|
What is a Mantra
and How Does It Work ?
Mantras are powerful sounds. Mantras are the
ones that have when chanted produce great effects. These
are chanted repeatedly and that is called Japa. Japa is
a key part of Hindu prayer.
Mantras are very rich in their meaning.
While doing japa one can meditate on the mantra and its
meaning. As the mind dwell more and more into that, the
mantra conditions the mind and takes up to the higher
states and forms the path to the great liberation -
eternal bliss !
What makes mantras so special as compared to
the normal words ? Mantras are not human composed. One
may wonder how can that be possible. Especially given
that there are sages associated with the mantras ! The
point to be noted is that these sages are not composers
of these mantras, as we normaly compose the sentences;
they are not the inventors, but they are the discoverers
of the mantra. They get to know the mantras in a state
in which these words do not emanate from their thoughts,
but they are just passive audience to it. Those who go
deep in meditation and realize God may be able to get a
feel of this situation.
To be such a discoverer, even though they
are just passive hearers, needs great amount of
qualification. Only the perfect one can unchangedly
reproduce the mantra heard. The only one that is
absolutely perfect is God. All other discoverers
reproduce that mantra only as pure as their closeness to
perfection.
veda samhitAs are full of mantras and hence
have been preserved for ages in their pure form by
utilizing the various techniques like patha, krama,
jaTa, gaNa pATas, that ensure that the chanter clearly
gets the correct letters and even the correct level of
sound for each letter (svara). The chanters are advised
to chant the mantras only after getting the right
pronunciation of it, so that the mantras are presered
against deterioration with time. There would be gurus
who initiate the disciple in a mantra. guru ensures that
the disciple got the mantra right, so that the person
can chant independently as well as initiate others in
that mantra. Ensuring this preservation vedas were
passed only through the tradition of guru and disciples
and was never written down till very recent past. (It is
really amazing to note that without being written down
the vedas have been preserved in pure form across the
land by these techniques. Though the texts are freely
available now for anybody to read, it would be important
to ensure that these mantras are properly learnt and
then chanted. This way the treasure that as been
preserved so carefully over multiple milleniums do not
deteriorate due to indifference.)
It is to be noted that many of the hymns of
thirumuRai are known to have great powers of mantras
that are practiced even today.
While there are plenty of mantras available,
there are a few that are chanted with high esteem by the
shaivas. Definitely those are highly powerful ones that
can lead the chanter on the great path to mukti
(liberation). praNava, paNJchAkashra, gAyatri to name a
few. For shaivites the Holy Five Syllables
(paNJchAkshara) with or without combined with the
praNava is the ultimate mantra.
Definition # 1:
Mantras are energy-based sounds.
Saying any word produces an actual physical
vibration. Over time, if we know what the effect of that
vibration is, then the word may come to have meaning
associated with the effect of saying that vibration or
word. This is one level of energy basis for words.
Another level is intent. If the actual
physical vibration is coupled with a mental intention,
the vibration then contains an additional mental
component which influences the result of saying it. The
sound is the carrier wave and the intent is overlaid
upon the wave form, just as a colored gel influences the
appearance and effect of a white light.
In either instance, the word is based upon
energy. Nowhere is this idea more true than for Sanskrit
mantra. For although there is a general meaning which
comes to be associated with mantras, the only lasting
definition is the result or effect of saying the
mantra.
Definition #2:
Mantras create thought-energy waves.
The human consciousness is really a
collection of states of consciousness which
distributively exist throughout the physical and subtle
bodies. Each organ has a primitive consciousness of its
own. That primitive consciousness allows it to perform
functions specific to it. Then come the various systems.
The cardio-vascular system, the reproductive system and
other systems have various organs or body parts working
at slightly different stages of a single process. Like
the organs, there is a primitive consciousness also
associated with each system. And these are just within
the physical body. Similar functions and states of
consciousness exist within the subtle body as well. So
individual organ consciousness is overlaid by system
consciousness, overlaid again by subtle body
counterparts and consciousness, and so ad infinitum.
The ego with its self-defined "I" ness
assumes a pre-eminent state among the subtle din of
random, semi-conscious thoughts which pulse through our
organism. And of course, our organism can "pick up" the
vibration of other organisms nearby. The result is that
there are myriad vibrations riding in and through the
subconscious mind at any given time.
Mantras start a powerful vibration which
corresponds to both a specific spiritual energy
frequency and a state of consciousness in seed form.
Over time, the mantra process begins to override all of
the other smaller vibrations, which eventually become
absorbed by the mantra. After a length of time which
varies from individual to individual, the great wave of
the mantra stills all other vibrations. Ultimately, the
mantra produces a state where the organism vibrates at
the rate completely in tune with the energy and
spiritual state represented by and contained within the
mantra.
At this point, a change of state occurs in
the organism. The organism becomes subtly different.
Just as a laser is light which is coherent in a new way,
the person who becomes one with the state produced by
the mantra is also coherent in a way which did not exist
prior to the conscious undertaking of repetition of the
mantra.
Definition #3:
Mantras are tools of power and tools for power.
