Tag: Mantra Initiation

From childhood we are trained to see, examine, and verify things in the external world, but initiation, or receiving a mantra, is a step for  seeing  and looking within. It is not a religious ceremony. Do not confuse a mantra or meditation with religion; they are entirely different.

A mantra is a sound, a syllable, or a set of sounds. It is known not by its meaning, but by its vibrations. It provides a focus for the mind and helps one become aware of his or her internal states. It is a way to understand one’s self and to coordinate one’s external and internal words.

The mantra is a friend that helps the mind become one pointed and slowly leads the student to a deep state of silence, to the Center of Consciousness within. It is a spiritual seed sown in the soil of the self. It is a therapeutic guide that leads one through various levels of being and finally to the unity between individual and Cosmic Consciousness.

The Mantra is an important means on the path of Self Enlightenment. You are encouraged to practice meditation regularly, to remember your mantra, and to make it part of your life.

When meditating, use the mantra silently and consciously. At other times, you can use it consciously or unconsciously. In time you will find your mantra guiding you in daily life.

 ~ Swami Rama of the Himalayas

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Raja-Yoga, the royal path, is the complete Yoga as is taught in the Yoga-Sūtra of Patañjali, to which even the greatest authors on Hatha-Yoga, such as Svatamarama, pay homage. Interpreted, expanded in practice and handed down in experiential and initiatory guidance by the Himalayan Masters, it is referred to as the Himalayan Tradition. However without a live transmission, Patañjali cannot be understand. The first transmission to students, therefore, is of a mantra, a sonar unit to concentrate on.

The Word “Mantra”¹

The word “mantra” is related to the English word “man”, and the English words “mind” and “mental”, which are derived from the Latin word “mens” (mind), which comes from the Greek word “menos” (mind). “Menos”, “mens”, “mental”, “mind”, and “man, and the word “mantra” all are derived from the Sanskrit verb root “man”, meaning “to meditate”.  “Man” is the creature who can “meditate”.  He has a mind with which he meditates.  He focuses on a word, a “mantra” for “meditation”.  In India and in other parts of Asia, a mantra is so central to the culture and so crucial to a person’s life that for a person to be without a mantra is like dahl (an Indian bean dish) without salt.  There is something missing.  A human being is incomplete without a mantra.

What is a Mantra²

Mantra is a word or a series of words; it is a thought; it is a prayer, but not in the sense in which the word “prayer” is used ordinarily, but rather a linkage of our lower consciousness with the higher consciousness, which we call the Divine Consciousness, or the Divine Life-Force.  A mantra is a sound-unit, a thought-unit.  It is a sound or a series of sounds given to a Yoga student or disciple to remember constantly for a specific spiritual purpose.  In our interior map of the web of consciousness, the energy of consciousness takes two forms: sound and light.  At a certain stage the sound and the light energy are entwined or unified.  At the present stage of our development, they are experienced differently from each other, so we begin with the sound of a mantra.  The initiation into light comes a little later.

Initially there are two aspects to mantra that need to be understood: One aspect is that it is a syllabic combination forming a sound that has a particular effect on the mind, especially if it is repeated mentally, and the second aspect is its meaning.

The Effect of a Repeated Sound

The theory of mantra is based on the principle that the sounds, the letters, the syllables of the alphabet carry within themselves the focus for certain psychic or mental vibrations.  Each syllable has within it a particular ray of consciousness.  When you think of particular letters of the alphabet or combinations of these letters, they produce certain thoughts, certain mental vibrations.  There is a certain texture or flavor to the sound.  The thought of a word is the vibration of the mind, but not all vibrations are alike.  Different syllables carry the focus for the force of the different vibrations.  This we can see in a crude way by the sound of certain words.  For example, let’s say that I am in a foreign country where nobody speaks English.  I am in a somewhat whimsical mood, and I walk out of my hotel room, walk down the street, and I see a person coming my way.  He does not know English, and I approach him and I say to him harshly, “Thud!”

Okay? “Thud!”  He does not know what it means, but the sound has some impact on his mind.  The next day I feel bad about having scared the poor fellow with my sound, and I want to make up for it.  And so I walk out on the street and the first person I see – and this person also does not know English – I approach and say softly, “Lull!”  What is the difference between the two sounds?   The sounds “thud” and “lull” are qualitatively different.  Poets and skilled writers are well aware of this and use sounds to great effect in their compositions.  So the sound has an impact in itself, irrespective of its translation.  It creates an impression on the mind.  Similarly each of the mantras has its own distinct sound vibration.

Mantra as an Energy Force

We can go a little further.  This entire universe is run by conscious forces, some like to call them angels, deities, incarnations, manifestations of God and so forth.  The sounds of the mantras are representative of these specific forms or aspects of consciousness.  So in the Tradition we think of the mantras as though they were sonar forms of the forces of divinity.  There are some traditions in the Christian religion also, among the Sufis, or in the Jewish Kabbalistic tradition where it is said that the name of God is God Himself.

To be more specific, each individuated mind has its own composition.  In the mind are stored imprints of many lifetimes.  We call these imprints samskaras.  Whatever actions we perform, whatever desires we feel, whatever impulses arise in us, they are all activated from these imprints.  The sum total of these imprints from the past constitutes our personalities.  If we want to refine ourselves, we need to learn to change the pattern of these imprints.  If there is a glass half filled with cold water and I pour hot water in it, the character of the water changes.  If I have imprints that lead to bitter thoughts and I pour in one central thought of a mind-sweetening sound over and over and over again every day for so many hours a day, and I do this for ten, fifteen or twenty years, the mind receives its imprint and is bound to change.  In this way the mantra changes our very nature, makes it more refined, gentler, quieter.  If the totality of a person’s imprints leads them to disturbed thoughts he is given a quieting mantra.  If they are too passive, he receives an activating mantra.  And as the mantra is remembered over and over and over, the imprint of the same mantra brings certain desired changes in the personality.

Being a name and the sonar body of divinity, the mantra so imprints itself upon the mind’s deeper layers that the “human” in one surrenders, gives way, to the presence of the divine.  Meditation with mantra is the experience of wordless prayer and of the subtlest in the sentiment and practice of devotion.  It is the ultimate in saying ‘not mine’, ‘all Thine’, ‘only Thine’, so that the entire personality may thereby become the House of God, an instrument of the Deity, a form through which the Divinity alone may thenceforth act.  Slowly.  All in due time.  The practice for this begins when one ceases to ‘do’ the mantra but only lets it arise from inner depths and listens to it internally.³

Mantras Specific to Personalities and Purposes

Someone might object and say, “Hey, I like myself as I am.  I do not want to change my personality, and I don’t want anyone to interfere with it”.  If you do not take the step to receive a mantra, even the simple meditation with the breath and “So-ham” will bring about changes in you.  They are not quite as effective as a personal mantra though.  When a personal mantra, called a diksha (initiatory) or guru mantra, is given, it is like taking a drop from the universal mind of the Tradition and planting that drop, that seed, into the initiate mind. It is called initiation because, however small it might be, some form of energy is passed on down the lineage from disciple to disciple to disciple to the recipient.  In the Brhad-aranyaka Upanishad, dated circa 14th century B.C. we can read a list of teachers of the lineage: who taught whom, who taught whom, who taught whom, listing sixty-eight generations of teachers, one teacher after another, going back to the first one, Svyambhu Brahman, the Self-Existent Supreme Being. “Homage to that Self-Existent Supreme Being,” says the Upanishad.  So mantras are sounds, thoughts, words, given as a revelation within the consciousness of the ancient rishis (sages) in the highest state of samadhi, the ultimate meditation.  The mantras are awakened within the soul as a revelation; then they are passed down the line.

There are different mantras for different people.  How does this work?  Here we should talk a little about the history of the Yoga tradition.  Sometimes people ask, “What about Transcendental Meditation.  Where does TM fit into the Yoga tradition?”  The word “transcendental” is a current modern expression.  It certainly is not a Sanskrit word.  It’s a translation for something else.  Some people ask, “How about Zen meditation?”  How does that compare with Yoga meditation?

About 3000 B.C. India was a country of pioneers, similar to America in the 1800’s.  People migrating from many directions spread out, cut down some forests and settled down and established cities and religions.  But some who were deeply philosophical withdrew from all that and went out and made their hermitages in the forests and the caves of the mountains. They undertook for themselves a process of self-conquest, self-exploration.  When people got tired of the villages and the cities and they wanted some peace of mind, they went to visit these hermit teachers, these great masters, and stayed at their feet for awhile and received some peace of mind, some direction and some wisdom, and then they came back out into the towns and villages and resumed their normal worldly life.  Some of these hermitages became great universities.  For example, Alexander of Macedonia, who invaded India in the fourth century B.C., came very close to the area where there was the university of Taksha-shila, which had over twenty thousand students in residence at that time.  But learning was not divorced from spirituality. It always involved training of character.  During a student’s life (the brahmacharya stage), everyone was taught how to conduct themselves so as to benefit society and how to fulfill their purpose as a human being and grow spiritually.

The great masters of the Himalayas, who were the founders of the Yoga system, through whose intuitive knowledge and wisdom the teaching was and is still being passed on, in addition to their intuitive knowledge, made experiments on themselves.  The kinds of thoughts we think, create our personalities.   Usually we do not hold on to any single thought.  We don’t think consistently.  Our thoughts are helter-skelter, haphazard.  The practice of mantra is the practice of taking one single thought and dwelling on that one thought consistently so that it will have a certain impact on the mind.

So the great masters of the Yoga tradition might say, “Son, you have not enough fire in you.  We’ll give you a fire mantra.  Sit by the flame, a candle flame, looking at it; and along with your breath mentally remember, or internally listen to, this particular fire mantra.  In six months, some changes will take place in your personality which will be very positive ones.”  Another student might be told, “All you lack is the coolness and the flow of water, and so we’ll give you the water mantra as you sit and meditate by the flowing waters.”  Thus over a period of time, that visual impress as well as that one thought, which was remembered consistently with concentration, brought out very, very subtle changes in the student’s personality.

The Gradual Change of Personality

Changes in human personality do not take place overnight.  Before you go to bed tonight take a look in the mirror.  See your face.  Wake up tomorrow morning, and has your face changed overnight?  No, it has not.  It is the same face.  Look at it again tomorrow evening.  From morning to evening it is the same face.  Tomorrow morning, tomorrow evening, the same face.  Again it is the same face.  Five years or ten years from now, take out your photograph of today.  Which night did you go to bed and wake up with a changed face?  The changes in human personality are very subtle and imperceptible.  People who begin a practice like meditation and receive a mantra become impatient because the mind changes slowly.  Someone once called me over the phone and said, “I got my mantra three months ago.  When do I get my enlightenment?”  The process of progressing spiritually and undergoing a specific regular practice is called sadhana, and generally this is a slow, gentle, gradual process.  It cannot be rushed because there is so much to assimilate.  But people are impatient.

