Yoga & Beauty Tips

Mantras - What is a Mantra?

A Mantra is a formula or a word with spiritual significance. Stripped of any Hindu background it is just a meaningless word or syllable that can help you relax very deeply. Mantra meditation is a very easy to learn and effective relaxation technique. Just thinking a mantra helps you focus your attention on the inside and eventually reach a state of very deep rest. Regular practice of meditation reduces ones irritability and thus the feeling of being stressed. It also reduces the time of recovery after distressing situations. During the first weeks of practicing mantra meditation some people tend to become more sensitive.

This is one reason why after the introduction a few "checkings" should follow to ensure correct practice. I have made a very similar course with youths who easily are filled with enthusiasm and therefore tend to overdo the exercise. This is why their practicing meditation needs special attention and control. In some (rare) cases you even might have to advise against continuing to meditate. I recommend meditating once or twice per day for about 15 minutes. Meditation should be practiced in a calm, not too light surrounding and distractions should be avoided. The best times to meditate are the early morning.

Stated simply, a mantra is a sound vibration. The word "mantra" is a Sanskrit word consisting of two syllables: "man" (mind) and "tra" (deliverance). In the strictest sense, a mantra is a pure sound vibration that delivers the mind from its material inclinations and illusion. Chanting is the process of repeating a mantra. This act of chanting mantras is Mantra Meditation. But not all mantras are "mantras" and not all "mantras" are mantras... which is to say that not all transcendental vibrations are actually called mantras and not just any sound vibration will bring success.

Mantras
by Thomas Ashley Farrand

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 that influences the result of saying it. The sound is the carrier wave and the intent is overlaid upon the waveform, 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 that 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 that 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 that 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 that 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 that 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 that 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 that 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 that can be “grown” from it are called "seed mantras." Seed in Sanskrit is called "Bijam" in the singular and "Bija" in the plural form. Please refer to the pronunciation guide on page 126 for more information on pronunciation of mantras.

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 that 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 that 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 that correspond to certain petals or spokes of chakras in the subtle body.

As discussed in Chapter 2, there is a direct relationship between the mantra sound, either vocalized or sub vocalized, and the chakras located throughout the body.

Mantras are energy that 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 that are so exact, so specific and so powerful that they must be learned and practiced under careful supervision by a qualified teacher.

Fortunately, most of the mantras widely used in the West and certainly those contained in this volume 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 that 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 that 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.

©1997-2004, Thomas Ashley-Farrand

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