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by
Om Swami
Read between
March 30 - April 25, 2020
yes, it’s absolutely critical to have a preceptor guide you and, there’s no set way of finding a good guru. Having said that, the absence of a guru does not mean that you can’t succeed on this path. Ultimately, individual effort is the key. While diksha (initiation) makes it easy and it can be transformational, it is not a substitute for individual practice.
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Even if you have nothing else but this book, an intense longing, unrelenting discipline and time to pour into your sadhana (spiritual practice), you will unlock a whole new world of consciousness and mystical excellence.
A sadhaka (aspirant) on the path of mantra yoga cannot succeed without reverence and devotion. This has been my unfailing experience, too. Real devotion makes you humble, it melts you, transforms you.
“There’s no suffering, only ignorance. What people call suffering is merely their perspective born out of ignorance.”
The basic principle of mantra sadhana is to practice the utterance of a sound with such intensity, fervor and determination, that your whole being starts to reverberate with that sound. You become that sound. It becomes your sound, your mantra. The one you not only connect with, but that transports you to another dimension of consciousness.
The basic unit of life is the nimesha, the instant. Fifteen nimeshas make one kastha, thirty kasthas one kaala, thirty kaalas one muhurta and thirty muhurtas one day. Thirty days is a maasa, a month, which is one day of the gods and ancestors; six maasas make an ayana, two ayanas a year. One human year is a day and a night for the celestials, uttarayana being the day and dakshinayana the night. Three hundred and sixty-five human years make a divine one.
Four are the yugas in the land of Bharata: the krita, treta, dwapara and kali. The pristine krita lasts 4,800 divine years, the less perfect treta 3,600 years, the half-corrupt dwapara 2,400 and the almost entirely evil kali, 1,200.
A chaturyuga, one cycle of four ages, is 12,000 godly years long, 12,000 x 365 human years. Seventy-one chaturyugas make a manvantara, fourteen manvantaras a kalpa. A kalpa, of 1000 chaturyugas, 12 million divine years, is one day of Brahma, the Creator.
8,000 years of Brahma make one Brahma yuga; 1,000 Brahma yugas make a savana. Each Brahma lives for 3,003 savanas.
A day of Brahma’s has 14 Indras, his life 54,000 Indras. One day of Vishnu is the lifetime of Brahma. One day of Siva is the lifetime of Vishnu...
Can it be that our past was more than what we think? Was it, in its way, inconceivably superior to the present? By the Puranic calendar, we live today at the outset of a kali yuga. Thus, Rama lived in the world more than 800,000 years ago and Krishna, some 4,000 at least.
Your sadhana is to attain your sadhya. The rules, discipline, framework and philosophy are only a means to an end. Once done, you are ready to define your own rules because when you are delivered, you are free. Free of everything.
On the path of mantra sadhana, there are three types of actions for an adept. They are called nitya karma (daily duties), naimatik karma (targeted duties) and kamya prayoga (application).
Through daily duties you prepare yourself, with targeted action (naimaitik karma) you earn and store your energy, and you put that to use by way of an application (kamya prayoga).
when a practitioner has already accumulated plenty of energy of the mantra, he or she is naturally empowered to heal others and grant genuine wishes of others with the sole view of furthering the cause of nature for the welfare of others.
An adept should ideally wake up just before sunrise, after getting about six hours of sleep.
It’s extremely healthy. Even if you napped for more than 15 minutes in the afternoon, you will feel rejuvenated.
Sitting up in your bed, meditate on the form of your guru at the crown of your head. Imagine the smiling face and graceful form of your guru emitting light and filling you with light and bliss. You don’t need to devote more than 3-5 minutes on this meditation. Mentally offer your respects to your guru.
Early morning chants or mantras are not ways of doing a commercial transaction, where you tell God, “See, I’m chanting your mantra. Now you give me what I’m after.” Instead, it’s a way of understanding that you go way beyond your individual existence, and that you are bigger than your desires.
Eventually, what matters is to live and act with constant memory of God in your mind. This can be attained through mindful chanting.
Mindful japa with devotion is the essence of mantra yoga.
Every mantra that is available to us on our planet was brought to us by some seer. The seer of the mantra is called the rishi of that mantra. It means the one who saw. Mantras are not coined or created; they are only ever seen because all the mantras were given to us by the foremost yogi, Shiva. Everyone else is simply seeing what’s already in the universe. In other words, mantras are never invented, they are discovered.
On the path of mantra yoga, you cannot benefit from a mantra if its energy is not known. It’s the movement that makes anything happen. Procreation is movement as is creation. Growth is movement as is evolution. It is by virtue of the shakti of a mantra that we actually put that mantra to use.
The softer you chant your mantra, the closer you get to the source.
“When two people are angry at each other, their hearts are no longer close; their emotions are divided and they are miles apart. To cover that distance, they yell. The angrier they are, the louder they shout. Anger immediately creates a distance. They are unable to hear each other; shouting is how they believe they can be heard.
“And, what happens when two people fall in love? They don’t shout at each other but talk softly, because their hearts are very close. There’s little or no distance between them.
“When they love each other even more, they exchange even less words, they murmur, they whisper, yet they hear each other better, their bond strengthens, love prospers. Finally, they may not even whisper, they only loo...
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When you feel lazy or sleepy during your sadhana, simply switch to the first or the second type (spoken or whispered) for a few minutes. When your mind is invigorated by spoken chanting, come back to mental chanting. This is one of the best ways to do mantra chanting with mindfulness and alertness.
So, the number of beads in your rosary should be 108. The 109th bead usually sits at the top and is called meru.
Chanting must be done with reverence, alertness, faith and mindfulness. By remembering to turn over the chanting beads at the completion of one round brings you back to the present moment and refreshes your concentration.
There are nine steps to attain that union before you become one with the deity. The more mindfully, reverently you perform the steps below, the more effective will be your japa and consequently, you’ll have much better chances of attaining mantra siddhi. Here are the nine steps:
Nyasa is also a synonym of nikshepa which means to abandon or put away. If I wish to possess the powers of the deity of a mantra, it is obvious that I must have the same strength, attribute, purity of mindset as my deity. Nyasa is done with that view.
Our little finger represents water, ring finger the earth, middle finger space, index finger air and thumb signifies fire. Touching the tip of the finger with your thumb balances the element represented by the finger.
all sadhanas begin by meditating on Lord Ganesha. You can just pray to Ganesha either by any mantra you may already know or by folding your hands and reciting any or both mantras:
Mother Divine in the form of Gayatri is called Vedmata, the mother of Vedas. No mantra sadhana is ever done without first seeking permission from the Divine Mother.
I recommend undertaking one of the most pious and potent sadhanas ever known to mankind: the sadhana of Vedmata Gayatri.
