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→Vedic Mantras
=Vedic Mantras=
…in fact, speech is creative. It creates forms of emotion, mental images and impulses of action. The ancient Vedic theory and practice extended this creative action of speech by the use of the Mantra. The theory of the Mantra is that it is a word of power born out of the secret depths of our being where it has been brooded upon by a deeper consciousness than the mental, framed in the heart and not constructed by the intellect, held in the mind, again concentrated on by the waking mental consciousness and then thrown out silently or vocally—the silent word is perhaps held to be more potent than the spoken—precisely for the work of creation. The Mantra can not only create new subjective states in ourselves, alter our psychical being, reveal knowledge and faculties we did not before possess, can not only produce similar results in other minds than that of the user, but can produce vibrations in the mental and vital atmosphere which result in effects, in actions and even in the production of material forms on the physical plane.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/18/the-supreme-word#p8</ref>
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The Vedic use of the Mantra is only a conscious utilisation of this secret power of the word. And if we take the theory that underlies it together with our previous hypothesis of a creative vibration of sound behind every formation, we shall begin to understand the idea of the original creative Word. Let us suppose a conscious use of the vibrations of sound which will produce corresponding forms or changes of form. But Matter is only, in the ancient view, the lowest of the planes of existence. Let us realise then that a vibration of sound on the material plane presupposes a corresponding vibration on the vital without which it could not have come into play; that, again, presupposes a corresponding originative vibration on the mental; the mental presupposes a corresponding originative vibration on the supramental at the very root of things. But a mental vibration implies thought and perception and a supramental vibration implies a supreme vision and discernment. All vibration of sound on that higher plane is, then, instinct with and expressive of this supreme discernment of a truth in things and is at the same time creative, instinct with a supreme power which casts into forms the truth discerned and eventually, descending from plane to plane, reproduces it in the physical form or object created in Matter by etheric sound. Thus we see that the theory of creation by the Word which is the absolute expression of the Truth, and the theory of the material creation by sound-vibration in the ether correspond and are two logical poles of the same idea. They both belong to the same ancient Vedic system. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/18/the-supreme-word#p10</ref>
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The mantra, though it expresses thought in mind, is not in its essential part a creation of the intellect. To be the sacred and effective word, it must have come as an inspiration from the supra-mental plane, termed in Veda, Ritam, the Truth, and have been received into the superficial consciousness either through the heart or by the luminous intelligence, ''manīṣā''. The heart in Vedic psychology is not restricted to the seat of the emotions; it includes all that large tract of spontaneous mentality, nearest to the subconscient in us, out of which rise the sensations, emotions, instincts, impulses and all those intuitions and inspirations that travel through these agencies before they arrive at form in the intelligence. This is the "heart" of Veda and Vedanta, ''hṛdaya'', ''hṛd'', or ''brahman''. There in the present state of mankind the Purusha is supposed to be seated centrally. Nearer to the vastness of the subconscient, it is there that, in ordinary mankind,—man not yet exalted to a higher plane where the contact with the Infinite is luminous, intimate and direct,—the inspirations of the Universal Soul can most easily enter in and most swiftly take possession of the individual soul. It is therefore by the power of the heart that the mantra takes form. But it has to be received and held in the thought of the intelligence as well as in the perceptions of the heart; for not till the intelligence has accepted and even brooded upon it, can that truth of thought which the truth of the Word expresses be firmly possessed or normally effective. Fashioned by the heart, it is confirmed by the mind. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/15/indra-and-the-thought-forces#p25</ref>
==Sruti And Smriti==
This free & great movement of illumination descending from above to us below and not like our thought here which climbs painfully up the mountain peaks of thought only to find at the summit that it is yet far removed from the skies to which it aspires, this winged & mighty descent of Truth is what we call Sruti or revelation. There are three words which are used of illumined thought, ''drishti, sruti '' & ''smriti'', sight, hearing and remembrance. The direct vision or experience of a truth or the thought-substance of a truth is called ''drishti'', and because they had that direct vision or experience, that ''pratyaksha '' not of the senses, but of the liberated soul, the Rishis are called ''drashtas''. But besides the truth and its ''artha '' or thought-substance in which it is represented to the mind, there is the ''vak '' or sound symbol, the inevitable word in which the truth is naturally enshrined & revealed & not as in ordinary speech half concealed or only suggested. The revelation of the ''vak '' is ''sruti''. The revealed word is also revelatory and whoever has taken it into his soul, though the mind may not understand it, has the Truth ready prepared in the higher or ''sushupta '' reaches of his being from whence it must inevitably descend at a future date or in another life to his lower & darkened consciousness in order to liberate & illumine. It is this psychological truth which is the foundation of the Hindu's trust in the Name of God, the vibrations of the mantra and the sound of the Veda. For the ''vak '' carries, in the right state of the soul, an illumination with it of the truth which it holds, an inspiration of its force of ''satyam '' which is less than ''drishti '' but must in the end lead to ''drishti''. A still more indirect action of the ''vijnana '' is ''smriti''; when the truth is presented to the soul and its truth immediately & directly recognised by a movement resembling memory—a perception that this was always true and already known to the higher consciousness. It is ''smriti '' that is nearest to intellect action and forms the link between ''vijnanam '' & ''prajnanam'', ideal thought & intellectual thought, by leading to the higher forms of intellectual activity, such as intuitive reason, inspiration, insight & prophetic revelation, the equipment of the man of genius. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/18/a-fragmentary-chapter-for-a-work-on-vedanta#p8</ref>