Different Ways of Using the Mantra

There are many different pathways to the core of your consciousness.  That is what meditation is all about.  There are many different pathways to the real Self, and there are many different methods and techniques of meditation prescribed and suited to various personalities.  People may concentrate on a candle flame.  Some may use one type of breathing exercise; others may use another type of breathing exercise.  Some may listen to the sound of the mantra.  Some may concentrate on the mantra with a particular note of music.  Some may be taught to concentrate on a given center of consciousness along with the practice of the mantram, and so on.

Nowadays most people are taught to begin with simple ones and then are given more complex mantras to practice for a specific period of time.  Once in awhile, for a period of time, a mantra may be practiced with an internal concentration, or with fire offerings which makes it ten times more intense,⁴ so as to obtain a certain spiritual result.  It is a way of imprinting one particular thought in the mind.  Through that imprint, somewhere a door will open, and wherever the seeker happens to be, his next step will come a little bit closer.

Raja Yoga and Its Divergent Paths

The great masters, the founders of the Himalayan tradition of Yoga, were masters of all of the different pathways to self-conquest, to self-exploration, to the core of our highest consciousness.  However, not every one of the disciples whom they trained was capable of mastering all the different areas of meditation.  Some went off to practice only physical Yoga for a long time. Others responded more to a concentration on sound.  Others succeeded in a concentration on light. They became masters of specific systems within the larger system and established their own academies and ashrams.  It is thus that today there are different branches of Yoga: Hatha Yoga, Nada Yoga, Laya Yoga, and so on and so forth, and students come to certain ashrams and settle down and try one particular path for awhile.   Now, what happens is that some students say to themselves, “This is the best path.”  Why do they do this?  Because it is good for them.  It helps them. “I derive great benefit from it,” they say.   But another person says, “Oh, those people.  I was there.  I tried this, and nothing happened to me.”  The disciples of the great masters, you see, were masters of specific systems, but very, very few were considered capable of mastering the entire Raja Yoga, the Royal Path, the main path which incorporates all of these systems into the larger scheme.  In Raja Yoga there are a great diversity of methods, but they all are under the umbrella of the original system.  All of these various systems fit within a great scheme where there are many systems and methods and mantras suitable for different individuals.  So in our Tradition we start in Raja Yoga, the Royal Path of Yoga.

In many cities and countries people have asked me, “How does your system compare to the Zen system?”  How can I answer that question?  So I say with all humility that all that is known in Zen is also known in Yoga, but all that is known in Yoga is not necessarily known in Zen.  Take TM for another example; to pick a certain mantra and use it in a certain way is one of the valid ways of using a mantra.  When Maharishi Mahesh Yogi came to the United States and Europe and had so much to give, the public relations people must have said to him, “Listen here, yogi, all of this great inundation of wisdom and philosophy isn’t going to work here.  You have to package it nicely.  You know, take a little bit and package it well.  Enclose it in an attractive wrapper, put on a nice price tag, attach some other neat little things, and tell people that in three years time or whatever you will be enlightened, or that it will be profitable to them in some other way.”  But it is only a small fragment of the scheme of the Yoga system.  As to Vipassana, most Vipassana students I have met get tied down to sensations, body sensations.  I have seen them doing meditation for twenty-five years, and they have not gotten beyond body sensations.  They could, but many of their teachers don’t know how to take them any further, beyond nama-rupa (name and form).  Similarly with Zen, although there are schools of Zen that do allow a mantra, so many Zen students have difficulty going beyond thought.  You see, all of these systems should be integrated into the Vedantic contemplation of the Mahavakyas and meditation with a mantra.  There is a place where the two are integrated, and one has to experience that place.  The beauty of the Himalayan Tradition is that it integrates all of the systems.  It is not that they are separate and you integrate them artificially, but they have arisen from one system and have diverged, each in developing its own direction.

How Are Mantras Chosen in Initiation?

A mantra is a syllable or series of syllables appropriate for an individual person.  Now, a person might say to an initiator, “You hardly know my name.  How do you choose a mantra for me?   There are two different processes of knowledge:  There is a rational process, and there is an intuitive process.

First of all, who are you?  Many people identify with their names and think that they are their names, but your name is not you.  Where did your name come from?  Supposing you are born in a very advanced civilization 3000 years from now where people have only numbers, or where everybody has to keep their name secret.  There are all kinds of possibilities.  And when you are born, you did not come out of your mother’s womb and say, “I am Mary.”  Maybe when you were one-and-a-half or two-years old something in you said, “They say the word ‘Mary’ and they look at me.  ‘Mary, come here.  Mary, do this.  Mary, do that.’ My name must be Mary.” “What is your name, little girl?”  “Mary.”  It is a conditioned reflex.  Your name is not you, okay?

There are certain personality types.  That fact in itself constitutes a science.  Each person has some strengths and some weaknesses.  Those who understand the science of Yoga are trained to look at the personality type because the mantra is matched to a specific personality type.  The initiator is one who is learned in mantra science and also in aspects of human personality.

The process of initiation, however, goes far beyond this. The mantra is intuitively received by the initiator.  The person who initiates you is one who has a very pure, unclouded, unblocked mind and, when in meditation, he can receive and then impart the mantra which will come matched to your personality type.  Now this is the part where we are reluctantly entering an area which many people will not accept.  Some may call it a mystery.  You are free to accept it or reject it.  Feel free to believe in it or not.   Many people cannot accept that such an act of Grace is possible and so they do not ask for a personal mantra.  They take what they have learned about meditation as far as they have gone.  There are other helpful courses they can take, and they may continue their practice of Yoga with as much as they have learned.  However, in our Tradition advanced practices of meditation are never given without first imparting the personal mantra.

The teacher, the initiator, will seldom say, “I want to give you a mantra.”  It is something that should arise from within you.  If you feel the urge, you ask.  Then a time is set and a very simple form of initiation takes place.  But the urge has to come from within the would-be initiates own consciousness.  It has to be his own interior impulse.  But, again, even if the impulse does not surge up within you, then at least set yourself a regular meditation time.  Even setting the fixed time for meditation will keep you in touch with the Source of Grace.

The Process of Initiation

The ceremony of initiation in the Himalayan Tradition involves certain traditionally established procedures.  Because it is a milestone, marking a turning point in a student’s life, the student is asked to purify him/herself for at least a day prior to initiation.  This is done by keeping to a sattvic (pure) diet of vegetarian foods, avoiding emotionally disturbing activities, and cultivating serenity of mind. The student then comes to receive her/his mantra wearing clean clothes and having bathed.

At the time of initiation itself, the student is asked to bring a gift of fruit and flowers along with dakshina (a monetary offering to the guru lineage).  These gifts are symbolic of the five senses of rupa (sight), rasa (taste), gandha (smell), sparsha (touch), shabda (sound), and they indicate a student’s sincere intention, not to renounce sensual enjoyments, but rather to subordinate them to the greater benefits of spiritual unfoldment.

At the place where the initiation ceremony takes place, the student is asked sit quietly and meditatively awhile.  Then s/he is led to a room where the initiator is in meditation.  The student and teacher meditate together briefly, and then the mantra is conferred.  Generally the mantra is whispered into the student’s right ear, after which meditation is continued together for a few more minutes.  The ceremony ends with a blessing to the student.  This is a process of giving and sharing at the highest level.  The student gives his/her trust and willingness to seek the Truth and to embark on the journey of Self-discovery (sadhana).  The teacher, through the Grace coming from the lineage of gurus, gives the mantra and the commitment to help the student grow spiritually.

Mantra as a Stable Force in One’s Life

The idea of the mantra is to have a special word within you.  Some schools say to use it only twenty minutes a day, but with the method being taught in the Raja-yoga Tradition as taught by Swami Rama, your mantra becomes your personal friend.  You keep your mantra in your mind at all times: standing at a bus stop, waiting for an appointment, driving a car, whenever you are in need of centering.  Your mantra is yours; it is with you.  It’s one word, one phrase that should remain with you at all times.  You see, at present you have many random thoughts and impressions in your mind, everything that you have gathered from outside.  Something from outside may excite you, or aggravate you, or disturb you, or make you afraid.  But the mantra is something that is internal to you.  It’s something from within.  So while the whole world is bombarding you with disturbing impressions, there is something within you that remains your permanent focus from which you should not move.  It takes time to practice and master it that way.  But it becomes a quiet friend where you can find some recourse to counter all the excitations and agitations being thrown at you.  When you let the mantra be remembered often enough, it becomes part of your subconscious mind.  The mantra can be your door to meditation because it is the focus, the focal point.   The practice of mantra becomes the meditation.

As you learn to use your mantra, if you remain in touch, then the method may be changed to take you further: “Up until today you have done it this way.  Now, you should move on to that.”  Sometimes nothing will change for years.  But do not compare yourself with others, and feel that if someone gets a different method, that you, too, should get a different method.  The one method you have may be effective enough for you.  It entirely depends on the individual and also upon the kind of relationship that s/he wants to maintain with the Tradition and the source of the teaching.

Keeping Your Mantra a Secret

After a mantra is received, it is kept secret.  Keep your mantra a secret and practice, practice, practice.  There are many progressively refined steps involved in the mental practice of mantra, and these are taught gradually.  The secrecy you keep is a form of mauna, a practice of silence.  The mantra is for inward absorption only.  A word spoken is power lost.  So the mantra is to be kept only in the mind.  Hold it close to your bosom, close to your mind.  Let it become your quiet friend, whether you are walking, planning to fall asleep, or waking up, or are in the bathroom, or even in the arms of your lover.  That mantra becomes the very essence of your mind.  Sometimes you are conscious of it; sometimes you are not conscious of it.

It is the duty of the initiator, the teacher, the preceptor, to lead you on, to give you the next steps when you are ready.  If the teacher’s tradition is a genuine Himalayan one, initiation or guidance will be given into inner light, or the chakras and Centres of Consciousness, or the kundalini, when the student is ready.

The student is urged to maintain contact.  The contact need not be maintained by letters, by fax or by e-mail, but by sitting in meditation at a fixed time daily.  You will find that a very subtle intangible connection will be felt.  Sometimes an initiator gives someone a mantra.  The initiate continues to remain in contact for a few years and then becomes lost in life’s waves and currents.  Fifteen or twenty years later they feel the urge to reconnect with the teacher and the lineage.  They may send a letter or say, “You must have forgotten me, but my mantra has never left me.”  The mantra becomes the seed from which the rest of the tree of your spirituality grows.

