Changes

… all sounds heard together make the supreme invocation to the Divine: OM. [ Based on Aphorism - 177 - The perfect cosmic vision and cosmic sentiment is the cure of all error and suffering; but most men succeed only in enlarging the range of their ego.] <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/10/aphorism-176-177#p4v</ref>

OM is the mantra, the expressive sound-symbol of the Brahman Consciousness in its four domains from the Turiya to the external or material plane. The function of a mantra is to create vibrations in the inner consciousness that will prepare it for the realisation of what the mantra symbolises and is supposed indeed to carry within itself. The mantra OM should therefore lead towards the opening of the consciousness to the sight and feeling of the One Consciousness in all material things, in the inner being and in the supraphysical worlds, in the causal plane above now superconscient to us and, finally, the supreme liberated transcendence above all cosmic existence. The last is usually the main preoccupation with those who use the mantra.

… OM if rightly used (not mechanically) might very well help the opening upwards and outwards (cosmic consciousness) as well as the descent. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/mantra-and-japa#p10,p11</ref>

There is ONE sound which, to me, has an extraordinary power—extraordinary and UNIVERSAL (that's the important point): it doesn't depend on the language you speak, it doesn't depend on the education you were given, it doesn't depend on the atmosphere you breathe. And that sound, without knowing anything, I used to say it when I was a child (you know how in French we say, "Oh!"; well, I used to say "OM," without knowing anything!). And indeed, I made all kinds of experiments with that sound—it's fantastic, even, fantastic! It's unbelievable. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/05/september-23-1964#p10</ref>

This then is the meaning of the Upanishad that OM, the syllable, technically called the Udgitha, is to be meditated on as a symbol of the fourfold Brahman with two objects, the "singing to" of one's desires & aspirations in the triple manifestation and the spiritual ascension into the Brahman Itself so as to meet and enter into heaven after heaven & even into Its transcendent felicity. For, it says, with the syllable OM one begins the chant of the Samaveda, or, in the esoteric sense, by means of the meditation on OM one makes this soul-ascension and becomes master of all the soul desires. It is in this aspect & to this end that the Upanishad will expound OM. To explain Brahman in Its nature & workings, to teach the right worship and meditation on Brahman, to establish what are the different means of attainment of different results and the formulae of the meditation and worship, is its purpose. All this work of explanation has to be done in reference to Veda & Vedic sacrifice and ritual of which OM is the substance. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/18/notes-on-the-chhandogya-upanishad#p6</ref>

A mantra given by a guru is only the power to realize the experience of the discoverer of the mantra. The power is automatically there, because the sound contains the experience. I saw that once in Paris, at a time when I knew nothing of India, absolutely nothing... I didn't even know what a mantra was. I had gone to a lecture given by some fellow who was supposed to have practiced "yoga" for a year in the Himalayas and recounted his experience (none too interesting, either). All at once, in the course of his lecture, he uttered the sound OM. And I saw the entire room suddenly fill with light, a golden, vibrating light.... I was probably the only one to notice it. I said to myself, "Well!" Then I didn't give it any more thought, I forgot about the story. But as it happened, the experience recurred in two or three different countries, with different people, and every time there was the sound OM, I would suddenly see the place fill with that same light. So I understood. That sound contains the vibration of thousands and thousands of years of spiritual aspiration—there is in it the entire aspiration of men towards the Supreme. And the power is automatically there, because the experience is there. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/04/may-11-1963#p4</ref>

==The Gayatri Mantra==

[[File:Gayatri.jpg|thumb]]

The power of the Gayatri is the Light of the divine Truth. It is a mantra of Knowledge. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/mantra-and-japa#p15</ref>

And in the Gayatri, the chosen formula of the ancient Vedic religion, the supreme light of the godhead Surya Savitri is invoked as the object of our desire, the deity who shall give his luminous impulsion to all our thoughts.

Surya Savitri, the Creator; for the seer and the creator meet again in this apotheosis of the divine vision in man. The victory of that vision, the arising of this Light to “its own home of the truth”, the outflooding of this great ocean of vision of Surya which is the eye of the infinite Wideness and the infinite Harmony, is in fact nothing else than the second or divine creation. For then Surya in us beholds with a comprehensive vision all the worlds, all the births as herds of the divine Light, bodies of the infinite Aditi; and this new-seeing of all things, this new-moulding of thought, act, feeling, will, consciousness in the terms of the Truth, the Bliss, the Right, the Infinity is a new creation. It is the coming into us of “that greater existence which is beyond on the other side of this smaller and which, even if it be also a dream of the Infinite, puts away from it the falsehood.” <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/15/the-guardians-of-the-light#p16,p17</ref>

NAMO—Obeisance to Him.

BHAGAVATE—Make me divine. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/14-march-1973#p15,p16,p17,p18,p19</ref>

It's interesting. When I am quiet, I hear a kind of great chant—almost a collective chant, I could say: OM Namo Bhagavateh .... As if all of Nature went (''rising gesture''): OM Namo Bhagavateh… <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/13/february-9-1972#p84</ref>

For the moment, of all the formulas or mantras, the one that acts most directly on this body, that seizes all the cells and immediately does this (''vibrating motion'') is the Sanskrit mantra: OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/agenda/01/september-16-1958#p24</ref>

This one, this mantra, OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH, came to me after some time, for I felt ... well, I saw that I needed to have a mantra of my own, that is, a mantra consonant with what this body has to do in the world. And it was just then that it came. It was truly an answer to a need that had made itself felt. So if you feel the need—not there, not in your head, but here (''Mother points to the center of her heart''), it will come. One day, either you will hear the words, or they will spring forth from your heart ... And when that happens, you must hold onto it. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/agenda/01/september-16-1958#p51</ref>

==Verses Of The Gita ==

Verses of the Gita can be used as japa, if the object is to realise the Truth that the verses contain in them. …Everything depends on the selection of the verses. A coherent summary of the Gita's teaching cannot easily be put together by putting together some verses, but that is not necessary for a purpose of this kind which could only be to put the key truths together—not for intellectual exposition but for grasping in realisation which is the object of japa. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/mantra-and-japa#p31</ref>

==So'ham==

The experience to which the ''So'ham'' mantra leads is the realisation of one Being everywhere, all as the Divine, oneself and all as essentially one with that Divine. It is an experience in which one's separate personal existence shut up in the body ceases to be the normal thing; one feels the body as a point or small thing in a vast existence, consciousness or Ananda that is the Divine and oneself as spread out in that vast consciousness—as if the world were within us and not we inside the world or as if the world were one with us and one with the Divine. It is the "cosmic consciousness" that comes by this mantra. For our Yoga this is a beginning only, not the end as it is in the ordinary Yoga,—a liberation, not the Siddhi. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/mantra-and-japa#p14</ref>

=Importance of Mantra=

If rightly done, the mantra is a means of opening to the light and knowledge etc. from above and it ceases as soon as that is done. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/mantra-and-japa#p7</ref>