A mantra is the repetition of a phrase, word or syllable. The mantra is the focus of our meditation and the meditation itself. The mantra, its meaning, sound and resonance are at once an anchor for the mind and an invocation of a spiritual force, power or quality.
Let’s start with a simple mantra exercise: make a list of spiritual qualities you need in your life, for example: Peace, Love, Light, Joy, Compassion, Forgiveness, Wisdom, Patience, Determination. Include mono-syllabic and multi-syllabic words.
Take up your meditation station: sitting relaxed with your spine straight. Focus on your breathing for a few minutes, to calm the mind and bring your attention to a still point. Mantras can be practised either with the eyes open or closed.
Chant each word from your list aloud for a few minutes in turn. Each repetition of the word will fit exactly to one exhalation. Vary the length of the word and the breath according to your feeling, being sure not to strain or exert yourself beyond your capacity. Everything should be controlled and steady.
While chanting, focus all your being in the word, its production, its meaning and its resonance. Allow no other thoughts or distractions.
Feel that you are chanting not with your voice but from your heart centre, and feel the vibration of the word resonating from your heart throughout all your body, mind and the room around you. You are fully absorbed, immersed in the creation, vibration and sensation of each repetition.
According to your feeling, vary the pitch, volume and cadence for each word. For example, you may find “Peace” works better when chanted softly, slowly and at a lower pitch, whereas “Joy” might sound better at a louder volume and a higher tone.
Human beings have a deep, mystic relationship with words.
Words connect us with meaning, sound, vibration, and with Being itself. They are a means to communicate, to illustrate, to educate, to elevate and to liberate. Words link silence with sound, bridge Heaven and earth, marry the human with the Divine.
A mantra is the repetition of a word, phrase or sentence that serves at once as an anchor for the mind, and a means of transcendence beyond the mind.
Mantra is mystery made manifest, portal to the spiritual.
Mantra can be a tool to help us enter into meditation; it can be the object of our meditation; and it can be meditation itself.
A mantra is an invocation. We use mantra to invoke specific qualities as well as to enter a deeper, higher consciousness.
When mantra is used as a tool to help us enter into meditation, the mantra acts as a focal point to which the mind remains fixed, and to which it returns whenever it becomes distracted.
If only a tool, then it would not matter much what word or phrase would be used. However once we apply not only our minds’ but also our hearts’ focus to a mantra, then its meaning and significance very much matter – for when the heart focuses intensely on a spiritual quality, that very quality comes to the fore from its source deep within the heart, just as a faithful dog responds to its name being called and comes running home.
The heart is like a large, deep bell. The mantra strikes this bell and in response, the quality invoked by the mantra resonates both within and all around. At this point, word has become reality: the mantra is at once meditation’s seed, flower and fruit.
If a boat is left by itself on the ocean, it will be in constant motion: moving this way with the tides, that way with the wind, another way with a current. The boat itself has no say in where it goes, helpless before the forces of sea, sky and moon.
Our mind is that boat. The wind is our thoughts, the tides our emotions and the currents, our desires and the overwhelming distractions of the world. Left by itself, our mind cannot stay still, being constantly pulled, pushed and lured this way and that – and mindlessly following.
The first prerequisite of meditation is to calm, and ultimately to still, the mind.
To fix a boat in one place, requires an anchor or mooring. Similarly, to fix our mind so that it is not swept away by distractions, thoughts and desires, requires a mind-anchor, a firm object of concentration.
This “anchor” can be a physical object to look at such as a candle flame or flower; it might be a sound such as music or a mantra; a mental process like counting; the inflow and outflow of our breath; or a scene created in our mind’s eye.
Most “meditation exercises” are simply exercises in concentration; the process of focusing and anchoring our mind on one thought, one object, one sound, one feeling to the exclusion of all else. Of course the mind will still wander, for that is its nature. Without an anchor, it will drift all over the sea: with an anchor, it will only be able to go so far before it is brought back to a point of stillness.
By virtue of daily practise, the mind gradually becomes used to remaining in the one place. In the mind’s stillness, meditation may commence.
Just as light and dark cannot coexist in the same space, so gratitude and negative feelings cannot co-inhabit our consciousness. To dispel darkness, turn the light on: to relinquish negative thoughts and feelings, invoke gratitude.
Our minds are usually circumscribed by fear, pride, insecurity and greed. Yet when gratitude opens our heart-door, our every thought and feeling surrenders to peace, love, sweetness and joy.
Gratitude is our unfailing friend, physician, mentor and saviour. It is the simplest and surest antidote to negativity and depression. To embrace gratitude is to banish gloom swiftly, safely and surely.
