Power of Mantra

To highlight the role of Mantra, we need to assess the need of both Sound and Language in order to fully appreciate its significance in our evolution.

Spanda Shakti is the vibratory premodial energy that represents this Universe in its entirety. Its flake is present in every atom of this creation but more tangible in form of Sound vibrations, or Nada, when an individual soul is covered by Maya and takes on body. Sound vibrations created by chanting ॐ is the closest approximation of Nada of this entire creation. Energy present in the form of Sound overwhelmingly fills our need to express our feelings to others with or without help of our expressions.

Devotees are expected to ring bell first in all Hindu Temples to acknowledge presence of God in the form of Nada/Sound

All humans share common needs and expressions irrespective of culture or language differences. Babies cries when they feel hungry as they can’t express feelings in words yet but crying can have various interpretation ranging from being hungry, discomfort, angry etc. Once they learn Language by emulating parents, sentences like 'I'm feeling hungry' succintly replaces all their efforts to express their specific intent to be fed. As they grow-up, due to virtue of complete trust and love upon others, even words becomes redundant and intuition takes-in a lead role but this is only with few dear ones.

Language being used indicates the average of a community, state or country's collective consciousness. It can evolve or devolve a person's mental faculties.

Unlike other languages, Sanskrit is a well-designed language and hold great potential and flexibilty in expressing our thoughts. It evokes divine feelings natural and latent within us along with conveying the intended thought. Sound of each letter in Sanskrit was made to resonate with vibration of specific part of a chakra within us. For eg, when someone gets angry, they say 'grrrrr...' which resembles 'ram' of Manipura that represents our doership. When we love a delicious food, we say 'yum yum..' which is close to sound vibration of 'yam' representing Anahata chakra. Out of a wonderful experience beyond expression of words, we say 'aha aha!' which resemble 'ham' sound representing 'Visuddhi' chakra. List goes on.. One's consciousness needs to be as subtle and refined as Rishis in order to come-up with matching feelings of remainder of Sanskrit alphabets which were revealed to them in deep meditative states.

Below are few among many examples of elegancy and richness of expressions present in this language:

1) Pandit Vagisa Sastri from Varanasi took one root word and compiled 65,000 gramatically correct variations of it to show the generative power of this language

2) Niroshta Ramayana was compiled out of devotion to Lord Rama by a poet without any labial letters like Pa, Ma or Va. (touching mouth during worship is prohibited and needs to be atoned by a brief acamana/cleasing process)

3) RamaKrishna Kayam is a creation of poet Surya which when read from front to back, it talks about Rama from Ramayana and when read back to front, it depicts story of Krishna from Bhagavata.

Onto our main topic of this blog: same Rishis who meticulously crafted each letter of Sanskrit, also were instrumental in creating groups of seed letters, words and sentences to help us attain our myriad objectives of life along with rules of discipline to manifest their intended results. These are called Mantras. These were meticulously maintained through-out millenniums by Guru-Disciple by means of hearing and memorizing. Last few centuries of invasion though have forced them to even write down Vedas in order to retain them for posterity. It was considered sin in past to write down a mantra because when mantra is not heard directly from a preceptor of lineage that mastered it, it renders it as useless as a human body without life-force.

Since sound vibrations of Mantra are designed to trigger various subtle emotions and strengths within us, its considered a must to be initiated by Gurus before one seeks to practice them sincerely for following reasons:

1) sounds uttered by them transmits subtle power due to their oneness with Mantra

2) any mistakes that were carried-down through generations are shielded by tapas shakti of the lineage of masters behind it

Generations of invasions and enforcement of foreign education system in India almost wiped-out the rich Hindu culture that Rishis envisioned with this language as its foundation. Our humble efforts at www.SanskritAcademy.org to approach learning of this majestic language with focus on understanding scriptures relevant for any Sadhana, while www.SriYantra.org focuses on Sri Vidya upasana exclusively.

Sri Matre namah

- Swami