“Mine, Mine, Mine” Isn’t a Life Plan: A Sunrise Talk on Transcendental Sound and the Maha Mantra

It’s early on Isla Mujeres. The sand is still cool, the waves are doing their steady thing, and the sun is coming up like it has all the time in the world.

And in that soft light, one idea gets loud fast: the “mine, mine, mine” mindset. My plans. My money. My people. My image. My safety. It can feel normal, even responsible. But when life shifts (and it always shifts), that whole inner chant starts to sound a little shaky.

This post follows a simple beach walk toward the Bitcoin Cafe, with a very human question underneath it: what do you hold onto when everything you cling to changes? Along the way, we’ll talk about what “transcendental” means in plain terms, why sound matters in devotional life, and how to try a beginner-friendly chanting practice today (the Hare Krishna Maha Mantra), even if you’re busy, noisy, skeptical, or all three.

Why “Mine, Mine, Mine” Leaves Us Anxious (Even When Life Looks Good)

The “mine” chant isn’t always dramatic. Sometimes it’s dressed up as success.

It can look like the house that finally feels stable, the relationship you worked hard to keep, the identity you built, the savings account, the followers, the job title, the carefully edited story about who you are. It can even look like spirituality, if the goal is still control (my progress, my purity, my specialness).

But there’s a problem baked into it: time doesn’t ask permission.

You can live behind a white picket fence, in a sweet little pocket of comfort, and still the same truth shows up. Bodies age. People leave. Health changes. Money moves. Plans get rearranged. The things we grip the hardest tend to be the things we fear losing the most, so the grip tightens, and anxiety climbs with it.

A spiritual perspective on materialism isn’t about hating the world. It’s about seeing the world clearly. The beach gives a funny little reminder of that too. You can draw a line in the sand and feel very certain for a moment, then the water comes in and erases it like it was never there.

The four loops that keep us stuck: eating, sleeping, mating, defending

There’s a simple checklist that gets mentioned in bhakti circles, and it’s not meant as an insult. It’s just a mirror.

A lot of material life circles around four drives:

• Eating
• Sleeping
• Mating (and everything that comes with trying to get love, keep love, prove love)
• Defending (fear, anxiety, control, “mine”)

That last one can show up in a thousand modern outfits.

Doomscrolling can be “defending,” trying to track every threat. Curating your image can be “defending,” trying to stay safe in people’s opinions. Even constant planning can be “defending,” like if you plan hard enough, nothing can touch you.

But the nervous system gets tired living like that. When everyone and everything feels like a threat to what’s “yours,” peace becomes conditional. And conditional peace breaks easily.

A quick reality check: everything you cling to changes

This isn’t meant to be gloomy. It’s meant to be honest.

Time takes things. Sometimes gently, sometimes like a wave that surprises you. It can take:

• youth
• strength
• comfort
• friends
• relatives
• wealth
• reputation
• the body itself

And that’s where the talk gets very direct: eventually, everyone faces death. Not as a concept, but as a reality. So the question turns personal, in the best way: what do you want in your heart when that moment comes?

Not a team label. Not a brand. Not a pose. Something real.

Something that isn’t washed away.

What “Transcendental” Means in Simple Terms (God, Not Mammon)

“Transcendental” can sound like a fancy word, but the meaning being pointed to is simple: beyond matter, beyond what the senses can fully measure.

This isn’t “transcendental meditation” as a trademark or a product. It’s a focus on what’s not made of stuff, not held together by time, not dependent on circumstances to be true. The talk frames it in an old phrase many people recognize: God, not mammon (meaning, not wealth as the center).

It’s not saying money is evil. It’s saying money makes a shaky god.

What you aim your heart at shapes your whole life. Your inner chant becomes your outer life, sooner or later.

And the claim here is bold, but also practical: in this age, one of the clearest bridges to the transcendent is sound, especially sacred sound.

Invisible energies make the point: you cannot see everything that is real

Here’s the beach-level logic that lands for a lot of people: not everything real is visible.

You can’t see microwaves, but they exist. You can’t see many kinds of light (like infrared or ultraviolet), but they’re there. You can’t taste natural gas, but you can still be affected by it. There are sounds you can’t hear, but that doesn’t mean sound stops existing beyond your range.

So “I can’t see it” isn’t a great test for truth.

That little point opens the door to the bigger idea: maybe there’s a kind of sound that doesn’t just bounce around in matter. Maybe sound can also come from, and point toward, what’s beyond matter.

Transcendental sound: why names and prayers can feel stronger than noise

The heart of the message is that God is approached through transcendental sound, sound vibration connected to the non-material.

In bhakti yoga, this often comes through the holy names, through repeating, hearing, and remembering. Not as a performance, and not as a debate, but as a practice.

And it’s not hard to get why sound matters. Sound gets in. Even when you’re not trying. A song you heard once can loop in your head for a week. A harsh comment can echo for years. So if sound can shape the mind that easily, it makes sense that sacred sound, used with attention, can slowly shape the heart too.

If you want a deeper read on this idea from within the tradition, this essay gives a grounded look at the connection between chanting and spiritual realization: Realizing God through chanting Hare Krishna.

