... 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>
=Japa And The Physical Mind=
The japa is made precisely to control the physical mind.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/01/october-11-1960#p15</ref>
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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>
==Continuous Repetition By Mind Of Cells==
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>
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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>
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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>
===Spontaneous Chanting===
Naturally, men create difficulties (I think they must love them, because ...), for everything, the SLIGHTEST thing, there's always a world of difficulties. So you spend your time saying, "Quiet, quiet, quiet—be quiet." Even the body lives in difficulties (it too seems to love them!), but all of a sudden the cells chant their OM ... spontaneously. Then there is a sort of childlike joy in all those cells, which say (Mother says in a tone of wonder), "Oh, really, we can do that? We are allowed to do that?" It's touching.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/08/may-24-1967#p21</ref>
==Cellular Vibration==
And in the beginning, during the first months that I was doing the japa, I felt them ... I had an almost detailed awareness of these myriads of cells opening to this vibration; the vibration of the first sound is an absolutely special vibration (you see, above, there is the light and all that, but beyond this light there is the original vibration), and this vibration was entering into all the cells and was reproduced in them. It went on for months in this way.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/01/october-11-1960#p18</ref>
=Impact On the Physical Consciousness=