| Listen to Prabhaata-rashmih Audio |
Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.
What shall I tell you today? Yesterday I was editing. Generally I edit Vichārasarani from head to foot. So yesterday I was editing a portion of my talk which I gave on the slope of our Pandavagiri hill in acknowledgement of the civic reception that the Panchayat people, authorities, so many political parties, temple and other organizations, all of them gave. It was a very good reception, perhaps arranged for the first time by the Panchayat for anybody. So I was referring to a little of my life, my association with this hill when I came here and all that. After that, there is another article which I also edited. That point is fresh in my mind. So I thought I will tell you something about it.
From my young days in my pre-sannyasa life, my mother had played a very important part in my life. I cannot tell you various instances by virtue of which one will understand how my mother molded me. But I knew that she was molding our life and I took to whatever she said with a natural affinity. All the religious matters, routines, habits, to some extent exercises and also austerity which I had picked up were at the instance of my mother, I believe.
So, there are children who will listen to the mother and do what she wants. There are others who will try to refuse or miss and all that. But I was not one who played any deceit in this matter. From the young age, my religious life started with chanting the names of God. Gradually it proceeded to reciting the hymns of God. Then it developed into chanting Vishnu Sahasranama and some other stotras, hymns. Because the temple played an important part in our life, our devotional visits to the temple and some of the devotional habits and performances also had a significant part to play. In connection with this and in progress of that, I remember that at one point of time I started chanting mantras. Any mantra is to be chanted without moving the lips and producing any sound. If we are able to chant the mantras inwardly, mentally, that is the right process. In fact, there is a statement which says, you should not sing aloud the mantras. To chant a mantra is to engage the mind, employ the mind on it and as well as you are able to do, so much will be your mental improvement.
All our activities are designed by the mind and initiated by the mind. Every activity is concluded also in the mind. The mind gains an experience and an outcome of it. The outcome grows into a knowledge and memory and it is retained by us. So, the mind constitutes the sole part of our life. The chanting of mantra is actually something that will shape, mould, reform and refine your mind. If you are earnest and fully focused on the chanting, it would bring about a lot of strength and creativeness to the mind.
So, I found a person who had come to the village for performing some rituals in a family. He, in the morning took his bath in the temple tank and he came and standing on the ground, temple lawn, looking at the sun, he used to stand there and do obviously some japa because there was no sound coming from him. I asked people, what was he doing? Then the word got around and possibly I got the information that he was a priest specially commissioned to perform some rituals in a priest family. Well, why should he chant the mantra or do the japa standing on the lawn looking at the sun? If I remember correct, up to 9 o’ clock in the morning. Nine o’ clock is quite some time.
So, people told me that he was doing something called purascharanam of the mantra. Purascharana means take a mantra and go on chanting it, chanting it, chanting it. The first target should be to chant as many lakhs, as many hundred thousands, as the letters of the mantra are. Suppose it is a ten letter mantra, you have to chant at least ten hundred thousand, ten lakhs. The next installment will be ten million times. Thereafter you have to chant it ten crores. The minimum is ten lakhs. Then you have the siddhi on the mantra. When you have the siddhi, you can use the mantra for whatever purposes you want to have. Suppose you are out on a mission, a hard task, chant the mantra and proceed. Suppose you are confronted, chant the mantra. If you have a wish, okay, chant the mantra. For anything and everything, you can use it as a tool provided you have got siddhi over the mantra.
It is this point that I want you to know. A mantra becomes effective provided you revolve it in your mind as much as possible, as long as possible, as much without interruption as possible. Because we are, as I mentioned last night, the mind and the mind part of our life should improve, should improve, should improve. We are doing physical exercises like pūja, oral exercises like japa and recitation, all these are okay but they are only preliminaries. You must be able to get into the mind and everything should be felt and pursued in your mind. In that context the ‘mouna mantra japa’ becomes very effective. Those people who are initiated into Gayatri, they are told right from the beginning that Gayatri is to be chanted mentally and even the counting should be done invisibly, invisible to the others. But, the Gayatri chanting is only 108 times in the morning and 64 times in the evening. So 172. In that case, it should be 24 lakhs (24 letter mantra * 1 lakh). You can imagine how much time it will take for Gayatri at the rate of 172 a day to reach something like one lakh. And then it should be 24 lakhs. We pay a lot of importance to this kind of an ‘akshara laksha japa’.
Everybody thinks that things of the mind and heart can be gained very fast. Not at all! We are primarily a physical being. Our interactions and experiences are occasioned by the physical body. But actually we are a mental being. This understanding itself takes time. Either you understand it or you accept it as a matter of faith and habit. So, in my case perhaps I accepted it as a habit. Even now, I initiate people into Brahma Vidya. I also give them a mantra, I don’t call it a mantra. I am wondering, how many times the initiate do recite the mantra and get into their own mind and heart. The deeksha I give is primarily intended to delve into your consciousness source and get into the level from where you have the wakeful state, you have the sleep state and you have the dream state. All of the three where from do they originate and you will find that is the place from where the whole creation has emerged. Now, to get into it, a sensory process is impossible because the senses see only outside, they are outgoing. The sound coming out of the mouth is also emergence outside.
If you have to go into your own inner being and reach the source of everything, it is an introvert process and this process is facilitated and also strengthened by mantra japa. So the mantra japa especially done by the mind in silence is very, very important. It is the backbone and cardinal of our culture.
Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.