Editor’s Notes

1. For a more detailed analysis of the word “mantra,” refer to Swami Veda Bharati’s “Sutra and  Mantra.”
2. For an extensive explanation of mantra, refer to the works of Swami Rama and to Mantra and Meditation by Usharbudh Arya (Swami Veda Bharati), Himalayan Publishers, Honesdale, Pennsylvania (1981)
3. Two parallel books which show the spiritually transforming effects of japa (mantra remembrance) are – In Quest of God: The Saga of an Extraordinary Pilgrimage by Swami Ramdas, Blue Dove Press, San Diego, California (1994) and the Christian classic in which the Jesus Prayer is used, The Way of a Pilgrim (many translations are available).
4. For details see the booklet Special Mantras by Swami Veda Bharati.

Mantras may be practiced with motives or without motives. With motives are sa-kama, lit. “with desire” for fruit and result. Without motives are nish-kama, “without desire,” only to gain the purification leading to liberation.

Sa-kama is of two kinds (1) to fulfill a personal desire, such as: may my husband’s nature change; may I grow rich, (2) a subtler kind is, I want to live a life of prayer, worship [or service], but practical obstacles come in the way. “I cannot pray or serve because my husband won’t let me as he becomes jealous.” To correct such situations, the practice is the same as the first, but with an ultimate desire which is nish-kama. There the sa-kama desire is to pave the way for the nish-kama goal. Even the desire for liberation may be dropped, and the mantra may be practised guru-prity-artham, for guru’s satisfaction, to receive grace.

Those that are done sa-kama may be for specific purposes, such as to ward off or heal an illness, to prevent accidents foretold, to prolong life, to alleviate financial problems, to achieve a specific goal such as to be able to buy a house, or capture power, or improve an organization, or regain friendship, or eliminate someone’s animosity towards oneself, and so forth.

Another subtle differentiation may be understood here. One may do such undertakings (a) for the purpose of self-purification and liberation only, or (b) to obtain a desired result, or (3) to attain the siddhi(s) of that mantra. The formula of “number of syllables multiplied by hundred thousand plus twenty per cent” is definitely efficacious to achieve the siddhi, that is to say, that one then has the powers inherent in the mantra and is able to use the mantra with just one or three or such other minimum number of remembrances to attain a desired result for oneself or for one’s students or seekers.

Quite often a Guru in his Grace passes on the power of the mantra to a disciple without the latter having to do all these recitations. I recall one day in 1972 driving my Gurudeva along Hennepin Avenue, Minneapolis. I complained, “You have great disciples sitting in the Himalayas doing all that tapasya, and here I am running around American cities?  How will I make any progress?”  He said, ever so compassionately, “Why do you need to do that when I have done it all. I have already passed on to you the benefits of 10,000,000 gayatris. Have you not felt it?”  “Yes, indeed I have felt it, so gratefully”– I replied.

I have heard similar stories from other brother disciples.

In our tradition we have been advising people to undertake special anu-shthanas (observances) of so many repetitions of special mantras from time to time and for specific periods. Normally, these have been in units of 125,000 plus twenty per cent. Actually, these are for beginners. To determine a full purash-charana, the principle to be observed is: count the number of syllables in a given mantra (for example, the gayatri has twenty-four syllables), and do that many hundred thousand. So that a real complete observance of gayatri will be 2,400,000 mental recitations, plus ten or twenty per cent, the reason for which will become clear below.

How long would that take? Let us first check into the amount of time needed for 125,000 recitations plus twenty per cent. That is 1500 malas. Calculate how long it takes one to complete one mala of the given mantra. Some beginners manage only, say, one mala per ten minutes. Allowing for distractions let it be an average of five malas per hour. How many hours a day can one sit, dividing the time into several sessions? Thus one can arrive at the number of days required. Let us say that one sits twice a day for one hour each; so,

ten malas per day,
for 150 days.
Total: five months.

In ancient times, and for those today who manage to lead the life of sadhana full time, a purash-charana of 125,000 might be completed in the shortest possible time, normally never more than three months– for the lazy full-time sadhaka. For the likes of us who have households or ashrams to think about, it is best not to set a time limit. In my present circumstances, it takes two months to complete 125,000 fire offerings. Setting a time limit causes unnecessary stress and anxiety because external circumstances intervene: a child gets sick, a wedding has to be attended, an unexpected visitor from somewhere near the North Pole drops in at the ashram with a dire spiritual need and then one wants to rush through the japa to complete it on time. That is a distraction. One may simply express to oneself the desire that “I would like to complete it in such and such time; God and Guru, please bless me” and then do one’s best.

Well, if one has a lot of time, and inclination, can one complete it in a very short time?  Unless you are a really very highly accomplished sadhaka, try not to do it this way. The ‘deities’, conscious powers inherent in the mantras, do not wish to be rushed. Too many adjustments all at once in the subtle world may bring intense results that you are not ready for. Therefore, the middle path is the best.

If one is serious with one’s spiritual life, or to obtain any other result, one should cut out some other distractions, like social parties, videos, reading stories and so forth. As the japa proceeds the need for sleep is naturally reduced.  It can be further reduced through the practice of yoga-nidra. One can, with such adjustments in life, find time to sit three and a half hours per day. Somewhat as follows:

One hour in the morning,
half hour after coming from work,
two hours (with break in between) at night.

Few aspirants have undertaken the full 2,400,000 gayatris or 3,200,000 mrityunjayas (which has 32 syllables) plus the twenty per cent. These are individuals who have no special worldly responsibilities, or are retired and have made their five-year spiritual plans with care. They are people with a determination. Those few who have undertaken such an observance are continuing with varying degrees of diligence under guidance. The preceptor prays for their successful conclusion. Those who have completed such an observance have become charismatic to many seekers and draw students to themselves without effort.

By keeping to the same kind of calculations as above, one may complete such an ambitious purash-charana of gayatri or mrityunjaya, or of any such long mantra, in three to five years. Instead of going to a business office, one goes to God’s office and keeps the requisite hours. That is all.

If one feels too overwhelmed by the idea of so many millions (because it is not currency notes but mantras!) one may do it piecemeal. Do 125,000 at a time, pause a while, start the same number again, and thus keep repeating the same short observance till you are a multimillionaire. It’s perhaps easier on the mind that way.

It is quite normal that during the course of a purash-charana you will experience unexpected upheavals, obstacles, unwelcome changes. This is like homeopathic medicine. Some karmas and samskaras that would fructify slowly over a lifetime, or even over the next five years, come to the surface in a short time. Do not give up right there in the middle, saying – uh oh, this mantra is very harmful; my teacher does not know his science and has put me in trouble. No, do not abandon the undertaking. It is the phase of dissolution before creation, a readjustment. When the crisis has passed, you will see a fresh and more beautiful start; the karma has been paid off.

This whole process is based on the principle of prayash-chitta, expiation. A voluntary paying off of the karma. In fact, whenever one realizes that one has transgressed a universal law, committed a “sin”, such as hurting someone, and so forth, one may undertake an expiation which has the effect of self-purification. Some expiate such transgressions by giving an anonymous donation, or by serving some elder for a time, or by going on a pilgrimage, or fast, or a period of silence. In the Sikh tradition one may be ordered to clean the shoes of all those who enter the Temple, or to sweep the floors of the Temple, for a specific number of days. But the most purifying is japa.

Now, in the course of the performance of such an observance one’s mind will pass through many different stages, moods, and feelings. Ennui, boredom, fatigue, great bursts of energy and enthusiasm, moments of unprecedented peace, then again an urge to quit. The samskaras (on whose workings listen to some of this writer’s lectures on the Yoga-sutras given in Calgary) appear on the surface and subside. Do not struggle. Do not abandon. Take to the middle path. Forgive yourself. Accept yourself. Remain determined to complete it, even if on some days your tiredness tells you to do no more than one mala that day– keep doing. The mood will pass and you will be happy. When one is tired, the going is always slower. When one is rested, the progress is faster. Allow yourself deftly periods of rest. It all requires arranging things. Gently does it.

Nourishing sattvic food is often important. The priests who undertake such performances for others often require a special allowance for extra milk and some (cow’s) ghee daily.

To replenish themselves the people in India often take hot milk, boiled with ground almonds. Five almonds are soaked overnight, skinned in the morning, ground, cooked with a glass of milk. Some add a little ghee to the hot milk. For those in the West half a teaspoon (for the hardy Punjabis it is a tablespoon!) of melted ghee in the milk will do (but not if you have a heart problem or are overweight), together with two or three round black peppers. It is a very wise balancing act. At night one may take a glass of milk with saffron cooked in it. Ask any Indian woman how exactly to do that. It is the gentlest soporific.

Now, back to the application of the practice of mantra.

A Master may be able to use a mantra once, thereby make the necessary adjustments in the subtle world, and thus achieve a desired goal for his mission or for the benefit of his disciples and seekers. He will do so only if thereby the recipients of such grace will receive short term or long term spiritual benefits or will be enabled to give service to others. Not everyone walking down the street can be helped unless s/he is somehow going to serve or achieve a spiritual goal.

A teacher priest, initiated in the yoga tradition, who is not yet a master, may have to do the mantra a certain number of times to achieve the desired goal. A householder leading a worldly life may have to do it even longer. His/her mantra will be more effective if s/he gets initiated into it by a yoga-qualified initiator before starting the long japa practice. One may also employ a priest of a sattvic temperament to sit daily and do the japa for the officiant (yajamana’s) benefit. But the yajamana needs to take care of such a priest who is sitting practically full time. I have employed such priests in the last one year to achieve certain purposes when I did not have time to do the japa myself, as I am trying to accomplish a number of projects for the mission as well as for beloved disciples. The cost has run to a minimum of eight thousand rupees (one may calculate the equivalent in dollars) for a purash-charana of 125,000 repetitions. It can cost more if one decides that the japa is to be done with fire offerings, or that the priest should come and either live in one’s own ashram or house, or at least come for a certain number of hours, because there is no shortage of those who would promise, but not actually undertake, the practice in full, and with diligence.

If one wants it done in this way, it is still advisable to do some malas by oneself at the same time, at least ten per cent.

If you do 125,000 japa without the fire offerings, do ten per cent more with fire-offerings, or twenty per cent more without any fire offerings. In other words, a 125,000 purash-charana ends up consisting of 150,000 repetitions.

As we have said earlier, one needs to calculate how long it takes to do one round of the mala, how many hours a day one can sit, and thereby calculate how long it would take to complete the practice. 150,000 of japa means 1,500 malas.

There is always a concern among beginners as to the amount of time it takes to do long mantras. As time passes, and one learns the special art of being able to do the mantra faster, the time taken gets less and less. It has nothing to do with moving the tongue, but with going into higher frequency layers of the mind. As one dives deeper, the speed automatically improves.  I have given some instructions on the topic in a cassette titled How to do long mantras faster (available from the Meditation Centre). One may choose to sit with a qualified preceptor to learn this art fully.

It is advisable that one sets at least one fixed time of the day to sit. One may have other sessions in the day at flexible times. One may, of course, have as many brief or extended sessions as one desires, but not between 12 and 3 in the day or at night.