For gratitude to play its role most effectively, it must be practised, nurtured and cultivated, regularly and devotedly.
How to “practise” gratitude? Simple: just feel gratitude, as often and as much as possible, always accompanied by a smile. You can never overdose on gratitude.
Try this exercise: sit quietly alone, with eyes closed. Breathe calmly, consciously breathing peace into your whole system.
Imagine a flower, in bud form, in the depths of your heart. The innocence and purity of this flower-bud calls forth all your heart’s sympathy, concern and protection. Gaze smilingly in wonder at this flower with all your tender care. As it slowly opens to your love, you are entranced by the flower’s beauty, purity, sweetness, delicacy, subtlety, simplicity and fragrance. This is your gratitude-heart-flower, the embodiment of all your heart’s gratitude for everything good and divine. Breathing in, allow the flower’s fragrance to permeate your whole being the way incense fills a room.
Now let the flower grow to the extent that your whole body has become the flower itself. You are the flower, its beauty, fragrance and perfection.
The sweetness of gratitude is power invincible, devouring weakness, liberating limitation and burying imperfection.
Close your eyes and picture, in the depths of your heart, a most beautiful child, four or five years old – more beautiful, far more beautiful, more radiant than any child you have ever seen.
This child does not speak, but only smiles, smiles through its eyes and with its whole being. To see this child is to be enveloped in a wave of smile, to become a thrill of pure smile.
This child is breathing, blissful divinity – beauty incarnate, purity incarnate, simplicity, sweetness, charm and innocence incarnate, perfect beyond imagination. You simply cannot take your eyes off him or her. Your heart is all love, concern and affection; you are drawn only to protect, support and attend to this child. All you long for is for the child to be happy, pure and free. In the child’s smile is your complete joy and fulfilment.
This child is your soul.
After some time, somehow you become distracted and find yourself thinking of some mundane thing.
The child’s smile is gone.
The child is gone.
Shattered, you cry, you lament, you are all anguish and remorse …
Silently, slowly, from a clearing mist, your divine child reappears, its stern face peering straight into you.
Never again will you neglect your divine child.
Just as we feed our body every day in response to the body’s hunger, so we must feed our divine soul-child every day with our heart’s love and concern. To feed our soul, we only need to love, admire and adore it with all our heart. This requires a clear mind and sure focus: in other words, it requires meditation. Meditation invokes our soul by clearing space in our consciousness, allowing our soul in silent stillness to shine and smile through our heart, mind and life.
If you have attained ultimate perfection, you do not need to change. If you are completely happy, you do not need to change. If you are already fulfilling your potential and your life’s highest purpose, you do not need to change.
Yet who can say that he or she is already utterly perfect, happy and fulfilled?
No-one.
If we are not yet absolutely happy and fulfilled, and we aspire to be so, then something in us must change. Change is the indispensable agent of progress.
As humans we at once desperately need change, and yet we fear and resist that very change which is necessary for our greater happiness and fuller perfection.
These two contradictory forces – the yearning for, and fear of change – are natural and inherent tendencies in us all.
Fear of change arises from our established, finite consciousness, to which change poses a threat. Our present ego fears that change will see its supremacy threatened or worse, extinguished altogether.
The yearning for change comes from our spiritual heart, aspiring for the infinite light, bliss and freedom of our soul. Our heart senses and knows that to attain to the infinite, demands that we first transcend the boundaries and bondage of the finite, embodied in our thoughts and desires, notions, prejudices and fixed ideas.
This process involves a fundamental realignment of our perception of our selves: from our present notion that we are a finite, material being with some spiritual tendencies, to the realisation that we are first and foremost a spiritual being, a soul, inhabiting and experiencing but not defined by a finite world and life.
Expansion of our consciousness by recognising, challenging and ultimately transcending the mind’s limitations – which is the very purpose of meditation – is the only way to effect lasting change, within and without.
Close your eyes and imagine that you are sitting on a beach.
You are alone. It is a perfect day. The beach stretches as far as your eye can see in either direction. Feel the sun’s warmth on your skin, the faint sea breeze on your cheek, taste a little salt in the air. Gaze out to the horizon, where the mighty ocean meets the vast sky and folds into the infinite.
Make your breathing deep, controlled and steady, focusing all your attention on your breath, counting slowly with each inhalation and exhalation.
After some time you notice that the waves are gently rolling in and subsiding in perfect rhythm with your breathing. As you breathe in, the wave rolls in to shore: as you exhale, the water retreats to the bosom of the sea. Your breathing and the ocean’s breathing – embodied in the motion of the waves – have become one. The sea is breathing in and through you.
