Re: Some thoughts on mantra
Namaste Yajvan,
Thanks for starting this thread. You don't know how long I've been waiting for someone to offer their knowedlge of mantra usage in general on this forum, without being overly technical or overly simple. As usual, the sanskrit terminology clarifies a lot. My experiences with using mantras has been mostly devotional; I've never had much success with using it for deep meditation purposes or for raising kundalini or anything like that. I've only read Thomas Ashley-Farrand's "Change Your Karma with the Power of Sacred Sound" book, and while the explanations for beej sounds were good, I felt it oversimplified some aspects of mantra use. I ended up showing this book to my sister very early on in my studies of mantra use as part of yoga practice and she was very skeptical, incidentally making me wonder if there was sense in thinking that by chanting a mantra somehow I could win the lottery! If only life were half so straightforward!
I'm now interested in hearing about proper mantra usage, its benefits, what not to do, etc. In particular, this perscription of mantras for different people sounds interesting. Are some mantra sound vibrations better suited for some temperaments and individuals than others? I'm also wondering what you mean by proper time and muhurta for using mantras optimally. I had this notion that dawn/dusk was the best time for any use of mantra meditation. Please correct me if I've been misinformed on this! Unfortunately, I have no guru to instruct me on this, and I would be very careful about following the advice of self-help books that seem like a quick fix to all manner of problems we face in everyday life.
"Watch your thoughts, they become words.
Watch your words, they become actions.
Watch your actions, they become habits.
Watch your habits, they become your character.
Watch your character, it becomes your destiny."
ॐ गं गणपतये नमः
Om Gam Ganapataye namah
लोकाः समस्ताः सुखिनो भवन्तु ।
Lokaah SamastaaH Sukhino Bhavantu
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