==Symbology==
The symbol of the Sun is constantly associated with the higher Light and the Truth: it is in the Truth concealed by an inferior Truth that are unyoked the horses of the Sun, it is the Sun in its highest light that is called upon in the great Gayatri Mantra to impel our thoughts.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/16/foreword#p15</ref>
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Many of the lines, many whole hymns even of the Veda bear on their face a mystic meaning; they are evidently an occult form of speech, have an inner meaning. When the seer speaks of Agni as "the luminous guardian of the Truth shining out in his own home", or of Mitra and Varuna or other gods as "in touch with the Truth and making the Truth grow" or as "born in the Truth", these are words of a mystic poet, who is thinking of that inner Truth behind things of which the early sages were the seekers. He is not thinking of the Nature-Power presiding over the outer element of fire or of the fire of the ceremonial sacrifice. Or he speaks of Saraswati as one who impels the words of Truth and awakes to right thinkings or as one opulent with the thought: Saraswati awakes to consciousness or makes us conscious of the "Great Ocean and illumines all our thoughts." It is surely not the River Goddess whom he is thus hymning but the Power, the River if you will, of inspiration, the word of the Truth, bringing its light into our thoughts, building up in us that Truth, an inner knowledge. The Gods constantly stand out in their psychological functions; the sacrifice is the outer symbol of an inner work, an inner interchange between the gods and men,—man giving what he has, the gods giving in return the horses of power, the herds of light, the heroes of Strength to be his retinue, winning for him victory in his battle with the hosts of Darkness, Vritras, Dasyus, Panis. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/16/foreword#p13</ref>
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In the visible world they are the male and female powers and energies of the universe and it is this external aspect of them as gods of the Sun, Fire, Air, Waters, Earth, Ether, the conscious-forces ever present in material being which gives us the external or psycho-physical side of the Aryan worship. The antique view of the world as a psycho-physical and not merely a material reality is at the root of the ancient ideas about the efficacy of the ''mantra'' and the relation of the gods to the external life of man; hence the force of prayer, worship, sacrifice for material ends; hence the use of them for worldly life and in so-called magic rites which comes out prominently in the Atharva Veda and is behind much of the symbolism of the Brahmanas. But in man himself the gods are conscious psychological powers. "Will-powers, they do the works of will; they are the thinkings in our hearts; they are the lords of delight who take delight; they travel in all the directions of the thought." Without them the soul of man cannot distinguish its right nor its left, what is in front of it nor what is behind, the things of foolishness or the things of wisdom; only if led by them can it reach and enjoy "the fearless Light". <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/15/the-guardians-of-the-light#p42</ref>
==Sanskrit Language==
The Sanscrit language is the devabhasha or original language spoken by men in Uttara Meru at the beginning of the Manwantara; but in its purity it is not the Sanscrit of the Dwapara or the Kali, it is the language of the Satyayuga based on the true and perfect relation of vak and artha. Every one of its vowels and consonants has a particular and inalienable force which exists by the nature of things and not by development or human choice; these are the fundamental sounds which lie at the basis of the Tantric bijamantras and constitute the efficacy of the mantra itself. Every vowel and every consonant in the original language had certain primary meanings which arose out of this essential shakti or force and were the basis of other derivative meanings. By combination with the vowels, the consonants, and, without any combination, the vowels themselves formed a number of primary roots, out of which secondary roots were developed by the addition of other consonants. All words were formed from these roots, simple words by the addition again of pure or mixed vowel and consonant terminations with or without modification of the root and more complex words by the principle of composition. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/16/rv-i-dot-1-1-3#p17</ref>
==Origin of Chants==
The Angirases are at once the divine seers who assist in the cosmic and human workings of the gods and their earthly representatives, the ancient fathers who first found the wisdom of which the Vedic hymns are a chant and memory and renewal in experience. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/15/summary-of-conclusions#p3</ref>
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They [sages in Vedic times]have given the activities of their being to the divine & infinite Force of God as its fuel, they have submitted themselves devoutly to that Force not interfering by the lower egoistic personal effort, then has it worked in them & done its miracles; then they have taught to mankind those realisations of the ideal planes which have been revealed in or from the pure heaven of mind to the Vedic sages and have had power to express them in divine song for the soul which hungers after the Vedic knowledge and has the force to receive and assimilate it. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/16/rv-iii-dot-1-1-12#p16</ref>
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The name of God, the mantra, is still the keystone of all Indian yoga. We shall not realise the full bearing & rationale of this great Vedic conception unless we first impress on our minds the Vedic idea of existence & creation, for Vak, the Word, is in that idea the effective agent of creation. All created existence is in the Vedic philosophy a formation by force of consciousness, Chit-shakti, not, as modern thought supposes it to be, a formation by Force of unconscious inanimate Being. Creation itself is only a manifestation, phenomenon or appearing in form, ''vayas, vayunam, víti'', [of] that which is already existent as consciousness, but latent as form in universal Being. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/16/rv-v-dot-10#p17</ref>
=Different Mantras=
==Om==