JAPA RETREAT
15 January – 18 January 2026
Sheldon Retreat Centre ~ Devon
Jap means to repeat. Japa is the repetition of a mantra, which changes your physiology, has a deep effect on your psyche and has the capacity to open up the higher seats of consciousness within you. Japa provides an incredible opportunity to go deep inside yourself and transform any blocks that you may be experiencing in your life. We will be chanting and repeating a sacred mantra first uttered by Guru Nanak, the first Sikh Guru, which he uttered in the moment he became enlightened.
The Mul Mantra specifically awakens consciousness and will support you to become clear on your soul’s purpose to enable you to fulfil your destiny. It awakens you to realise that you are not only flesh and bones, that you are not separate from source, that instead you are One with the Universe; that you are an integral part of the cosmos. The more you reflect and meditate on the mul mantra, the deeper you will know yourself and the universe.
Where: Sheldon Retreat Centre ~ Devon
Dates: 15th -18th January 2026
Your Hosts: Preet Kaur & Martha Chester
“Chanting & singing are the flower and fruit of speech. It gives melody to the soul as it struggles to find it’s way in free flight”
Shiv Charan Singh
Preet Kaur
Preet is a sound healer and kundalini yoga teacher and trainer. With many years of teaching experience, Preet also trains new gong practitioners and leads kundalini yoga teacher trainings, sharing her passion and knowledge with the next generation of teachers and sound healers. Her work extends to 1-to-1 sound healing sessions with the monochord sound healing table and personal mentoring, offering a safe, nurturing space for healing, growth and self-discovery. Japa is a deep and daily source of nourishment for Preet and she loves to share the gifts and blessings that Japa brings with others.
Martha Chester
Sound has always been profoundly emotive to me. Yet it took at least a decade of dedicated yoga practice before I truly felt the subtle and powerful effects of mantra. Since that awakening moment, I have immersed myself in many disciplined practices using sound, including 1,500 days of So Purkh, 11,000 repetitions of Reyman Shabd, nine months of Guru Gyatri Mantra, 40 hours of the Mool Mantra (this will be my third experience), and 40 hours of Ajai Alai.
On reflection, I recognize that mantra is an embodied experience that transcends the finite practice itself. The vibration doesn’t end when the chanting stops—it continues to work through the body, mind, and spirit long after the final syllable fades.
Working with sound—with Shabd Guru—has been one of the most profound experiences of my spiritual development. It has shown me, so beautifully and gently, the intricate layers of my mind and the deep wounds I carry from childhood. Through the steady repetition and sacred vibration, what was hidden has slowly revealed itself, not with force or trauma, but with a tender precision that only sound seems to offer.
The power of chanting in community is particularly profound. I firmly believe that healing is a collective experience. When voices join together in sacred sound, something alchemical occurs—individual pain transforms into shared wisdom, isolation dissolves into connection, and the boundaries between self and other begin to soften. We hold each other in the container of sound, and in that holding, profound transformation becomes possible.
“Mind is like a cloth. whatever thoughts you dip your cloth into it will take on that colouring. Meditate to discover that you are not your body, your energy, your emotions, your mind, your intellect. Meditate to discover purusha consciousness. Meditate to discover God”