Changes

The japa is made precisely to control the physical mind.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/01/october-11-1960#p15</ref>

You know, it isn't a perception, it isn't a sensation, it is... a LIVED FAITH in the existence of the Supreme alone—you know, a faith that it's the only Reality and the only Existence. Just that, and everything seems to swell up, as if all these cells were swelling up with such joy!... Only, it doesn't take the form of a feeling, not even of a sensation, even less of a thought; so if you aren't very attentive, you don't notice it. But, for instance, when I repeat the mantra, it's repeated by that famous physical mind, which is so stupid (the mantra is the only thing that can keep a rein on it), and now it has become so identified that the mantra is its whole life, it is like a pulsation of its being; but then when I come to the invocation (there is a series of invocations: each one has its own effect on the body), when I come to "Manifest Your Love," I see a sort of twinkling of a golden light, which represents an intense joy in all the cells. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/05/november-21-1964#p28</ref>

The physical seems to be more open to something that is repetitious—for example, the music we play on Sundays, which has three series of combined mantras. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/01/september-16-1958#p53</ref>

It is this mind of the cells which seizes upon a mantra or a japa and eventually repeats it automatically, and with what persistence! That is to say, CONTINUALLY. That's what Sri Aurobindo means when he says it can be a help: it keeps at things indefinitely (''Mother clenches her fist in an unwavering gesture''). <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/04/june-3-1963#p9</ref>

I heard it—I heard THE CELLS repeating the mantra. Automatically, in the difficulty (there was a difficulty), they were repeating the mantra. Like a choir, an immense choir in a church, it was very odd. As if there were lots of little voices, innumerable little voices repeating and repeating the same sound. It gave me the impression of a church choir, but with lots and lots and lots of choirboys—tiny little voices. Yet the sound was very clear, I was dumbfounded: very clear. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/04/june-3-1963#p12</ref>