Akal: A Mantra for Love, Loss and the Soul’s Transition

There is a beautiful mantra in the Kundalini tradition that is often chanted when someone dies.

Akal.

It is incredibly simple. One word, repeated.

Akal. Akal. Akal.

There is something about its simplicity that feels right at a time when there really aren't adequate words.

What Does Akal Mean?

The word Akal is often translated as undying, timeless or beyond death.

A means without.Kaal means time or death.

So when we chant Akal for someone who has died, we are acknowledging something much bigger than the physical body.

You are not only this body.You are not only this lifetime.Your essence is timeless.

There is something particularly beautiful about chanting Akal because it doesn't ask us to deny the grief.

Someone we love has left their physical body. Their absence is real. We miss their voice, their presence, the way they occupied a room and all the ordinary things that made them them.

Akal doesn't try to make that loss smaller.

Instead, it holds another possibility alongside it.

That while a life has ended, perhaps the essence of the person has not.

In the Kundalini yogic tradition, Akal is chanted after death as a way of honouring the soul and supporting its transition. Rather than holding tightly to the person and wishing them back, the mantra is an expression of love that also allows them to go.

There is something profound in that.

Because one of the hardest parts of losing someone is that every part of us wants to hold on.

Akal gives us something to do with that love.

We can let the love remain, while releasing the person from the physical form in which we knew them.

You don't need to understand exactly what happens after death to chant it. You don't need to know where a soul goes, or have certainty about what comes next.

You can simply allow the mantra to mean:

I love you.

I honour the life you lived.

I honour the mystery of where you are going.

And I release you with love.

The 17 Days After Someone Passes

There is also a beautiful tradition within Kundalini Yoga of continuing to chant or play Akal for 17 days after a person's passing.

Within this tradition, the days following death are considered a period of transition for the soul. Akal is used almost like a loving accompaniment to that journey, a reminder that the person is no longer bound to the physical body or to this particular experience of time.

Some people play Akal quietly in the home during this period.

It doesn't need to become another thing to do correctly when you are grieving. It can simply be there in the background, filling the space with the intention of love, release and peaceful passage.

There is a particularly beautiful recording of Akal by White Sun that can be used for this. It is gentle enough to have playing through the house, in the person's room, while sitting quietly with photographs, or whenever you feel drawn to connect with them.

I love the idea of the home being filled with this sound during those first days.

Not calling the person back.

Not asking them to stay.

But almost saying:

We love you.

You are free.

You can go.

We will be okay.

Akal.

A Way to Love and Let Go

Akal may be chanted aloud by family, friends or community, but it can equally be something incredibly personal.

You can sit quietly and think of the person you have lost.

Place a hand on your heart, take a few breaths and simply begin:

Akal.Akal.Akal.

Let the sound become longer than the word.

Let yourself cry if you need to.

Let memories come.

Let there be sadness and love at exactly the same time.

And perhaps, underneath the enormous human experience of losing someone we love, there can also be the smallest sense that love itself hasn't disappeared.

The relationship changes.

The physical presence changes.

But the love that existed between two people doesn't suddenly become nothing.

Maybe that is part of the beauty of Akal.

It reminds us that death and love do not necessarily have the same boundary.

Akal.

Beyond time.

Beyond the body.

Beyond death.

And always, with love.