Even if one is ill, or traveling, or busy with sick children, one should sit at the fixed time at least for one mala. The daily link must be maintained. If the mind was unsettled during that one mala, it is best not to count it in the final calculations. Better to do more than to lose some. Be greedy as you would with money due to you from a tax refund. Try to become a millionaire in mantra.

Special purash-charana practice counts only done sitting down. One does not, unlike one’s guru-mantra (mula-mantra) do the special ones while walking about, etc.

The special practice begins with a sankalpa, a special resolve as to the place time, person, motive. There are set formulas recited for the sankalpa, a copy of which, in brief English paraphrase from Sanskrit, is appended here with.

In the sankalpa come the subtleties of the motives and purpose. I may give someone the same maha-mrityunjaya mantra as a prayer for health, or as prayer for spiritual liberation. Or the two purposes may be combined with the thought that if the practicant (sadhaka) completes this practice and is freed of his illness he will dedicate himself to liberation. Or it may be that I want him to have more time of life to be able to complete his spiritual work for liberation. Or, that because he is giving up other desires in favour of seeking liberation, the effects of his past selfish karmas will be reduced and he will, incidentally, be cured of the disease while achieving liberation. To someone else I give a mantra which combines the effect of (a) curing a chronic illness and (b) giving oneself to service of others with the life span thus enhanced. In that case the enhancement of life span will not occur unless one discovers such dedication in oneself.

One needs to decide by what mode one wants to solve a problem. Take the situation of a court case going on for years, brought about by some very vindictive people against someone innocent. The victim needs to decide (a) does s/he want to win the case, or (b) does s/he want to win the person over by bringing character changes in the perpetrator. The later will take a longer time than the former but the change will be more deep-rooted. On the other hand, if one wants to win over someone who is temporarily upset or angry, the change will be quicker.

Again, I have found that if you wish to solve the problem by bringing a change in the character of the other person, such a change is often a temporary one. It will solve your immediate problem by evoking that person’s saumanasyata, good mindedness, eupsychea. But the force of samskaras is strong and the people revert to their nature in other relationships. Then I have to keep repeating the same experiment –do the same japa again next year, and so on until the samskara is completely wiped out. This is what the Gurus do to change us. But, then, the Gurus have astras, missiles, we have only the mantra at vaikhari, or verbal level, or at most at madhyama, the mental thought, and cannot take full responsibility for all our students. There are not enough months in the year to accomplish everything.

When you are doing the japa to change a person or a situation, do not say anything to him. Be indifferent to all his external acts. Meet politely. Make no special overtures at this time. It is best to tell no one else either. Mantra means secret. Keep it a secret. Do not even inquire: Is there any change in that person?  Do not hold on to anxiety. Surrender.

BUT…

only japa will not do. Your own acts should match the purification you desire in the other. You are trying to change an “enemy” into a friend by making him a more saumya person, one with moonlike characteristics. Then, you must be perfect in your own maitri bhavana  (Yoga-sutra I.33). Do not pray for a change in him while your mind recounts all the injustices he has done to you. Without such pure japa you will not accomplish your purpose. For this maitri bhavana, not only do you need to keep your mind pure but also do some positive acts secretly, like (a) doing things beneficial to the other person secretly, and (b) describing that person’s virtues to others and meaning it. Slowly you will learn to refine the art of making your japa more and more effective.

In one case I gave someone a mantra to practice to help them win in a difficult situation. The practicant had a lot of anger at someone else – and the thoughts of that constantly intervened in the japa. The adverse effects began to tell not on the situation that was meant to be corrected but rather on the person for whom there was anger in the practicant’s mind. I had to tell the practicant to stop doing the mantra, then have it completed through priests (and to cover the expense) and the situation was remedied. So, a preceptor has to watch for such situations constantly, otherwise you could be committing murder. Do you still want to be a Guru?

Do not try to remedy irremediable situations. There is no point in trying to do mrityunjaya if one knows that the illness is terminal. Yes, do it, have it done, but as a prayer for liberation and for the dying person’s peace of mind, and not for a cure. In the case of irremediable illnesses, I give the shatakshara gayatri for the person’s peace of mind. If the person cannot do japa, I simply let them listen to the cassette with earphones. When the Master once taught me a healing method and mantra, he warned me not to use it for terminal cases. He said, “At one time I used it in a terminal case, and it took me seven years to overcome my resultant illness.”

Also, do not grant such boons to those who will not give of their life to a spiritual pursuit or to serve others.

I have found in my experiments that if one keeps on doing the same practice beyond the requisite amount needed for a specific purpose, it often becomes self-defeating and nothing gets accomplished. It is like saying, “Mother give me food.”  She says, “I am serving it now.” You still keep on saying, “Mother give me food.”  It is of no use.

How do I know how much japa is needed for a given purpose?  It is written in the works on mantra-shastra but, again, in my experience, it is all a matter of learning by experimentation and refining the “skill”. One may also ask the Guru within, but it is tricky to discern whether it was the Guru who answered or one’s own silly and confused unconscious.

When you do a mantra with ulterior motive, for instance, the maha-lakshmi-mantra, let the sankalpa be

guru-pritya maha-lakshmi-prity-artham
through the guru’s pleasure,
for the pleasing of maha-lakshmi

That should suffice. Do not set other conditions, like, “Gimme a million dollar cheque.”  But, do set this condition for yourself, “If the Great Lady is pleased with me, I shall give away at least ten per cent of her gift. And thus being freed of some burdens, I shall be able to fulfil my totally unselfish desire to serve others, for which I shall give ten per cent of my time and energy to serve God, guru, deities and fellow beings.”  Otherwise you are asking the deities to do things for you without giving them anything in return and they do not like that; then you will have to pay a price. So, look into the motive with great subtlety, purify and refine it as much as possible, and serve the deity with your japa.

Another question often asked is what is the best time of the day to do the purash-charana?  Whatever time is convenient to you, preferably in the morning is best for the fixed time, flexible for the rest.

There are certain days on which a practice may be started. A good astrologer will be able to guide one on that. For yogis the dates are not that important and I do not consult astrologers for the ones I practice myself for the benefit of others. Also it is said : mumukshunam sada kalah strinam kalash cha sarvada, For those seeking liberation (moksha) any time is permissible; for women also any time is appropriate. But, then there needs to be a certain level of purity within in order to benefit from such freedom.

The best is to perform a yajna, fire sacrifice. It is the most effective way of japa. But it is costly in time and finances. A 125,000-ahuti yajna may cost up to one thousand dollars in the cost of ghee, samagree (mixture of aromatic, curative, depollutant herbs and parts of plants and trees, available ready-made) and kindling, if done by oneself. If done through a priest, add the priest’s offerings of not less than two hundred dollars, but perhaps much more, because they will add all sorts of pujas.

While still a householder in 1990, I had a personal debt of  $40,000 and no way to pay it as I had been financing the family and the mission, including the heavy cost of children’s schooling, plus my own travels. 125000 Lakshmi-gayatri japa was done by very highly qualified priests, plus ten per cent additional havana or homa (fire offerings) at our residence. Three to six months later an unexpected kind donation took care to pay off the debt, and some small additional amount started the Rishikesh Foundation. Also from the same donation, at the time of taking sanyasa (vow of renunciation), I was able to place another remaining sum at my master’s feet to help with the hospital project.

One needs to set a special seat for the performance of the purash-charana, and resolve to sit there at least once a day for the duration of the observance. For the purpose of intense practice, one may set aside a room that should be darkened as much as possible, leaving, perhaps the light of a candle or one- or two- candle-power bulb. The curtain should be dark, and if one is prone to being disturbed by exterior noises, one may soundproof the location as much as possible.

However, if one wants something accomplished for a specific home, or for an ashram, or an institution, then it is advantageous to perform the observance at that location. For example, if there is strife among the members of an institution, a qualified preceptor may choose to perform the observance at that location and it will create a pacified collective mindfield. The same effect can be obtained hundredfold if a hundred members undertake the practice at the same time.

On the other hand one may withdraw to one’s Guru’s Ashram to complete such an anu-shthana (observance). This has the added advantage that if any problems arise, one has the ready guidance from one’s preceptor. The preceptor’s presence is often also conducive to discipline.

There are also special sacred places where one may do the purash-charanas of particular mantras. For example, the mani-karnika ghat cremation ground in Varanasi for mrityujnjaya mantra; the temple of Anasuya near Gopeshwar in the Garhwal Himalayas to ask for a desired offspring; the kanya–kumari temple at the southern land’s end of India for doing a special version of mrityunjaya to obtain a desired husband; Naina devi temple to pray for curing eye disease, or one may recite Vishnu-sahasra-nama (thousand names of Vishnu) at Badrinath for the same purpose; to practise the special mantra of the Guru-chakra, go to Tarakeshwar in the Garhwal Himalayas; and so forth.

Here, a point that I have not often emphasized, or even stated, for fear that it would be misinterpreted. No yajna, sacramental act is complete without a dakshina, a gift offering. It is a normal tradition in India, as also in other spiritual traditions, to make an offering to the priest and the preceptor. The ideal is to put aside ten per cent (tithing), or even 1 per cent of one’s income for the duration of the purash–charana. We often give such an offering coupled with cloth, fruits, or whatever else. It is not a business deal just as the japa is not. If one prefers, one may even make a donation to one’s favourite charity. Let it not be done with a feeling of burden but as an expression of helpless love. This is also one of the secrets of becoming prosperous; give away one per cent, better ten per cent, of all your energies as an unselfish anonymous donation. The rider is, do not expect a return, and it will return to you tenfold. However, in the case of priests specially employed, an extra offering to them or to the preceptor is optional. The blessing comes from within oneself.

There are very strong traditions of coupling the mantra practice with other ascetic observances such as silence, fasting, refraining from certain foods, a period of celibacy and so forth in varying degrees. Some non-vegetarians may become vegetarian for that duration, or may refrain from rajasic and tamasic foods like, onions and garlic. Or they may refrain from salt, or eat only boiled food without spices. In fact the people in India and in some other countries like Thailand invariably ask as to what other disciplines they need to follow for the duration of the observance. Teaching in the West, we do not emphasize these disciplines of sadhana but deep inside every preceptor longs to find students and disciples who would ask to undertake such disciplines. For the details of five such components of discipline, please see this writer’s paper titled Five Pillars of Sadhana, and his cassettes on the practice of silence and celibacy.

Even if one does not intentionally undertake such associative disciplines, quite often one finds a natural change of inclinations during the mantra-observance. One may:

simply  want to sleep, eat, speak, indulge in sexual relations less, without any prompting. Then these changed inclinations become pleasant experiences and cease to be enforced disciplines. As a result, this enhances the

intensity of the mantra-observance and increases its fruit.

