Mantra.
Mantra
मंत्रयोग
Mantras - embodiments of the Divine.
Man - from the root ‘Manas’, meaning Mind
Tra - to Protect, Save, Liberate, Redeem, Instrument/Tool
A mantra is sometimes called the protector from the mind, or protection of the mind. Protection of what exactly? The role of mantra is to protect the mind from itself. It is both the tool to protect and simultaneously liberate us from ourselves, and therefore the vehicle that delivers us to the Divine.
Mantra is often translated as mind-control. Not that of being controlled, but rather the tool that allows us to take back the steering wheel of our own minds. In this way, mantra cleanses and purifies the mind, training awareness to be at attention. As Jayananda says, “Just as we use soap to wash our bodies, mantra is like scrubbing the mind clean.”
However, looking at the word mantra itself, Man - denoting manas, mind, ie. the mental activity and instinctive drive and Tra - a technique, to liberate or transcend. Mantra therefore is a tool used to transcend or liberate the mind. Mantra is an instrument for establishing a healthy mind. It’s a sacred utterance, repeated with meaning, as a search for the Self.
Mantra can also be considered the sound-form or sound-body of a particular energy or deity - i.e. the divine energy in sonic, vibrational form. Through listening to or chanting these sacred sounds, we create a resonance with the essence of that particular form of energy. This is what incantation has always been about, pure enchantment, to be ‘in chant’ with these sonic forms is to remember that they are a projection of the true self, and we are simply activating the dormant energies within us.
In the Beginning
The history of Mantra use extends through many cultures, religions, regions and traditions. Everywhere we might look, we find mythology around the Word, and references to the relationship between sound and creation in all cultures. The Gospel, according to John says, “In the begin- ning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God ... “
The aboriginal people of Australia share of the Dreamtime (the time be- fore time), how three gods came together to play didgeridoo, sing, and dance. In this story the gods also have bird-forms; Giddabush (a bird also known as the “long-tailed fashion”) is the didgeridoo player, the Butcher bird plays clap-sticks and sings, and the Piwi bird dances. As they play, dance, and sing, they name (and hence create) all of the things in the world.
Sound and song have always played an inherent part of indigenous Aboriginal culture. A songline, also called dreaming track, is one of the paths across the land or sky. The paths of the songlines are recorded in traditional songs, stories, dance, and painting, through them telling the ‘story’ of the land, crossing anywhere from a few to many thou- sands of kilometers.
A knowledgeable person is able to navigate across the land by repeating the words of the song which is describing the location of landmarks, wa- terholes, and other natural phenomena. The traditional Aboriginal people regard all land as sacred, and the songs must be continually sung to keep the land “alive”.
In the Vedic tradition of India, the creation mythology tells us that the world was created upon Brahma’s breath, which delivered the world to us through the sound of Om (Aum), the primordial sound of the cosmos. Aum is one of the most universally recited mantras and believed to con- tain every vibration that has ever existed—or will exist in the future.
Aum is also the energetic root of other, longer mantras, including Om Namah Shivaya (“I bow to Shiva”—Shiva being the inner Self, or true re- ality), and Om Mani Padme Hum (literally the “jewel of the lotus,” which might be interpreted as, “By practicing a path that unites method and wisdom, you can transform into the pure exalted body, speech, and mind of a Buddha”).
These popular Vedic mantras are in Sanskrit, but mantra has deep roots in every major spiritual tradition and can be found in many languages, including Hindi, Hebrew, Latin, and English. For example, a popular mantra for Christians is simply the name Jesus, while Catholics commonly repeat the Hail Mary prayer or Ave Maria. Many Jews recite Barukh atah Adonai (“Blessed art thou, oh Lord”); while Muslims repeat the name Allah like a mantra. Regardless of the tradition, chanting has always been a powerful tool for meditation.
Within use of mantra for meditation we often see the accompaniment of a mala, or rosary beads, which are utilized in Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, and Christianity. The practice of chanting mantra is recorded as far back as Ancient Greece where female sorcerers are said to have howled their chants into the wind, accessing a strong power of vibration in order to increase their effectiveness.
Chants or mantras are composed of names, words and syllables, including primal sounds without logical meaning. The name of the Divine, or God/dess are almost universally considered to make the strongest chants. This was true among the Hebrew mystics and magicians who used the secret names of God such as Yahweh, Adonai and Elohim, where Jewish chants are usually composed of verses and phrases from Biblical texts. Within Christian chants are four Western forms, the Gregorian, Gallican, Mozarabic, and Ambrosian; three Eastern forms, the Byzantine, Syrian, and Armenian; and the Coptic and Ethiopian chants of northern Africa.
Chants of old and modern witches and Neo-pagans consist of names of the Goddess (Divine Feminine) and Horned God (Divine Masculine) as well as names of other pagan deities. The objective of these chants is to induce an altered state of consciousness, thereby creating and elevating the collective psychic or spiritual energy, similar to the the power of prayer in manifestation.
Shamanism has similarly always revered the use of chanting, along with the often accompanied sounds of drums and rattles in order to bring the shaman into an altered state of consciousness. In this state the shaman has the ability to access information that is unavailable in the ordinary re- ality, and thereby perform healing work, or cura for those in need.
Native Americans have a deep history of chanting, which is used in preparation for activities and ceremonies such as healing, hunting, battles, con- trolling weather, rites of initiations and funerals.
Vedic Mantras
Meditation with the sound of AUM has been highly glorified in Vedas, the most ancient sacred texts of the Hindu culture. This mystic syllable is known as the bija mantra––the primordial sound, heard by Vedic sages in deep meditation at a specific level of yogic unity in transcendence.
This sound of AUM from Brahma wraps the entirety of creation. Mantra could be considered to be the extension of this primordial sound of the universe, somewhere between primal sound and the development of our language structures.
Traditional Vedic mantras are comprised of the fifty letters of the Sanskrit alphabet and can consist of a single letter, a syllable or string of syllables, a word, or a whole sentence. Typically, most mantras are sounds, syllables, or vibrations that don’t necessarily have a logical meaning. Their value lies in their vibrational quality, not in any meaning that humans, society, culture, or civilization has placed on them over the last few thousand years. For this reason they go beyond the state of human existence on this plan- et, and they take the practitioner to a deeper experience because they are vibrations that have existed since the dawn of creation.
The historical derivation of the science and study of mantra corresponds with the intricacies of the Sanskrit language. It is called Deva Lingua, the language of the gods, and the “mother of tongues” and is very often considered a divine language. This is assumed mainly because the roots of so many languages are often found in Sanskrit, but further exploration has shown a deeper esoteric meaning. The Sanskrit language has the same number of petals as there are on the flowers, or wheels of the first six energetic centers, and as such the language can be seen as a tool for working with the subtle energy potential represented within the etheric body.
The Sanskrit language is very complex with many meanings. The letters of the alphabet are said to arise from Shiva’s drum, which he beats while performing the Tandava as Nataraj, the Lord of the cosmic dance of existence.
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