You notice that your breath is actually controlling the movements of the waves: as you breathe in and the wave rolls in to shore, if you hold your breath for a moment, the water pauses and waits for your outgoing breath before returning to the sea.
You and the ocean are one.
Look into your heart and see and feel that you have become the ocean’s depths. No matter what is happening on the surface – wind, waves, even a storm – your depths are vast, silent, profound peace, the source of immense power.
After some time absorbed in the peace of your inner depths, you notice that the sun has started to sink. It is time for you to depart. With a happy heart, collect your things, rise, bid a fond farewell to the sea and turn for home…
As the dinosaurs of yore, our ego now proudly roams and rules the world…
… and as the dinosaurs found their days were numbered, so the time of the ego’s reign is now well and truly up.
Consciousness is constantly evolving, within us and around us.
The ego has been a compelling and indispensable force in the evolution and progress of humanity, inspiring many of our most glorious achievements as well as our worst excesses, blunders and crimes. The ego’s thirst for greatness and dominion has in part fuelled our quest for knowledge, skills and understanding as well as for conquest, power and wealth. Our ego has given us scientific and technological advancement as well as war, famine, exploitation and destruction. Ego has carried us to peaks of glory and pits of misery.
Our ego limits and defines us within its own small boundaries. Yet our hearts and souls, our true selves, can never be confined by any boundary. As we go further and deeper in meditation, our consciousness expands into vast, timeless tracts where the ego is as useful as a pencil in the sky. The limiting ego presents as more and more of an obstruction, a barrier limiting and stymying our further progress and expansion. Like the chrysalis of a butterfly or the tail of a frog, the ego, having fulfilled its role, is now a decaying, suffocating burden in need of being discarded or transformed utterly.
The ego promised happiness, and instead fed us fear, separation, suffering and treachery.
Our real happiness-treasure is within our hearts, patiently awaiting our call. Stubbornly blocking the way is ego.
It is high time for ego to see the writing on the wall.
O ego, step aside gracefully, or go the way of the dinosaur.
Meditation solves all our problems, inner and outer. Ultimately, meditation solves the Problem of problems – the Problem of existence itself.
Is God an infinite expanse of nothingness, a void? An all-knowing, all-seeing ultra-universal consciousness? An idealised person? A supreme dispassionate judge of our actions and inactions? A cosmic game? A dance of life and death? An eternal symphony of joy and suffering? A book? A theory? A vast energy field? The ultimate architect or dramatist? The spinner of the wheel of karma, or the wheel itself? Eternal Peace? Immortal Love? Supernal Bliss? Infinite Light? Aum?
All – or none – of the above?
How to resolve this Problem of problems?
Most of us spend most of our lives conveniently avoiding the problem – let alone seriously contemplating an answer. It is manifestly so far beyond our capacity to know and to understand, we either accept a simplistic label or belief, or else we choose to ignore it altogether.
… except it is the one problem which never ever goes away.
It is indeed, the only problem which really needs to be resolved: for once this question is answered, all questions are answered.
The universe around us is incomprehensibly vast; and the inner universe, vaster still. Connecting both, is our own consciousness. Here is the key.
To know or understand something large, we start with a small part of it. To analyse the water of a lake, we will take some test-tube samples, test them, and from the results, extrapolate conclusions about the water of the whole lake.
To know or understand God, the same method applies. Let us start with a sample. How about the only sample that is always readily available to us: ourselves?
You have become the flame. You are inundated with the flame’s light, purity, simplicity, beauty and delight. Because you have become the flame, and a flame has no mind, therefore you have no mind. Because you have no mind, thoughts and distractions find no foothold in you. As a moth is singed upon entering the flame, so any thought or distraction which dares to approach, is instantly dematerialised.
This flame does not burn, harm or destroy: only it illumines, purifies and transforms. All within us that was limited, finite, imperfect, uncertain, weak – all is gone, as only the flame prevails, mounting ever higher, beyond thought, beyond time, beyond space. As the flame has grown all-pervasive, the very concept of ego and self-awareness has evaporated.
This flame represents the light of our soul: eternally perfect and pure, divine, all-seeing, all-loving, all-knowing, all-illumining, infinite and immortal.
After some time, allow your flame to start to diminish in size – though retaining the same brilliance and intensity. Just as you would turn down the wick of a lamp, so your flame slowly reduces and gradually returns to the tiny flame you started with, steadfast in the very depths of your heart.
