Q: There are many tips and instructions, such as “just hear the mantra” and “listen to yourself chant sincerely”, as well as “the name reveals everything – but to let it do so you need to arrive without own made-up concepts!”. However, there are also recommendations to actively focus on the meaning, maybe even “imagining” it. Could you help me reconcile these different teachings?
I ask because when I try to really just focus on the sound and feeling of the names on my tongue it feels kind of dry and void often and my mind slides into contemplation of the named persons – but I am not sure if this is just a psychological thing going on, because of something I recently read, a picture I saw etc. or, I almost don’t dare to write it, the slight beginning of spiritual revelation?
Mantras are made of very special words.
Words are sounds that have meaning. A word without a meaning is not a “word” – it is a sound. If I listen to Mandarin Chinese, for example, it sounds like music, not like words – because I don’t know the meaning within the sounds. Thus if you listen to a mantra without comprehending the meaning, you are not listening to the mantra fully.
Often people argue that a mantra is magical. All you have to do is hear the words, and poof, something happens.
It is true that mantra are magical, but even magic operates according to principles. You’ll notice that mantras are not melodies or whistles and claps. They are words. This means they are more than “vibrations” and “frequencies” – they are vibrations and frequencies with meaning. To truly hear the vibration requires comprehending the meaning.
This is why dīkṣā and śikṣā are always coupled together. Dīkṣā bestows us with a mantra. If the sound of the mantra itself is all we need, then what is the need for anything further? What is the need for sambandha if the abhideya is completely “magical” and works by its own power, with nothing from our side? Dīkṣā is always accompianied by śikṣā because to use the mantra correctly requires learning what the words mean. To do the abhideya properly requires sambandha.
If you listen to a mantra without comprehending the meaning you are barely listening to it. There will still be an effect: the effect is that you will eventually inquire about the meaning, receive proper śikṣā and then start to meditate on the mantra much more effectively. Thus even simply hearing a mantra does lead eventually to the full fruit of the mantra, but only after it leads to the stage of meditating on the mantra correctly.
Now, contemplate how “comprehending the meaning of a word” happens.
It is a function of buddhi, intellect. Buddhi recognizes patterns of sounds, and associates them with meaning. Then it presents an image of that meaning to the manas. The ahankara establishes how the manas reacts to those images. And the whole affair is observed by the ātmā (consciousness) via the citta.
Think about it carefully. What buddhi does is translate a pattern of sound into an “image” with meaning.
Therefore intelligence works through imagination. And you will notice that the most intelligent people are excellent at visualizing and imagining abstract things, even things they have not seen before with their eyes.
It is not “imagination” in the sense of making something up. But it is “imagination” because the word produces an image of its meaning in the intellect.
So, hearing a mantra should produce an image in the mind, then the mind should react to that image. This is how the mantra changes the citta (ceto darpana marjana) and soon the ātmā can see into the mantra directly, without clouds of saṁskāra in the citta. Then there is direct samādhī of the mantra and one immediately attains the full effect of the mantra.
In the case of a Krishna nāma-mantra. The words should produce vivid images in the buddhi, which are not “imagined” according to the saṁskāra of the individual, but are informed by the “dictionary” of śāstra. The sambandha-jñāna gained by study of śāstra allows the sound of Krishna’s name to produce a reasonably accurate manifestation of itself in the buddhi. The manas should then react to this with affection. This causes the ahaṁkāra and citta to develop saṁskāra positive to bhakti. Which allows the ātmā to perceive the complete presence of Krishna within the sound of his name.
The image produced by the nāma in the sambandha-jñāna-yukta-buddhi will contain in it the guṇa and rūpa (particular qualities and specific beauties) of the named. Later, when still more clarified and powerfully manifest, those guṇa and rūpa will “animate” – revealing the other entities they interact with (parikāra) and the way they all play together (līlā).
Thus the full dhāma of Krishna exists in the name “Krishna” but we require dīkṣā and śikṣā to develop buddhi that can host those names and thus clarify the sentience/citta so that the ātmā can directly contact them.
Simply trying to chant the nāma-mantra without any image in the mind is ineffective, as you yourself have noticed. People without proper sambandha may want to err on the conservative side by avoiding “imagination” of the meaning of the mantra but that is a very short-term solution at best. We actually need proper śikṣā from śāstra immediately following dīkṣā, then nāma-smaraṇa can be truly done.
When japa is done with perfect sambandha the entire dhāma manifests to our perception.
Vraja Kishor das (www.vrajakishor.com)
Tagged:
Japa,
Krishna-nama,
Mantra Meditation,
mantra-japa,
Meditation,
nama-japa 
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