Using Mantras
Meditationtime Forum Post
Date: Posted 3 years before Jun 23, 2016
MiBeloved 3 years ago
From LinkedIn:
Jason wrote:
Part of my technique during deep meditation is japa chanting. But how do we know which mantra is best? I’m personally very fond of the Krsna maha mantra. What are your thoughts and opinions?
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MiBeloved's Response:
As far as I know japa chanting has nothing to do with meditation, which is an introverted procedure.
Why?
Because Japa means chanting a sound and hearing the sound which are both externalization procedures. You make the sound with the mouth and it is heard externally by yourself and others. You listen to the sound with your ear and it may also be heard by others.
It may be that you are mixing processes. There are mantras which are used for meditation purposes, where the person hears the sound he made and then listens to the sound, and then after a time, say twenty minutes or more the person stops chanting and then tries to meditate.
Meditation really means samyama which is a three sequential process of internalization according to Patanjali. It has nothing to do with making any kind of sound with the mouth and then listening with the ear.
There is however what is called ajapa which means silent japa or japa which is said mentally only. In that case you make a sound mentally. No one hears it beside you. You hear it only mentally. This can be used for meditation because it is a totally internal mental process. But ajapa is not japa.
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I lived in a Hare Krishna ashram some years ago. I was initiated in the lineage which came through Srila Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. I was told by one of his main sannyasis that the process had nothing to do with meditation. For that matter I was banned from doing ajapa or any kind of silent chanting with meditation in the temple compound. I was expressly told that meditation had nothing to do with japa and was prohibited.
This is why I feel you are not conversant with this. Which sampradaya lineage are you in. How did you get the Hare Krishna Mahamantra?
In India there is this traditional belief and it is enforced in many lineages, where they say that one has to hear a mantra from a lineage guru or the mantra will not be effective.
Is this superstition?
Is this said just to monopolize mantras?
You be the judge. But you may also consider that part of the reason is to guarantee that the correct procedure is given along with a mantra.
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The original Hare Krishna Mahamantra is from one of the Upanishads but there it is written with Rama before Krishna.
Later we got the mantra with Krishna before Rama and that amendment was stressed by Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. As far as I know he did not mention meditation in the use of the mantra.
You might consider that each of these mantras have an origin. It might be worth your while to find that and respect the requirements handed down by the original authority. Of course in the modern world, we are not that interested in complying with any ancient stipulation. I understand that.
Alfredo 3 years ago
Swamiji!
As you probably know, his Holiness Swami Jyotirmayananda initiated me into a mantra in year 2001 (Dwapara 301). It was an intricate ceremony, very beautiful, conducted at 5 AM, where he used spices, incense, rice, fire, and special invocations. I was given specific written instructions on how to do the Japa, in his own handwriting, and was given a Maalaa (rosary with 108 beads).
MiBeloved 3 years ago
From LinkedIn:
Jason wrote:
Also I regularly attend temple and believe me other attendees do silently chant the maha mantra. Maybe things have changed since 1966.
Perhaps. But the maha mantra can be done internally as well. It doesn't have to involve chanting out loud and dancing i.e. bhakti yoga. It can be an introverted exercise. Also too there are other mantras like Om Nahma Shivaya - which is very effective also.
Hare Bol.
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MiBeloved's Response:
You are on the outside of Hare Krishna Movement, so your information is spurious to say the least.
But if persons who live in the ashram are doing as you said, then it means that they have departed from what the Founder-Acharya said and wrote in his books and also deviating from what the actual avatar for the society said. That person is Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.
Meditation is only a part of their Gayatri mantra chanting and you have to be twice initiated to be introduced to that. As a meditation then it is not the Patanjali system.
You are doing things in the Western way which is full of innovation and "do whatever you want to do", but that is not the Vedic way from which mantras as a whole was adopted.
You are now becoming an authority and giving license for the Hare Krishna Mahamantra to be used like that and this is more evidence of the way we do things in the West without respect to the usage in the original culture from which we borrowed these aspects which the West did not develop in its own cultural progress.
As for Om namah Shivaya, that too is a confidential mantra. But we Westerners have no concern with that. We can use anything and it is effective for our purposes as you said.