Now slowly open your eyes and behold the candle flame before you. With a broadening smile of amazement, you recognise that this candle flame is a mirror image, a reflection of your own heart’s inner flame.
In silence, offer your heart’s gratitude to the candle flame, for reinspiring you to dive deep within in search of your own inner flame; for rekindling the flame of aspiration within you, your inner yearning to climb higher, ever higher in search of eternal truth, light and bliss; and for reminding and reintroducing you to the all-illumining reality of your soul’s light.
Imagine your breath forms a bridge between your heart and the flame. Across this bridge, you and the flame offer yourselves unreservedly to each other. The flame is offering you its light, simplicity, purity and delight: you are breathing in and absorbing all these qualities as you inhale. In return, as you exhale you are offering to the flame all your heart’s love, concern, appreciation and gratitude.
Any thoughts or distractions which appear, you will breathe out and into the flame, where they disappear.
This flame is your entire world. Only the flame exists.
Now imagine that there is a mirror image of this flame burning in the very depths of your heart – a tiny but beautiful, radiant flame. When you can picture and feel this flame clearly within, then close your eyes and focus all your attention within, absorb yourself in the flame deep inside your heart.
As you focus on this inner flame, so it responds and starts to grow larger. As it grows, all its qualities – its light, purity, simplicity, beauty, effulgence – increase and intensify. As the flame continues to grow, eventually it expands even beyond your physical form, subsuming your whole existence within it. While the flame started as a tiny thing within you, now you are a tiny thing within the flame. It rises up around you and above you, reaching for the infinite.
The source of the flame is the depths of your own heart; a formidable, ceaseless fountain of light flooding your entire being. This light spontaneously illumines every corner of your existence: wherever previously there had been any pockets of darkness – in the form of fear, anxiety, doubt, confusion – these shady areas are completely obliterated and illumined by the effulgence streaming forth from within.
Sit somewhere quiet where you can be alone and undisturbed. Place a candle in front of you, at eye level. Light the candle.
We shall use the candle flame as the focal point for our concentration and meditation.
Gaze at the flame with your eyes half-open, half-closed, so that there is little else in your peripheral vision. Sit as close as you like to the flame. If for some reason you need to sit at some distance away, then just imagine that you are very close to the flame. Do not stare at the flame: simply let your eyes rest on the flame. You are not trying to pierce the flame, to describe or analyse it: just allow it to be itself, while appreciating and admiring it.
Imagine the flame is a living being, with its own breath. Breathe in time with the flame: as you breathe in, the flame breathes in; as you breathe out, the flame breathes out. Sharing the same breath, you feel a bond deepening.
Feel that the power of your concentration is coming not from your mind but from your heart. When we concentrate from the mind we use the mind’s capacity, which is analysis and reason. After 5 minutes we start to feel tired. Yet when we concentrate from the heart we use the heart’s capacity, which is love. When we love something, we can concentrate on that thing all day and never become tired. So concentrating from the heart is far more effective.
Love the flame. Feel that you have known this flame all your life – you have been best friends since your earliest childhood. Between you there are no secrets. Smile as you would when meeting your dearest friend, a smile of sure and pure affection.
Magic tricks often rely on distraction: the magician will set up a scenario, then draw our attention away to something else. While we are watching what his left hand is doing, his right hand completes the “trick”, so that when we return our attention to the original scene, the “magic” is complete and we are duly amazed.
So is it with meditation.
Here both the subject and object of the magic act is our conscious awareness. We start with an opening scenario with which we are all too familiar: a morass of stress, tension, restlessness, confusion and dismay.
This mess and stress are kept under guard by our mind’s focus and attention. While we pay them attention, they loom large and inescapable: because they loom large and inescapable, we are more in their thrall.
To dispel such a spell, needs magic.
Meanwhile, in the next room, our vast inner wealth of peace, light and bliss is locked away in the safe of our spiritual heart.
The meditation exercise now performs the role of the magician’s distraction: we are invited to focus all our attention on something, either internal or external. It might be our breathing and counting, a flower, a beautiful scene, soothing music, a mantra or a divine image.
While our focus is thus occupied, our mind-guard is distracted, leaving our tension and stress unobserved and unattended.
While the mind’s back is turned, peace, light and bliss tiptoe in from our spiritual heart next door, silently disarming and dissolving stress, tension and confusion wherever they are found, straightening furniture, opening curtains, establishing order and calm.
By the time we have completed our meditation exercise and return our attention to the original scene of our awareness, the magic act is complete…
Abracadabra! – our consciousness has been transformed.
