Changes

=More on Mantra=

The Divine's voice is heard as a melodious chant in the stillness of the night. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/the-divine-is-with-you#p43</ref>

In truth, I believe only in the Grace. My mantra and all the rest seem to me only little tricks to try to win over your Grace. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/01/december-24-1958#p6</ref>

You see, in science you have chemical formulas for combining certain elements and producing others from them; even if you do not have any mental or vital or even physical power, if you just follow to the letter the formula you have, you obtain the required result—it is enough simply to have a memory. Well, the same thing has been tried in occultism, making combinations of sounds, letters, numbers, words, which, by their inherent qualities, have the power to obtain a certain result. In this way, any fool, if he learns this and does exactly what he is told, obtains—or believes he will obtain—the result he wants. While… let us take the mantra, for instance, which is a form of occultism; unless the mantra is given by a guru and the guru transmits his occult or spiritual power to you with the mantra, you may repeat your mantra thousands of times, it will have no effect. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/10-september-1958#p6</ref>

... the Upanishads speak of jyotir brahma, the Light that is Brahman. Very often the sadhak feels a flow of Light upon him or around him or a flow of Light invading his centres or even his whole being and body, penetrating and illumining every cell and in that Light there grows the spiritual consciousness and one becomes open to all or many of its workings and realisations. Appositely I have a review of a book of Ramdas (of the Vision) before me in which is described such an experience got by the repetition of the Rama mantra, but, if I understand rightly, after a long and rigorous self-discipline. "The mantra having stopped automatically, he beheld a small circular light before his mental vision. This yielded him thrills of delight. This experience having continued for some days, he felt a dazzling light like lightning, flashing before his eyes, which ultimately permeated and absorbed him. Now an inexpressible transport of bliss filled every pore of his physical frame." It does not always come like that—very often it comes by stages or at long intervals, at first, working on the consciousness till it is ready. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/bhakti-yoga-and-vaishnavism#p48</ref>