The word purash-charana means a step forward. When one undertakes such observances one takes a quantum leap on one’s spiritual journey.

Swamiji, our Baba, Swami Rama of the Himalayas used to say, “Six months before anything happens in the exterior world, some changes occur in the subtle world.”  I have often found that the results of a special purash–charana may take up to six months to filter up into the exterior world. So, do not finish the japa today and expect a jump in the Dow-Jones tonight. Surrender, carry on as though you had done nothing. That is important.

Lay claim to nothing.

Abandon thyself.

APPENDIX

If, for example, the author’s close friend, the late Dr. Usharbudh Arya were performing a Vedic ceremony or undertaking an observance (anu–shthana) in Rishikesh on December 25, 1993 at noon, he would recite a sankalpa, of which this is a summerised paraphrase:

Here,

All creation being in his imagination and knowledge, who is the substratum of all–

The very Self comprising the essences of existence, consciousness and bliss

Playing forth with his supreme shakti, his original Lady Nature

Endowed with unthinkable, immeasurable, infinite potencies and powers

The great Lord, Narayana, the Spirit meditating upon the waters,

He of infinite power,

Among His many trillions of universes spinning in the vast ocean of forces,

In this sector of the universe, veiled in unmanifest matter and its manifestations:

Cosmic intelligence, cosmic ego, earth, waters, lights, airs, spaces, and many more;

Upholds a thousand galaxies: the hoods of Shesha, King of Serpents,

Among those thousand snake-hood galaxies, on one of those hoods

Is a tiny mustard seed: the Earth, situated between the seven worlds above and the seven layers that are the worlds below

Supported by eight guardian forces in each of the eight directions

Held firm by the axis-mountain Sumeru and others,

Constituted of seven great continents which are surrounded by seven seas all joined by the latitudes and longitudes.

On this particular continent (Jambu–dvipa by name) are nine subcontinents,

Among them, Bharata¹, unique and most favored by the gods,

Comprising forty-six provinces, numerous forests with nine major ones and twenty-four major rivers,

Above the equator, to the west of the holy land of Kurukshetra, between the rivers Yamuna and Ganga,

In the precincts of such ashrams as Badri-nath, at the ashram of Swami Rama in the holy city of Rishikesh;

Now,

Calculated according to the systems established by sages such as Garga and Varaha,

In Brahma’s day in the forenoon²

In the cycle of creation known as the kalpa of the White Boar,

In the seventh of fourteen Manu Intervals, known as Vaivasvatha,

In the first quarter of the twenty-eighth Kali Yuga,

During the Buddha incarnation, in the year called ,

1955885093 years of the current creation era having elapsed, 5093 of the Kali era having elapsed, 2049 years of the era of emperor Vikramaditya having elapsed (and you may choose to add any other national or local era,

In the year named Parthiva (1993-94)

During the northern passage of the sun above the equator,

In the month of the eighth lunar mansion

On the fourth day of the month of the constellation Pushya (Aldabaran) in the solar calendar,

On the twelfth day of the bright fortnight of the month whose constellation is Mrga–shiras, on Saturday,

In the Krittikas (Pleiades) constellation in the Scorpio sign of the Zodiac (and some finer calculations of yoga and karana are being omitted here),

The sun being in Sagittarius, the moon in Aries, Mars in Sagitarrius, Mercury in Sagittarius, Guru (Jupiter) in Libra, Venus in Sagittarius, Saturn in Aquarius, Rahu³ in Scorpio, and Ketu in Taurus,

At the seventh of thirty divisions of day and night, the muhurta named Vishve–deva.

I,

Born in the lineage of sage Bharadvaja,

In the tradition of Yajur-veda, of the Vajasaneya recension,

Great-grandson of NN, grandson of NN, son of NN,

To confer sacred karma to ten past and ten future and thus twenty-one generations,

Holding the deities, sacred fires, priests and gurus as my witnesses,

For the pleasure of my guru-lineage and to please my ishta-devata,⁴

For the fulfillment of dharma, artha, kama and moksha,⁵

I make this resolve, I undertake this sacred observance.

May it be my surrendered offering to Brahman.

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Editor’s Note

1 The official name of the country in the Indian constitution is “India, that is Bharata”. One may name one’s own country here, instead of Bharata.

2 Some of the finer divisions of the day (beyond the morning, forenoon, afternoon, evening divisions) cannot be translated into English.

3 Rahu and Ketu are the north and south nodes of the moon and constitute the eighth and ninth planets in the Vedic astrological system which doesn’t recognize Uranus, Neptune or Pluto.

4 Chosen deity.

5 The four purusharthas, end purposes of human existence, respectively, the pursuit of virtue, material means thereof, desire, and final liberation.

Source of Mantras

Mantras are units of sound contained in a combination of syllables or words.¹ The universe is composed of the single energy of which two beams are sound and light.  One does not become activated without the other, especially in the inner spiritual space.  The sound units that are called mantras are not ones that are passed on from ear to ear; that is their only physical manifestation.

Note: Before starting on this, please read the booklets/articles by Swami Veda Bharati entitled

• “Beginning Meditation” and
• “Mantra: What and Why” 

The present article is meant mainly for those initiated with a personal mantra.

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In the highest state of meditation, one’s spiritual self is in total at-one-ment with the Divine who, being omniscient, is the source of all knowledge and Word.  The ancient Indian philosophers of language called it shabda-brahman, the Word that is God.  All of that divine knowledge is available for the spiritual self to tap into.

In its trans-revelatory state that knowledge is referred to as para, the Transcendental Speech (fem.).

As the knowledge in the form of speechless speech and the wordless word flows into the individual spiritual self, it is called pashyanti, the Seeing One (fem.).

From here a ray of consciousness emanates and touches the mind’s interior surface that is facing the self and not the senses and the world.  This interior surface is called antah-karana, the intuitive faculty.  Here the ray of consciousness flowing through and from the spiritual self produces a mental vibration.  The mind is stirred with the awareness of a flash like that of lightning.  Then in a micro-moment, which could be as subtle as 10 to the 57th power part of one second, the entire book of the Veda or all 330 million mantras may be revealed.  The experience is like a seed (bija) or a single dot (bindu) containing the details of the picture of a vast area taken from a satellite.  The point has yet to be developed for the picture to manifest itself in detail.  It has been described as all the colors of the peacock’s fan contained within the peahen’s egg.  This state is called madhyama, the Middle Speech (fem.).

As the knowledge rises from the depth of buddhi to the outward surfaces of the rational mind it becomes verbal thoughts. The words are nothing but a process of manifestation, a vibration of a lower frequency than the preceding ones.  This verbal thought in the mind is named by the ancient grammarians and philosophers as vaikhari, divergent and harsh sound (fem.).  This is only the first stage of vaikhari.

Now this vibration from buddhi, mind and the relatively low frequency verbal thought, creates a quickening in the yogi’s vitality field, prana, which then activates the speech organs and the articulate sound emerges, the final product that the disciple’s ears hear in the process of transmission, initiation and teaching.

Thus, what people called Revealed Word is actually the veiled Word at the lowest frequency of knowledge.  It is veiled by the layers of individuated mind.  The true unveiling is only in the highest meditation which is a wordless dialogue or interchange between God and soul.  It is as though someone was in the innermost room of a cave that  is a treasure house of light and as he comes out he unravels a ball of thread.  Emerging from the mouth of the cave he hands the other end of the thread to the disciple and advises him to follow the thread inward until the seeker of treasure reaches the internal golden womb, hiranyagarbha, the first and last guru.  The disciple, receiving the sound of the mantra then uses it to gradually penetrate into the various stations in the cave until the womb chamber of pure consciousness is reached.

Different types of sound units have different effects on the mind field and upon the prana field.  Therefore they have different effects on different psycho-physiological systems within you.  For this reason, to trigger a state of consciousness, you get hold of the corresponding sound unit of a particular mantra. Then over years, decades of practice, a student tries to trace that sound unit to its original vibration in the prana and from there into the mind.  In the process, mantra alters our samskaras, our mind states, and thereby frees those areas which are blocked in the prana, even in the physical centers.

What is Japa?

Japa is mental recitation, or better still, the remembrance, of a mantra, which gradually awakens energy vibrations in the mind field.  The practice of meditation really begins with mantra-diksha, the event of receiving a personal mantra by initiation through a qualified teacher or preceptor in the tradition of a particular lineage; all the rest is preparation.

There are several ways of practicing japa.  People sometimes do daily japa, reciting a mantra aloud.  Kirtan or chanting is also a form of japa.  For total beginners there is even a form of japa which is writing one’s mantra 125,000 times.  This is a form seldom advised in our Tradition.  Just having a mantra is not enough, there are beginners’ to highly advanced steps in the practice of mantra.  All of these steps are stages in japa.

The highest form of japa is mental japa, in which one is immersed only in the silence of the mind.  Here, the four phases of the practice and experience of mental japa are explained.

Phase One of Mental Japa

After one has,

sat down,

established the correct posture,

has relaxed the body,

established diaphragmatic breathing,

has spent the necessary time doing alternate nostril breathing,

one goes into the feeling of the flow of the breath.

The flow of the breath may be felt along the path of the breath from the navel to the nostrils.

Or it may be felt only in the nostrils, just as one does with the word, the universal mantra, So Ham, before receiving a mantra in initiation.

Feel the flow of the breath, with the same cautions as when practicing the word So Ham:  no jerks, no breaks, smooth flow of the breath, silent flow, no pause between the breaths. Eliminating the pause between the breaths is the most difficult part of the process, because that is the door through which external thoughts enter the mind, through those pauses. So, exhale, and immediately inhale, smoothly and slowly.

One experiences the mantra along with the feel of the breath.  Some one-word mantras or bija mantras (seed words) pose no problem.² But there are mantras that are a little longer, five letters, twelve letters or syllables or more.  Those who are not initially familiar with them have difficulty with these intermediate-length mantras.  So, the advice given is to remain aware of the flow of the breath, let the mantra come in whatever way it comes with the breath.  It may be divided over several breaths.  Do not try to synchronise. Let us say that your mantra is ‘om namo bhagavate vasudevaya.’  You may want to do namo with the exhalation, bhagavate with the inhalation, vasudevaya with the exhalation, and so on.  Thus you let it flow, one word merging into the next because of the breath awareness.  You are doing the mantra mentally, but with the feeling of the flow and the touch of the breath in the nostrils, or on the pathway of the breath from the navel to the nostrils, unless you have been given some other method by the preceptor.

Phase Two of Mental Japa

Next, mantra is experienced merely as a verbal thought.  In the Himalayan tradition, the idea of japa is first to forget that the mantra is a word, and to convert the word into vibration.

The first thing one learns is to seal one’s lips.

The second is to still one’s tongue while doing japa.

Third, one learns not to permit the mantra in the other speech organs, such as the throat.

