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Articles: Festivals | Maha Sivaratri
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It is difficult to chant this Veda Mantra called the Satarudriya, because it requires a training, as in music, for example. Everybody cannot sing. It requires a tremendous training for years together. Likewise, the chanting of the Mantras of the Veda requires training for years together, not for a few days only. Just as one who does not know how to sing, will make a jarring noise and you will like to get up and go away rather than listen to it, so also when you chant the Mantra wrongly, Gods will get up and go away. They do not bear it any more. So, it requires training. But once it is properly learnt, it becomes a protection for you from catastrophies of every kind - physical, psychological and what not. So, those who know may chant it, recite it and take part in the recitation of it everyday in the temple, at least during the worship on Mahasivaratri.
Those who cannot do this because it is difficult, can chant the Mantra 'Om Namah Sivaya', the Panchakshara Mantra of Lord Siva with Om preceding it. It is a Kavacha; a kind of armour that you put on. This armour will protect you from danger of every kind. It will protect you and also all those whom you want to be protected. It will protect your family, will protect your country, will protect the whole world. It can cease wars and tensions of every kind, provided you offer the prayers wholeheartedly from the bottom of your heart. Collective prayer is very effective.
If a hundred persons join together and pray, it will have a greater effect than one person praying. Of course, if that single person is very powerful, even one person's prayer is alright. But, where personalities have their own weaknesses and foibles, it is better that people have congregational prayer. When all the minds are put together they form a great energy. It surges forth into God. So during this period preceding Sivaratri prayer is to be, offered to Lord Siva, as the Master of Yogin, as the incarnation of all virtues and powers, as a facet of the Almighty Lord. The glory of Lord Siva is sung in the Siva Purana, in the Yajur Veda Rudra Adhyaya as I mentioned, and in the Mahabharata. You will be wonderstruck at the force with which Vyasa and other Sages sing the glories of God, of Vishnu, of Narayana, of Siva, of Devi in the various Puranas and Epics, because these masterpieces have been written by those who had the vision of God. Only one who has the vision of God can express in soulful force.
Otherwise, it will be an empty sound without much significance and thought. So, chant the Mantra 'Om Namah Sivaya' as many times as possible everyday, mentally or even verbally as is convenient, with self-control, which means to say without any thought of sense-object. If you chant the Mantra together with the thought of sense-objects, then there is divided devotion. It is like dividing the course of a river in two different directions so that the force of the waters gets lessened. Suppose you have five sense-objects and towards all of them your senses are running, and you are thinking of God also at the same time. Then, you know, energy is divided, concentration becomes weak and meditation is not successful. No meditation will become successful, if the senses are active; because, the senses are the opposite of the effort at meditation.
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