They are formidable. They are ancient. They
work. The word "mantra" is derived from two Sanskrit
words. The first is "manas" or "mind," which provides
the "man" syllable. The second syllable is drawn from
the Sanskrit word "trai" meaning to "protect" or to
"free from." Therefore, the word mantra in its most
literal sense means "to free from the mind." Mantra is,
at its core, a tool used by the mind which eventually
frees one from the vagaries of the mind.
But the journey from mantra to freedom is a
wondrous one. The mind expands, deepens and widens and
eventually dips into the essence of cosmic existence. On
its journey, the mind comes to understand much about the
essence of the vibration of things. And knowledge, as we
all know, is power. In the case of mantra, this power is
tangible and wieldable.
Statements About
Mantra
Mantras have
close, approximate one-to-one direct language-based
translation.
If we warn a young child that it should not
touch a hot stove, we try to explain that it will burn
the child. However, language is insufficient to convey
the experience. Only the act of touching the stove and
being burned will adequately define the words "hot" and
"burn" in the context of "stove." Essentially, there is
no real direct translation of the experience of being
burned.
Similarly, there is no word which is the
exact equivalent of the experience of sticking one's
finger into an electrical socket. When we stick our hand
into the socket, only then do we have a context for the
word "shock." But shock is really a definition of the
result of the action of sticking our hand into the
socket.
It is the same with mantras. The only true
definition is the experience which it ultimately creates
in the sayer. Over thousands of years, many sayers have
had common experiences and passed them on to the next
generation. Through this tradition, a context of
experiential definition has been created.
Definitions of
mantras are oriented toward either the results of
repeating the mantra or of the intentions of the
original framers and testers of the mantra.
In Sanskrit, sounds which have no direct
translation but which contain great power which can be
"grown" from it are called "seed mantras." Seed in
Sanskrit is called "Bijam" in the singular and "Bija" in
the plural form.
Let's take an example. The mantra "Shrim" or
Shreem is the seed sound for the principle of abundance
(Lakshmi, in the Hindu Pantheon.) If one says "shrim" a
hundred times, a certain increase in the potentiality of
the sayer to accumulate abundance is achieved. If one
says "shrim" a thousand times or a million, the result
is correspondingly greater.
But abundance can take many forms. There is
prosperity, to be sure, but there is also peace as
abundance, health as wealth, friends as wealth, enough
food to eat as wealth, and a host of other kinds and
types of abundance which may vary from individual to
individual and culture to culture. It is at this point
that the intention of the sayer begins to influence the
degree of the kind of capacity for accumulating wealth
which may accrue.
Mantras have been
tested and/or verified by their original framers or
users.
Each mantra is associated with an actual
sage or historical person who once lived. Although the
oral tradition predates written speech by centuries,
those earliest oral records annotated on palm leaves
discussed earlier clearly designate a specific sage as
the "seer" of the mantra. This means that the mantra was
probably arrived at through some form of meditation or
intuition and subsequently tested by the person who
first encountered it.
Sanskrit mantras
are composed of letters which correspond to certain
petals or spokes of chakras in the subtle body.
As discussed earlier, there is a direct
relationship between the mantra sound, either vocalized
or subvocalized, and the chakras located throughout the
body.
Mantras are energy
which can be likened to fire.
You can use fire either to cook your lunch
or to burn down the forest. It is the same fire.
Similarly, mantra can bring a positive and beneficial
result, or it can produce an energy meltdown when
misused or practiced without some guidance. There are
certain mantra formulas which are so exact, so specific
and so powerful that they must be learned and practiced
under careful supervision by a qualified guru.
Fortunately, most of the mantras widely used
in our portal and certainly those contained in this
chapter are perfectly safe to use on a daily basis, even
with some intensity.
Mantra energizes
prana.
"Prana" is a Sanskrit term for a form of
life energy which can be transferred from individual to
individual. Prana may or may not produce an instant
dramatic effect upon transfer. There can be heat or
coolness as a result of the transfer.
Some healers operate through transfer of
prana. A massage therapist can transfer prana with
beneficial effect. Even self-healing can be accomplished
by concentrating prana in certain organs, the result of
which can be a clearing of the difficulty or condition.
For instance, by saying a certain mantra while
visualizing an internal organ bathed in light, the
specific power of the mantra can become concentrated
there with great beneficial effect.
Mantras eventually
quiet the mind.
At a deep level, subconscious mind is a
collective consciousness of all the forms of primitive
consciousnesses which exist throughout the physical and
subtle bodies. The dedicated use of mantra can dig into
subconscious crystallized thoughts stored in the organs
and glands and transform these bodily parts into
repositories of peace.
Some of you may be interested or even
fascinated by the discipline of mantra, but feel
somewhat overwhelmed by the array of mantras and
disciplines, astotaras and pujas you find in here. If
so, then this chapter will be of use to you. It contains
some simple mantras and their common application. They
have been compiled from vedas and upanishads, drawn from
the various headings of the deities or principles
involved. These mantras address various life issues
which we all face from time to time. If you want more
information or more mantras relating to the deities or
principles involved, email to
sunithbabu@rediffmail.com
| 