These are processes of elimination.  The mantra tends to come into the speech organs the moment you lose the state of relaxation and then other thoughts intervene.  Even if that happens, let the verbal thought arise, at whatever speed, whatever frequency feels easy and natural for the mind. At this point, you are not paying attention to the breath.  If the breath has been well trained prior to initiation, it will remain diaphragmatic, smooth, and without jerks or breaks.  If it does not, then your breath training is incomplete and you need to keep working at it.  Occasionally, you still need to observe the breath flow as it will indicate to you whether you are really concentrating or not.

The subtle shift in japa comes when you stop doing mantra.  Mantra is not your thought, not something of your doing.  Mantra is the (manaso retaha), it is the Guru-mind’s drop that has been planted in your mind. Through that mantra you are linked to the entire lineage, therefore the lineage will take care. So, after the first, active verbal thought phase let the mantra arise, and simply observe its presence; let it be.  If you keep on using your will, doing japa, you block the divine will or Guru-will working within you. So, let the mantra come and be engaged in simply observing its presence.  Awareness of the presence of the mantra becomes the real japa.

Phase Three: Deepening the Mantra

Now, as to deepening the mantra, please understand here what mind is.  At present you associate the word “mind” only with the instrument of gross and active thought.  But mind is not just one layer.  It has many, many layers vibrating at different frequencies; thus the force field called mind becomes subtler and subtler at deeper and deeper layers.

The common impression is that the mind is that wherewith one thinks the articulate thoughts; however, that is not even the shallowest surface of the mind, but only just a few waves of the sea hitting the beach.  For a child playing on the beach, the waves hitting the beach are all he knows of the ocean.  Similarly, our association with the mind’s ocean is limited to these noisy waves of articulate thoughts. But the depth of the ocean is much greater.  The Mariannas Trench (near the Philippines) is the deepest part of the sea at a depth of 35,000 feet.  If you dropped Mt. Everest there, its peak would be 6,000 feet. underwater.  From the beach to that deepest part is quite a journey and a very deep dive.

At each subsequent level of the sea, divers know there are thermoclines—layers of water at a certain temperature, just above or below another layer of a very different temperature.  As one dives, at the boundary line between the thermoclines, suddenly half of one’s body is in a colder temperature and half in a warmer one.

So it is also with diving in the mind’s ocean.  At these deeper layers of the mind the frequency of the vibration incrementally becomes higher and higher. Whatever thought or word you put into that layer will then vibrate at the frequency of that layer of the mind.  When you dive to a deeper, higher layer of the mind, the mantra automatically becomes higher frequency.  Continue to observe the level at which you find yourself and penetrate beyond that to the next depth.

At all stages of meditation, observation of the state you are in is a very powerful secret; becoming aware of that layer of the mind, of that state.  Right now you are awake; but you are not aware, “I am awake.”  When dreaming you are not aware that you are dreaming; when asleep you are not aware that you are asleep.  With awareness, these states become the steps toward divine consciousness.

Here we should refine again:  doing the mantra, remembering the mantra, listening to the mantra.  At each of these stages other thoughts and images seem to come simultaneously alongside the mantra.  In observing the mind very closely, I have found two distinct phenomena.

1. In one, the mantra and the other thoughts appear to be going on simultaneously, but they are actually intermittent and alternating.  “Mantra; my flight time; mantra; listen to the neighbor’s lawn mower; mantra; there is too much noise around here.”  But because the mind moves so fast, we do not realize that these are intermittent and alternating. The solution is to close the gap between the breaths, and make a resolve to close the gap between mantra, mantra, mantra, mantra.  One may make a resolve that for the next one minute, I shall have no other thought but my mantra.Try it.  Right now, for one minute, just sit, relax the body, let the breath settle down, and resolve that for the next one minute there will be no other thought but your mantra.   Begin now.  (After one minute) –Keeping the mantra in the mind, gently open your eyes.In this way, you train the mind one minute at a time. In that one minute you can obtain ten minutes worth of meditation if the concentration is intense and deep. It is not long meditation which is the secret, but the intensive and deep meditation. Close the gap between the breaths and eliminate the pause between the mantras using one minute and two minute resolves at a time.
2. The second phenomenon that I have observed is that, indeed the mantra and other thoughts do go on simultaneously.  Thinking is happening at one layer of the mind and mantra is pulsating at another.  At the level of the surface, waves are hitting the beach, creating sound, but ten feet below it is absolutely silent.  You have to shift your attention from the surface to this deeper layer.  Apply the principle of observation and when you have observed the deeper layer, the waves on the surface will not cease but will gradually cease to matter.At any new level, people come across unprecedented disturbances. When thoughts cease, images arise.  When images cease, if you manage to overcome that phase, certain types of sentiments and emotions arise.  Some people begin to cry; some feel like laughing; some feel angry; some become afraid; some feel they are becoming sexually aroused.  For each of these sentiments arising, you need to seek the preceptor’s advice, because then you are at a place where you may go in a wrong direction. For example, a lot of people say, “At this certain point I become afraid and I come out of meditation.”  There are answers from the tradition for these questions, and a well-trained preceptor can guide you through these stages.

Phase Four of Mental Japa

The fourth phase in your meditation should be, perhaps five seconds of absolute stillness of the mind—if you can achieve it.  Most people cannot manage more than one second of absolute stillness.  One enters the chamber of silence and the mind becomes as though it is a crystal lake, with not a single ripple. And then from that moment of silence, again one single ripple, the ripple of your mantra arises.  But keep it at that high frequency, where it is barely a word and then it is not a word, only a vibration.  Then it does not take you long to do a long mantra.  Japa is thus understood to be a very subtle and fine art.

Different people have different experiences in that stillness.  The mind feels like

a vast field,

or one forgets oneself,

or one doesn’t know how long one has been sitting in meditation as the time simply passes.

People may think, “Ah, I have achieved final peace,” but this stillness is not the ultimate stillness.  It is just that the waves have stopped hitting the beach.

However, the undercurrents of samskaras are still active.  As that stillness begins to occur, experiences from the subtler part of our being, begin to arise.  One may see a light, but not all lights are spiritual lights.  It may be the light of prana, it may be the light of physical heat turning into an experience.  It may be even something less significant than that.

Centers of Consciousness

In some cases right at the time of the first initiation the preceptor may asign different syllables or part syllables of the mantra to the different centers of consciousness.  For example, if an initiate is given the mantra namah shivaya, s/he may be guided to place the mantra in the way of remembrance at five of the centers as follows:

 

Ascending, Exhaling			Descending, Inhaling
na	perineum		na	eyebrows
mah	navel		mah	throat
shi	heart		shi	heart
va	throat		va	navel
ya	eyebrows		ya	perineum

 

 

 

It is not as staccato-like as it appears. The breath unifies the syllables and connects the chakras.

In most cases, however, after the mantra has been assimilated for some months or years, a specific center of consciousness may be assigned to the initiate in which certain energy patterns and forces are visualized in a methodical system.

Or the path of kundalini may be introduced when the initiate’s consciousness is ready for it.  Many people nowadays play around with the idea of the kundalini but without the mantra and the proper guidance in the way of concentrations, it could even prove harmful to one’s physical and mental well-being because it is the manifestation of sound as mantra that helps regulate the energy flow.

There are many different ways of refining the mantra in the mind.  These are taught as the initiate’s commitment keeps him progressing and a contact is maintained between the initiate and the preceptor.

Meditation Time

Having a fixed time for meditation is a great secret of success.  One fixed time. It is a matter of sankalpa, determination.  In addition to your fixed meditation time each day whenever you can throughout the day, no matter where you are, for five minutes, for two minutes, for even one minute tune your mind to the mantra.  On the other hand there is also an allowance given in the texts that say, (mumukshunam sada kalah, strinam kalascha sarvada), for those who are doing japa as seekers of liberation, there is no rule about time.  And (strinam kalascha sarvada), for women also, there is no such rule. So again there is freedom.  The meaning of this is not, however, that you do not keep your fixed meditation time, but you keep your meditation at all times. A certain level of japa should go on in the mind no matter what one is doing.

Mantra “Doing” Itself

Those who have received the mantra in the Yoga tradition will find that, ideally speaking, the mantra is not being done; one should learn to let the mantra be.  Quite often, one has to do the mantra, but at other times one simply invites, invokes the presence, lets the mantra arise by itself and continue in the mind.  A lot of times, even that invocation, that invitation is not necessary.  One finds that one wakes up at night and the mantra is going on; one goes to the bathroom and the mantra is going on; or one is in the embrace of one’s spouse and the mantra is going on.

Simply learn to listen to the mantra within, and become absorbed in listening.

The mantra in the Yoga tradition is called, bija (seed), a seed is implanted in the mind, that is, a tiny particle of the Guru mind is implanted into the disciple’s mind.  Therefore, it has its own movement.  Even if you do not do your mantra six years from now, ten years from now, somewhere it is bound to come up.  It is said in the Yoga tradition that the mantra given goes with you even through death.  In our teaching of the art of dying, we prefer to train people for the day when they have to leave the body and the mantra will continue with them in this way.

Progression in Purification

Mantra is

for penetrating through the veils and curtains of samskaras,

for countering the existing samskaras, and

for preventing the formation of new, undesirable samskaras.

Samskaras are all of the impressions of past actions stored in the unconscious mind..

Or, in the language of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali,

to prevent the klishta vrittis (afflicted vrittis) from arising, and,

to develop and maintain one single aklishta vritti (unafflicted vritti),

so that shuddhi, buddhi, siddhi, and mukti may occur.

Shuddhi, purification;

buddhi, awakening of pure and sattvic awareness;

siddhi, fulfillment of the purpose of japa; and,

by grace and whenever our acts mature, mukti—freedom.

We have to penetrate through the curtain of samskaras, through the five koshas or sheaths of body, prana, mind, knowledge and bliss; through the three bodies, gross, subtle, causal; to the interior-most part of the buddhi beyond which mantra does not go and at which point mantra is dropped.

Use of the Mala

One may need different types of malas for different types of mantras.  One may be advised to wear one kind of mala, and use a different kind of mala for doing the mantra. All that is between the student and the preceptor.

Big bead malas slow you down; by the time you get from one side of the hill to the other, two seconds have passed.  The big bead malas are okay for wearing, but for doing japa use small beads, with a little knot in between.

Do you need to use the mala?  There are two different aspects to japa. Both practices have their own benefits. One often needs to go through a period of discipline with the mala:  “I shall do so many repetitions.”  In your practice, do a part with the mala, so that you have the basic discipline maintained, a habit is formed, and then put the mala aside and go into the mind. Experiencing the pathways to the subtler depths, put aside the mala and just go into the mind and go deeper, and deeper, and deeper.

