|
|
|
|
Articles: Devotion | What is a Mantra?
- Mr. harish nellutla
| |
Similarly, there is no word which 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 which 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 which can be 'grown' from it are called 'seed mantras.' Seed in Sanskrit is called 'Bijam' in the singular and 'Bija' in the plural form.
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 which 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 which 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 which correspond to certain petals or spokes of chakras in the subtle body.
As discussed earlier, there is a direct relationship between the mantra sound, either vocalized or subvocalized, and the chakras located throughout the body.
| Read 2 Comment(s) posted so far on this Article!
| |
|
|
|
 |
| Advertisements |
|
|
|
|
| Advertisements |
|
