Mantra Yoga and the Primal Sound: Secret of Seed (Bija) Mantras

by David Frawley

The Judeo-Christian tradition starts with God creating the universe through the Word: “Let there be light,” and there was light. The New Testament ponders, “In the beginning was the Word.” The monastic history of Christianity includes prayer, chant and formalized words of meditation. Church services frequently include responsive chants of ‘Amen’. The Jewish Kabala has mystic syllables and explains the Hebrew alphabet in a similar way relative to cosmology as the Yoga tradition does the Sanskrit alphabet. Sufism relies on the power of oft repeated prayers and Divine names to bring life into harmony with the Spirit. Taoism has an important tradition of healing sounds for body and mind that are used in Taoist Yoga and traditional Chinese medicine. Buddhism has its own rich tradition of mantras, particularly in the Buddhist Tantras and in Tibetan Buddhism. These are largely Sanskrit mantras and include many of the same mantras as in the Hindu Yoga tradition mentioned in this book. Shamanic healing from all over the world invokes healing powers through chant and prayer, with diseases expelled in its rituals through the use of an emphatic phrase or mantra. We find traditions of sacred sound in all ancient cultures from Egypt and Babylonia to India, China and the Americas, as the ancient world lived more closely to the magic of the Divine Word.