How to Chant the Maha Mantra for Beginners (A Simple Daily Practice)

This part stays refreshingly open: you can chant as a monk, you can chant as a parent, you can chant as someone with a job and a messy mind. You can chant on a beach, in a kitchen, or in a city that never stops honking.

The practice is meant to be portable.

The mantra is:

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare.

If you’re looking for a traditional walkthrough (including chanting with beads), this guide lays it out step-by-step: Chanting the Hare Krishna Mahamantra: a practical guide.

The mantra and a 5-minute starter routine you can do anywhere

Keep it simple. Five minutes is enough to start.

1. Sit down or take a slow walk.
2. Set a timer for 5 minutes (or 10, if that feels easy).
3. Say the mantra out loud or softly under your breath.
4. Listen to the sound as you speak it.
5. When your mind runs off (it will), just come back to the next word.

That’s it. No special outfit. No perfect posture. No new personality required.

If you have beads, you can also chant one bead per mantra repetition and just keep going until your time is up. But you don’t need beads to begin.

Hearing, repeating, remembering: the three-part practice that builds momentum

A really practical piece of the talk is the way it breaks the practice down into stages that feel human:

Hearing: you listen to the sound, like you’d listen to waves.
Repeating: you speak it back, again and again, without rushing.
Remembering: it starts following you into your day, while washing dishes, walking to the store, sitting in traffic.

This matters because it shifts the practice from “something I do when I’m calm” to “something that helps me become calm.”

And over time, it points at a deeper project: not just calming the mind, but purifying desire. Not desire as in “having no desires,” but desire as in what you want, what you chase, what you worship without noticing.

Common obstacles in a noisy world (and what to do instead of quitting)

The talk is happening in Mexico, and one line lands with a smile: it’s noisy. Beautiful, alive, and noisy.

So if your first thought is, “I can’t do mantra meditation here,” you’re not alone. Here are a few very normal obstacles, and simple ways to work with them:

Distraction: Chant while walking. Movement gives the mind less room to spiral.
Self-consciousness: Chant quietly. It still counts. Sound is still sound.
Boredom: Shorten the session, but do it daily. Consistency beats intensity.
Doubt: Don’t force belief. Try it as an experiment in attention and see what changes.

If you stick with it, something sneaky happens: the mantra becomes a baseline. Noise can keep happening, but it doesn’t have to run your inner world.

Building a Life Plan That Lasts: Community, Scripture, and Service

The talk also answers a fair question: why make videos like this at all?

Not for status, not for swag, not for the “look at us” thing. The stated reasons are simpler:

• It’s an offering to their spiritual teacher (doing what they were asked to do).
• It’s joyful to share something they trust.
• It’s meant to give people something that can’t be taken away by time.

There’s also a strong emphasis on community. Life can be heavy. It helps to have people to grieve with, laugh with, and remember the point with.

That can look like retreats, reading circles, friends you chant with, or an online community where questions are welcome. Juicy Magik keeps a community portal for that kind of connection: Juicy Magik Agora community registration.

Interfaith bridge: loving God first, then loving others

A sweet part of this beach talk is how it pulls in Jesus without turning it into an argument.

There’s a shared thread: love God with your whole being, then love others. “Seek first the kingdom of God,” and let the rest take its rightful place after that.

In bhakti language, the relationship with God can be personal, even intimate: friend, master, beloved, even child. The talk keeps repeating that what matters is not the label you wear, but what’s real in your relationship with the Divine when everything else falls away.

A simple reflection question shows up here, almost on its own:

What are you feeding your mind every day?

Because everyone is chanting something, all the time. It might be money. It might be fear. It might be “mine.” Or it might be the holy names.

Why community matters when life gets heavy

No one does grief well alone. No one stays steady alone forever.

Community doesn’t remove pain, but it can change how pain moves through you. You get people who remind you to come back to the practice. You get a place where joy multiplies too, not just sorrow.

And when you have something you feel is genuinely good, you don’t want to keep it locked up. It spills over. That’s part of why chanting traditions tend to be shared out loud, in public, in daily life, not hidden away like a private hobby.

Conclusion: Choosing a Better Inner Chant

The scene ends the way life usually does, not with a perfect ending, but with a walk to the next place, the Bitcoin Cafe, the day moving forward.

That’s the point, really. Ordinary life keeps going. Noise keeps happening. Dogs run up and bark and surprise you. People still say “mine” a hundred ways a day. But you can choose a different inner chant, one that points your heart toward what lasts.

Try the 5-minute routine today. Keep it simple. Notice how your mind feels after, not in some dramatic way, but in a small, honest way. Then do it again tomorrow, and let sound do what sound does, it shapes the place it lives in.

What sound will you let shape your life?

mariakerwin

As a former serial entrepreneur, she turned from a workaholic in the business world to freedom and creativity, living now as a writer, creator and world traveller. Since an early age Maria is close to death and what exists beyond, courageously exploring the dimensions of existence. A Kundalini Awakening guided her into the abyss of fully surrendering to the life force itself, crushing all known aspects of her old life. Finally, it led her to her purpose of bridging both worlds, connecting to what goes beyond the ordinary.

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