How can mantras help with meditation?.
When your mind and heart are truly open abundance will flow to you effortlessly and easily.
Question:
Hi Deepak. I have been participating in your meditation programs. I am questioning whether the mantras are aiding in reaching a higher state of awareness or deeper level of consciousness. Does the brain not stay active or stuck in thought by having to bring yourself back to the mantra after noticing your thoughts or repeat the mantra when you’re not in random thought? Where does silence or quieting of the mind come in? Can you explain the importance of the mantra in your programs?
Response:
When we think a normal thought, our mind projects awareness outward through our senses and into the environment. Even when we close our eyes and think thoughts, the mind is still habituated to project itself in a more active form. The subtle sound effect in Sanskrit mantras are useful in settling down the mind because they have the effect of disrupting this habituated reaction of the mind to remain stuck in the active phase you referred to. The easy mental repetition of these Bija mantras allow the mind to be suspended, neither becoming more active nor more settled. In this undirected state, no longer conditioned to move into the senses, the mind will naturally take that opportunity to gravitate toward its silent, baseline state of awareness. That is the brief experience of the self in the gap between forgetting the mantra and thinking the next thought. The mantra doesn’t actually take you deeper into your Self, it just sets up the initial conditions so that the natural tendency of the mind to know itself can take over. That movement of the mind toward its fundamental equipoise of awareness is where we experience the quieting of the mind and the restfulness of the body during meditation, and that is what leads to higher awareness.
Love,
Deepak
