Introduction

The principle working behind all this is – if you were to associate with somebody constantly, you would start to have feelings for that someone. As you continuously associate, love starts to develop, feelings start to develop. In this way the Vaishnavas – devotees for example, are associating with Krishna through the name, through the play, through the lila, the life, the image, the form, the chanting. So then the feelings start to develop, and the feelings then make the chanting come alive.

So also with mantras: the meaning and the power of the mantra will bring you into the mantra; it gives it life. Then you start to get charged with the mantra: through repetition and continuous chanting the feelings come. Then you develop a taste, something in the heart gets stirred and you start liking it more and more – it has awakened something in you. Then it becomes more and more easy.

This is so with every approach. The Buddhists chant, Sangham Sharanam Gacchami – take refuge in the sangha – breathe it – by that they mean constantly: it becomes your breath. So you can say Rama with each breath, Krishna with each breath: in this way each breath is taken in God’s name.

Tulsidas says, with every breath chant the name of Rama; constantly be with God – through all that you do, through all that you speak… First begin with remembering, remembering, remembering, until it becomes constantly part of your consciousness – ultimately it is your consciousness, your awareness, your soul.

Techniques will remain only techniques if you do not put yourself in them, and that is why the need for practice. For then it starts to come alive. And of course to do it with one who is awake is the best for the technique will get charged with his or her awakened force.

It is called Guru mantra, the mantra given by the Guru. Guru means one who has the light in him awakened, one who is awakened, who has the power in him to awaken you. Through these tools he gives his power, he transmits the power – shaktipat – again and again.

So the moment you are with the Guru, with an awakened one, the process has begun, the awakening has begun. You feel him, you feel the energy, you feel the light, you feel the power – and it is working in you. And you have to allow the working; you have to do the methods given…  And once you are given the word, even when you are not in the presence of the Guru that word will work, because it has been charged with that power and will continue to charge you. The connection is through the word to the source who has given the word, who has given the method, with whom you have been associating and have been in the presence of… Then even in his physical absence it will work, because the connection is made.

That is why I say: like in the son the father is reborn, in the seeker the Master is reborn – in the Master the seeker takes new birth, so the seeker is transformed into the Master.

How to Chant

First to energize, to alert oneself with the sound from the loud chanting of the mantra and the power in it; then gradually to reduce the sound until it is muted, ultimately the chanting to be in the heart; then silence. These are the stages of working with a mantra. The highest and most effective moment is when it starts to settle in your heart and you start to feel it, ultimately in silence you experience it.

But you begin with the most material, with the most gross, and move to the most subtle. So it is with the whole process of worship that you find in the temples and the churches, where they begin with the most material things: they chant loudly, do mudras with their hands, offer water, incense, flowers, light, etc. Ultimately you will see that the worshipper sits quietly chanting the mantra.

First he has done all that activity, the outer, the external, the ritual – the most material. In that way he is harmonizing the body, like we do when we do asanas, body-dynamics, etc., working first with the body, with the physical. So also through the worship they first work at the body level, at the physical level. From there they move to the next level, the sound, the breath – they do pranayama and chanting also: they are moving to the next realm.

So in this way all the regions are touched, aligned. This is the reason for our working with the body first, then the breath, then coming to yourself in meditation – the alignment, the harmonizing. It is a whole sequence that is unfolding.

As it is with worship, so also with mantras – loud first, it charges you up, then gradually bringing it closer to yourself. When you are chanting it loud, you lose yourself in the mantra, putting yourself out – then gradually as you bring it closer, the mantra is to bring you to your self-awareness and into meditation in yourself.

We will use the sound from the chant to settle in ourselves, as a vehicle – a form of meditation where you use the sound to reach into yourself: loud sound to begin with, then gradually reducing the volume to bring it closer to yourself.

First you are involved in the sound; then the sound is involved in you; finally it is to be silently remembered in the heart, therefore reaching you to a concentration, a centering in the heart. Thus this chanting has a dual purpose: to alert and charge oneself, and at the same time to use it as a vehicle to reach within oneself.

Let the sound come from deep within you and with some force. Let it vibrate within you as well, not only in the mouth.  Let the whole body become like a box vibrating, where the sound resonates.

The idea behind the chant is that it must make you in-drawn, make you meditative, reach you within.  This is why we are chanting loudly at first: through the loud chant you are involved in the sound, but ultimately the sound has to be involved in you.

So we will reduce the volume of the sound as we go along, but for a while we will continue to chant loudly.  Then it is to be a muttering – finally in your heart the chant to go on without sound.  So first you may be involved in the sound, afterwards the sound is involved in you.

Sound is energy, and the chanting of the mantra is to awaken you.

Initially you are putting yourself out in the sound, in the chant.  Then as you go along, you will let the sound happen within yourself – you rejoice in the sound, you rejoice in the chant. Through the chant you are charging yourselves, you are energizing: you charge the chant and therefore you charge yourselves.

The chant is a meditation.

As we gradually reduce the volume of the sound, the chant must start to enhance the awareness of your self, the awareness of the chanter.  There is the chant, so there must be the chanter also.  Before there was only the chant, and the chanter was involved in the chant; now there is the chanter growing larger in his/her self-awareness: the chant is becoming involved in the chanter.  This is the idea.

There cannot be the chant without the chanter; it is the chanter that we have to reach through the chant, in fact through all things: through your acts, through your silences you have to arrive at yourself.  You have to re-discover, re-create what you know of yourself: through re-creation comes recreation!  The greatest recreation is in self-rejoicing…

Just as we seek for recreation outside, in our joys and our pleasures, you must now find this recreation and joy in your own self.  Before, you were involved in the outside; you will now be involved within your self.  Find the joy, the self-joy, through self-awareness, through a self-discovery, through a self-recreation.

The chant is gradually reaching within and carrying you to yourself – it is a vehicle.  Ultimately it is being chanted silently within you, totally inside; and there is silence, the silence of your Being, the silence of your Self, the Origin of all things, the Origin of the chant. So also the fulfillment, the culmination of the chant – and therefore we allow the chant to be involved in that Origin, that which you are.  It is a procedure, a process, a technique.  The chant is an energizer, so also a vehicle carrying you to yourself.

So then you continue to be involved in yourself through the chant, gradually coming to a silent internal chanting with no sound, finally there is not even the silent chant, but you have arrived at total silence; you have arrived at a total self-absorption to become a realisation, and an Awakening.

When you allow the chant to be remembered silently in the mind, every word must be remembered and seen – but it is all internal.  From the most material you are reaching to the most subtle; from the outside you are reaching to the inside; from the lower you are reaching to the higher; from the most outer you are reaching to the deeper within.

Arya Vihar

24 July to  1 August 1997