlier, the biggest problem I had in my life was of being "stuck"in many aspects, and things sort of flowed from one to another. These happened almost after Day 1 of me chanting. "It's a coincidence" I kept saying... how could 5 to 10 minutes of chanting every couple of days make such a huge difference to my life? It did. And it kept happening.
To give you a few examples- My relationships in my life dramatically improved. I wrote my first novel in a month over the summer of 2013 (fingers crossed for it to get published in 2014... and in case you're wondering how good a novel written in a month can possibly be, the fact that I actually FINISHED something I started was victory enough for me). I had random things happen like Bentley offering me a free car for 6 months, or the Manager of an extremely high end boutique here calling me out of the blue to offer me HER discount for a ridiculously expensive crocodile skin bag I had passed up on because of the price tag. Crazy, weird, amazing experiences!! And these are the tip of the iceberg as I don't want to get into stuff that happened in my personal life. I have since talked of my experiences and gotten a lot of people into chanting too, and it overjoys me to hear of their victories and miracles they are experiencing!
So how exactly does one even start, you ask? Well, sit straight in a comfortable position with your eyes open, and in a clear voice say "Nam Myoho Renge Kyo"... and repeat. That's it :) It helps me greatly to chant along with a YouTube video that I use (you can try using this one as its a lot slower) and start with just a couple of minutes a day. Also know that you don't have to be Buddhist or convert to chant, and there are a lot of sites that talk about chanting and give you more information- http://www.sgi.org/ is a great one.
If you have more questions about NMRK or my experiences with it I'd be happy to answer them in the comments below (please do not send me emails), and of course, if you'd like to share your experiences if you chant too I'd be thrilled to read them. Good luck!