Purash-Charanas

I often advise new initiates to undertake a purash-charana immediately after initiation.  The word purash-charana means “a foot forward.”  That is the term for undertaking a special observance.  A beginning observation of purash-charana, for example, would be for someone to do 125,000 repetitions of their mantra using a mala.  Then the mantra becomes habitual, is absorbed.  Knowing the number of minutes it takes to complete one mala of your mantra, and how many minutes you have available daily, you can decide how many sessions in the day you want to have.  One session is at your fixed time; the hours of other sessions may vary.

When you have completed those 125,000 repetitions of the mantra, get in touch with your preceptor who will advise you whether you should do the same observance again, or do it differently.  At a certain point, in your progress, the preceptor may assign

1. special modes of breathing with the mantra,
2. chakras or centers of consciousness to meditate upon and, together with those, sometimes
3. certain internal visualizations, or internal rituals.

He may assign any of the five pillars of sadhana:

stillness,

celibacy,

silence,

fasting, or

conquest of sleep, in lesser or greater degree.

 For this guidance, you remain in touch with the preceptor. Try to put aside three days, five days, seven days, ten days, or a month every year to be rid of the world, and enjoy the freedom of a retreat for intensive practice of mantra.³

Other Aspects of Deepening Mantra Meditation

When the body is tired, the mind becomes sluggish because the mind draws part of its energy from prana.  When the prana moves at a lower frequency and in erratic patterns, the mind also moves more slowly and erratically. Therefore it is most important for one who is keenly interested in developing his or her sadhana to be rested.  Resting not only means sleeping enough, but it also means using conscious rest as in shavasana practices eventually leading up to the practice of yoga-nidra. To be rested also means that throughout the day’s hectic activities one gradually trains the mind to be restful so that the activity does not draw more of the energy of the body than is absolutely required for the task undertaken.  Practice of silence is most restful.

Resting is not enough by itself.  Physical yoga practices activate prana, align and harmonize the prana flow and transform it into higher vibrating frequencies. Once you have activated the prana through Hatha Yoga, go through a relaxation exercise, and other shavasana practices, then sit up and do nadi-shodhanam, alternate nostril breathing, to further balance the left and right flowing energies.

One also has to train oneself in many other directions of life.  All the yamas and niyamas (ahimsa, detachment and so on) are guidelines for emotional purification.  Otherwise, our emotions produce random thoughts, slow down the mind and exhaust the body.  Emotional purification is a whole different sadhana, to go along with japa sadhana.  The sadhana of emotional purification is a life-long endeavor of self-observation and self-refinement, atma-samskara, atma-shuddhi, manah-shuddhi.  Emotion is where people are stuck, where the progress in our meditation gets blocked.  But then the more japa you do, the more the emotions also begin slowly to purify, and vice versa.

What To Do With Previous Mantras

The question is asked often in India, before or after a mantra initiation:  “What do I do with the mantras I have previously received?”  Both in the West and in India there is a habit of receiving many initiations. In the West because people simply like to experiment with this mantra or that mantra, or with this teacher or that teacher; it is all experimental.  In India people feel that it will add to their sanctity or holiness if they accumulate many initiations. To both audiences, our answer is that having many mantras is like having many wives or husbands.  The mind becomes divided. When the purpose of the mantra is to concentrate the mind, doing many mantras is not helpful.

People of the religious traditions of India, are very highly ritualistic, using elaborate pujas, and so forth, in which, because they are sacraments, many mantras are recited, many prayers are used. These are all exterior acts.  In many Tantric works, beside the Kriya Pada and Charya Pada, the chapters on the rules of ritual and chapters on the rules of daily disciplines of life, there is often a Yoga Pada, a chapter on the interior part of the observance.  Very few people are familiar or conversant with the interior part of mantra and mantra practice as we are describing it here. So they satisfy themselves only with the exterior acts.  In the churches and the synagogues in the West, the external rituals, prayers and hymns satisfy people the same way as they do the temple-going people in India. With a slightly different cultural milieu, the idea is the same.

Now in India, mantras are given or received or practiced in many different ways.

1. As already stated, they are part of rituals, external rituals. The priest often gives mantras; for example with the twice-born, the Gayatri mantra, given at a certain age by the priest preceptor.  The people practice that Gayatri as much as possible throughout their life.
2. Sometimes the people, and I found this also in the overseas Indian communities, just decide to embark on some aspects of spiritual life, and they go to their priest or astrologer and are given a mantra. How do the priests and astrologers select the mantras?  In many different ways.

   a. There is Angka Vidya, the science of numerology, very ancient in India, in which the numbers have a close association with the letters of the alphabet.  You find that tradition also among the Jews, where they have done an entire analysis of the Hebrew Bible to find, say, prophetic codes and so forth, on the basis of the numerological interpretation of syllables. The mantra may be matched numerologically to one’s name or birthdate.

   b. In India, unlike the present day West, astrology is not merely a science of prediction.  No astrologer will be consulted if he does not also give a preventive measure to change the circumstances, because with each astrological prediction it is implied that the forces can be moved around. So if Mars is in a bad place, the astrologer always tells you what the Mars mantra is for propitiation, or what other mantra may be done and what other ritualistic acts may be performed along with it. One’s rashi, the sign of the zodiac, determines what forces need to be brought into play to ward off any ill effects of the rashi, or to enhance the good effects of another one.

   c. Quite often, priests who are not bound to a particular religious denomination, may ask an initiate “what is your Ishta Devata?” What is your favorite form of the deity?  Some speak of their family deity; others speak of the personal deity that they are most drawn to. By the word deity we mean the form of divinity, the manifestation to which we are attracted, either by family tradition or personal choice. Based on their answers a mantra is given.

3. Then there are certain mantras that come in family traditions.  The families pass on the mantra from a father to a son, from a mother to a daughter. In a similar manner, sometimes the daughter-in-law receives a mantra from the mother-in-law upon marriage. Just as the son is the continuity of the father, the daughter-in-law is the continuity of the mother-in-law, because the daughter is not the continuity of one’s parental family, she’s the continuity of the marital family. So just as upon marriage a lot of times the bride receives a new name, many women have received, a mantra from their mother-in-law, or from their new marital family’s priest.

4. There are also sampradaya mantras. These signify the various religious denominations within which everybody receives the respective mantra.  This is illustrated in the story of Ramanuja, who received a mantra from Nambi.  The Acharya said, “The mantra should be kept a secret,” but Ramanuja went up to the rooftop and shouted the mantra to the whole world, “om namo bhagavate vasudevaya, I have received such a great treasure.”  The Acharya said, “I told you it was supposed to be kept a secret.”  Ramanuja said, “I am so over-joyed to receive such a treasure, I want to share the treasure with everybody.”  So everybody in that tradition has the same mantra.  Or there is the Chaitanya Mahaprabhu tradition in which everyone receives the same mantra.  It’s like becoming a convert to Christianity and receiving the Lord’s prayer.

Now, let us say that you have received your sampradaya mantra, a mantra of your particular religious denomination, and in the rituals you recite all the other mantras as well.  How do these mantras differ from the tradition of the Yogis?  In each of these traditions, there is no doubt that a certain spiritual force exists. There is no question about it.  Except that the focus is more on the form of the deity to which the individual is drawn through that mantra.

In the Yoga tradition, first of all, one authorized to initiate, uses an intuitive process to assign mantras.  Those who are authorized to give initiation, mantra-diksha, are taught to arrive at a mental state where intuition alone plays the major part in receiving the mantra to be given to the initiate.  The idea is to reduce the mental conflict as much as possible, to unify the mind through concentration.  The mantra received in the Yoga tradition is not for rituals, it is for inward absorption only.  It is for penetrating the veils of the five koshas and of the three bodies until the mantra comes to a point where, as the Shiva-sutras say, “the entire mind becomes the mantra.”  Beyond that when one reaches the state of a-manaska-yoga, then not only the mantra is left behind, but even the mind is left behind.

Now, again the question:  “What do I do with the mantras I received before?”  The mantra you received in the Yoga tradition, as I said, is for inward absorption only.  If you have a denominational (sampradaya) or family mantra and you perform your external worship, carry on, with that worship with the mantra appropriate to that aspect of divinity.  There is no problem with it.  What you do with these, your sampradaya mantra, or your family mantra, or the one given by the mother-in-law to the daughter-in-law is a few recitations, to honor them.  You have seen a beautiful piece of jewelry.  If you purchase that piece of jewelry, you do not throw away your old jewelry, you still keep it alongside the new piece.  But these are not the mantras for your regular meditation practice; they have different purposes, to keep your link with your sampradaya, your denomination, to keep your family tradition going, for performing exterior worship and pujas; that is fine.

Therefore, if you have other mantras in addition to your regular guru mantra received in a Yoga initiation, perhaps even new mantras given by your preceptor for special practices, every time you sit for meditation, go inwards, and do one or three repetitions of all of your mantras to remember and honor them.  Do five, do eleven, you may even close your mediation with the same recitations again.  But let your major work in meditation and throughout the day be with your personal guru-given mantra.  In the Yogic tradition  you should learn to differentiate between what people do with the mantras in an exterior context and what the interior context and purpose of the mantra in meditation practice is.

How to Do Long Mantras Faster

Often there are questions about the mind’s ability to do japa of the long mantras with effectiveness when a person only has a limited amount of time available.  Many people take something like half an hour to complete one round of the mala of the Mrityunjaya mantra, for example.  Similarly, with the Gayatri mantra.  At that speed if they undertake a purash-charana, a long observance of completing the japa of 125,000 repetitions plus twenty per cent of that number,⁴ it will take years.  So how can these long mantras be done with some saving in time?

Principle of ardha-matra: Half a mora Again and Again

There is a principle called ardha-matra, half a mora.  A mora is the time we take to pronounce a short vowel.  One learns to pronounce it in half that time.  Here we are not speaking of articulation, uttering it with the mouth, nor even silently while still engaging the speech organs.  Many people doing silent japa still permit it to come into the speech organs, throat, larynx or a moving tongue, even with sealed lips.  Doing the mantra fast with the mouth will only increase tension and will not serve the purpose of deepening the meditation.

The principle of ardha-matra can be understood only if we know the nature of mind as explained above, the idea that mind is not just made up of one layer. It has many, many layers vibrating at different frequencies and this force field called the mind becomes subtler and subtler and subtler at deeper and deeper layers. At these deeper layers the frequency of the mind’s vibration incrementally becomes higher and higher.

It is taught in the Tantras that the mantra may thus be refined nine times, thus:

1/2

1/4

1/8

1/16

1/32

1/64

1/128

1/256

1/512

Even in the subtle point of life force and consciousness in the sahasrara chakra, in the highest center of the thousand rays, even within that bindu there are nine levels.  All of that is part of the ardha-matra system. One starts with the time it takes to pronounce, no, to mentally remember a short vowel, the mora, and then reduce it by half, and then half of that and then half of that, leading to higher and higher frequency vibrations.

Let a Quiet Resolve Arise in the Mind

When you sit for your meditation, let there arise a sankalpa in your mind, a quiet resolve, not a loud determination but a very, very quiet resolve. A resolve like the sure and quiet one a person feels when s/he wants to commit oneself in love. Just simply realize this something within, that way.  At each stage, each state, each phase of mediation, renew that resolve. Don’t make that resolve for the next half hour, but for the next minute. Don’t say, “I shall not permit,” bur rather, gently, “for the next minute, there shall not arise any intruding thoughts; I shall experience only the even flow of my breath.”  Just as we learned above to resolve to close the gaps in our breathing process through a one minute practice, try this quiet resolve to have no intruding thoughts for one minute starting right now.

How was that minute?  Now resolve in your mind that for the next one minute there will be no intruding thoughts except the presence of your shorter personal mantra, coming like a thought-wave repeating itself, a wave into which there will be no intruding thoughts for the next minute. Now resolve once again in your mind that for the next one minute there will be no intruding thought; you will only feel the flow of your breath in your nostrils with the presence of your mantra.

Now keeping that state of mind, resolve to do two repetitions of the Gayatri mantra:

Om bhur buvah svah

tat savitur varenyam

bhargo devasya dhimahi

dhiyo yo nah prachodayat.

Keep the same state of mind you were in during the one-minute following the resolve; go there and resolve that during these two repetitions of the thought wave called the Gayatri there will be no intruding, interrupting thought. Now begin. That was one minute. In that one minute, a yogi can do the Gayatri twenty-one times or many more because s/he goes into a higher frequency deep in the mind.

Now attempt to do the long mantra keeping the words even with the breath, dividing the mantra over several breaths. Take the fragment “Om bhur buvah svah.”

Do that and see how long it takes. For the initial practice, do just that fragment in one exhalation however many times it fits in that exhalation. Similarly, you will try on your own with the second fragment, “tat savitur varenyam,” and the third segment, “bhargo devasya dhimahi,” and the fourth segment, “dhiyo yo nah prachodayat.”  Try segment by segment with the same kind of resolve that we made earlier with the shorter mantra, permitting no intruding thoughts.  It is the intruding thoughts that not only bring you to the lower frequency, the shallower level of the mind, but by intruding between mantra and mantra, they slow down your japa. So eliminating intruding thoughts by these short periods of resolve will help.  Recall again and again the state you experienced when you went to the slightly higher frequency level for one minute, and keep going back to that.  Gradually you may increase the period of the resolve to two minutes and so on.

Let the Entire Mantra Flash as a Single Unit

Now relax completely. Let your breath settle down.  Let your personal mantra come in your mind. Do not let the mantra come word for word, syllable by syllable.  Let the entire mantra flash as a single unit as though your mind is a clear sky with one single star flashing, flashing, flashing.

Now let the first segment of Gayatri flash the same way.

Let the second segment of Gayatri flash and then the third segment. And the fourth segment. The entire segment as a single unit.

Now the first and the second segment together.

The third and the fourth segments flashing as a thought-wave. Remain there.

And now let the entire mantra be done.  Gradually your practice will improve as the mind learns to enter its own higher and higher frequency levels.

Let the Mind Observe the Mind

There is one more secret for deepening meditation and at the same time learning to do the long mantra.  Observe the mind.  Let the mind observe the mind.  Observe the presence of the mantra. The part of the mind that is being employed to experience the thought-wave at present is a small fragment of the mind. The rest of the mind wanders off. That remainder of the mind should be employed in observing, and gradually, the doer and the observer will merge. Those who have been initiated into a chakra will find a certain vibration in that chakra and will learn to merge their consciousness.  Sit in grace and surrender.  Not by your effort alone will you reach total pacification, enlightenment.  Your effort only purifies the vessel.  Surrender your body, prana and mind so that the Guru spirit may enter and the Guru mind may touch your mind, making your mind one of its meditation seats that it may meditate therein.

However, you may not succeed in the practice simply by reading about the “technique” described above.  Seek out a qualified preceptor who will do the transmission of the vibration and will help open some of the interior doorways in a personal or small group session.

What we have tried with the Gayatri mantra also works the same way with the Mrityunjaya mantra or any other long mantras whenever they are given to you.

May you dive into the deepest layer of mind and beyond. God bless you, Om.

Two Mantra Meditation Practices

Practice One:  Meditation with Mantra

1. Sit with your head, neck and trunk straight.  Your spine erect.
2. Withdraw your mind from all other places and be aware only of the place where you are sitting.
3. Withdraw your mind from all other spaces and be aware only of the space your body is occupying from head to toe. Be aware of yourself from head to toe.
4. Withdraw your mind from all other times and be aware only of this moment in time.  In your awareness be here and be now.
5. Relax your forehead, relax your eyebrows and eyes, relax your nostrils, relax your cheeks, relax your jaw, relax the corners of your mouth, relax your chin, relax your neck, relax your shoulders, relax your upper arms, relax your lower arms, relax your hands, relax your fingers, relax your fingertips.  And breathe as though your breath is flowing all the way to your fingertips.
6. Relax your fingertips, relax your fingers, relax your hands, relax your lower arms, relax your upper arms, relax your shoulders, relax your chest, relax your cardiac region.  And gently exhale and inhale, slowly and smoothly.
7. Relax your stomach, relax your navel, relax your abdomen, relax your thighs, relax your calf muscles, relax your feet, relax your toes. And breathe as though your breath is flowing through your whole body, from top to toe and toe to top, gently, slowly and smoothly.
8. Relax your toes, relax your feet, relax your ankles, relax your calf muscles, relax your knees, relax your thighs, relax your abdomen, relax your navel, relax your stomach, relax your cardiac region, relax your chest, relax your shoulders, relax your upper arms, relax your elbows, relax your lower arms, relax your wrists, relax your hands, relax your fingers, relax your fingertips, relax your fingers, relax your hands, relax your wrists, relax your lower arms, relax your elbows, relax your upper arms, relax your shoulders. Your neck straight, relax your neck muscles, relax your chin, relax your jaw and the corners of your mouth, relax your cheeks, relax your nostrils, relax your eyes and eyebrows, relax your forehead, relax the seat of your mind.  And gently exhale and inhale, as though your breath is flowing through your whole body, from top to toe and toe to top, gently, slowly and smoothly.
9. Observe the gentle rise and fall of your stomach and the diaphragm muscle. Observe how that area gently relaxes as you inhale, how it gently contracts as your exhale.  Observe the movement with the gentle rhythm of your breathing.
10. Establish diaphragmatic breathing.
11. Let your mantra come to your mind in whatever way it comes easy, natural and comfortable.  Exhaling and inhaling, let your mantra come however many times in your breath.  If it synchronizes with your breath, let it synchronize, or simply let the mind remember the mantra, in whatever way it comes easy, natural and comfortable. Feeling the diaphragmatic breathing.
12. Feel the flow and the touch of your breath in your nostrils, breathing slowly, gently and smoothly.  No break in your breath, no jerks, no sound. Continue to feel the touch of the breath in the nostril.  Maintain the mantra in whatever way it comes easy, in whatever way it adjusts to your breathing, however many times in your breath, or even divided over several breaths. Exhaling and inhaling.
13. If your mind wanders, again straighten your spine and your neck.  Relax your abdomen, stomach, chest, shoulders. Relax your jaw, relax your forehead.  Reestablish diaphragmatic breathing.
14. Again feel the flow and the touch of the breath in the nostrils. Maintain the mantra in whatever way it adjusts to your breathing, however many times in your breath.
15. Now you may ignore your breathing.  Let your mantra come in your mind in whatever way it comes easy, natural and comfortable.  Let the mind remember the mantra.  Over and over and over.
16. And observe your mind doing so.
17. No turning away from your mantra.  Relax, relax,  Let the mind remember the mantra over and over.
18. And now cease all effort.  Abandon all endeavor.  Only let there be a quietness, a stillness, silence in the mind.
19. In this restful silence, again let your mantra arise.  Pulsing, pulsing, pulsing.
20. Again, feel the flow and the touch of your breath in your nostrils, as though your breath and the mantra are a quiet stream flowing from your pool of silence.
21. Observe the flow of the breath: observe the presence of the mantra.
22. And gently, without losing touch with your breath and the mantra, slowly cup your eyes with your palms. Remaining inwardly tuned, gently open your eyes to your palms.  Continuing to enjoy the feeling of calmness, you may bring your hands down.
23. God bless you.

Practice Two:  One Minute Meditation Practice with Mantra

First center your body from the nose center using the breath,  then establish diaphragmatic breath.

The important point is the resolve for one or two minutes to allow no other thoughts to enter the mind while maintaining the prescribed concentration.

Now, resolve to allow no distracting thoughts in your mind.

1. Feel the breath as if you are breathing with your whole body, from crown to feet for one minute.
2. Feel the breath in the navel center for one minute.
3. Feel the breath flowing in the channel between the navel and the center at the base of the nostrils for one minute.
4. Do nadi-shodhanam.
5. Feel the breath in the active nostril for one minute.
6. Feel the breath in the passive nostril for one minute.
7. Feel the breath flowing through both nostrils for two minutes.
8. Feel the breath flowing through the channel between the center at the base of the nostrils and the center between the eyebrows (sushumna breathing) for two minutes.
9. Do sushumna breathing while hearing the mantra in your mind for two minutes.
10. Sense only the mantra in your ajna (eyebrow) center for two minutes.
11. Be aware of complete silence for one quarter minute.
12. Feel the breath flowing through both nostrils with the mantra for one minute.
13. Open your eyes while maintaining breath awareness and hearing the mantra for one minute.
14. Move the body, stretch and relax.

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End Notes:

1. Before starting on this, please read the articles by Swami Veda Bharati entitled “Beginning Meditation” and “Mantra: What and Why.” The present article is meant mainly for those initiated with a personal mantra.
2. In Swami Rama’s introduction to Swami Veda Bharati’s Meditation and the Art of Dying, Swami Rama has explained more about the art of dying taught by the yogis.  Also see Swami Rama’s Sacred Journey, the chapter entitled “Mastery Over Death.”
3. H. H. Swami Rama’s Ashram in Rishikesh is an ideal location for such a guided retreat.
4. Special Mantras by Swami Veda Bharati.

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Recommended Readings:

Books by Swami Rama:

1. Meditation and Its Practice
2. Sacred Journey: Living Purposefully and Dying Gracefully
3. Sadhana

Books and Tapes by Swami Veda Bharati (formerly Dr. Usharbudh Arya, D. Litt.)

Books:

1. Mantra and Meditation
2. Superconscious Meditation
3. Meditation and the Art of Dying

Audio Talks:

1. Problem Thoughts in Meditation
2. Superconscious Meditation Series
3. Understanding Human Personality

Booklets:

1. Five Pillars of Sadhana