Changes

===Surrender of the Cells (Mother’s Experience)===

Most of the time, it's a sort of laziness, something unwilling to make an effort, to make a resolve: it prefers to leave the responsibility to others. In English I would call it the remnant, the residue of the Inconscient. It's a sort of spinelessness (''gesture of groveling'') which accepts a general, impersonal law: you paddle about in illness. And in response to that, there is inside, every minute, the sense of the true attitude, which in the cells is expressed with great simplicity: "There is the Lord, who is the all-powerful Master." Something like that. "It depends entirely on Him. If a surrender is to be made, it's to Him." I make sentences, but for the cells it's not sentences. It's a tiny little movement that expresses itself by repeating the mantra; then the mantra is full—full of force—and there is instantly the surrender: "May Your Will be done," and a tranquillity—a luminous tranquillity. And one sees that there was absolutely no imperative need to be ill or for the disequilibrium to occur. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/09/june-15-1968#p17</ref>

The constant call which might find a material expression in saying the mantra, but it's not even that: it's the SENSE, the sense of the call, of the aspiration—it's above all a call. A call. You know, when the mind wants to make sentences, it says, "Lord, take possession of Your kingdom." For certain things, I remember, when there are certain disorders, something wrong (and with the perception of a consciousness that has become very sharp, you can see when that disorder is the natural origin of an illness, for example, or of something very serious), with the call, the concentration and the response ... [the disorder is dissolved]. It's almost a surrender, because it's an uncalculating self-giving: the damaged spot opens to the Influence, not with an idea of getting cured, but like this (''gesture like a flower opening out''), simply like this, unconditionally—that is the most potent gesture. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/08/december-20-1967#p25</ref>

==Persistence==

...you receive your japa along with the power to do it—but you have to learn how to do it, right? For a long while you don't fully succeed; all sorts of things happen—you forget it right in the middle or fall asleep or grow tired, get a headache, all sorts of things; or even outer circumstances interfere and disturb you. Well, here it's the same: you tell yourself, "I'll do it," and you will do it, even if.... You have to go at it just like a mule: everything blocks the way but you keep going. You said you'd do it and you will do it. There are no results—I don't care. Everything is against me—I don't care. I said I'd do it and I will... I said I'd do it and I will. And you keep on going like that. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/03/september-5-1962#p82</ref>

Any method sincerely and persistently followed can end by bringing the opening...the method of prayer and japa ...does prepare something in the consciousness and, if done with persistent faith and bhakti, it can open all the doors. … But whatever method is used will not bring its effect at once; it must be done persistently, simply, directly till it succeeds. If it is done with a mind of doubt or watching it as an experiment to see if it succeeds or if it is continually crossed by a spirit of hasty despondency saying constantly, "You see it is all useless," then it ought to be obvious that the opening will be very difficult, because there is that clogging it every time there is a pressure or a push to open.<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/time-and-change-of-the-nature#p10</ref>

==Helpful Methods==

Japa shouldn't become so exclusive that it's done twenty-four hours out of twenty-four, because then it's equivalent to asceticism—but there should be a good dose of it. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/03/february-3-1962#p77</ref>

...everything depends upon what you want to do with them [mantras]. I am in favor of a short mantra, especially if you want to make both numerous and spontaneous repetitions—one or two words, three at most. Because you must be able to use them in all cases, when an accident is about to happen, for example. It has to spring up without thinking, without calling: it should issue forth from the being spontaneously, like a reflex, exactly like a reflex. Then the mantra has its full force. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/01/september-16-1958#p65</ref>

===Pranayama in Conjunction with Mantra===

…Put less symbolically, in more philosophical though perhaps less profound language, this means that the real energy of our being is lying asleep and inconscient in the depths of our vital system, and is awakened by the practice of Pranayama. In its expansion it opens up all the centres of our psychological being in which reside the powers and the consciousness of what would now be called perhaps our subliminal self; therefore as each centre of power and consciousness is opened up, we get access to successive psychological planes and are able to put ourselves in communication with the worlds or cosmic states of being which correspond to them; all the psychic powers abnormal to physical man, but natural to the soul develop in us. Finally, at the summit of the ascension, this arising and expanding energy meets with the superconscient self which sits concealed behind and above our physical and mental existence; this meeting leads to a profound samadhi of union in which our waking consciousness loses itself in the superconscient. Thus by the thorough and unremitting practice of Pranayama the Hathayogin attains in his own way the psychic and spiritual results which are pursued through more directly psychical and spiritual methods in other Yogas. The one mental aid which he conjoins with it, is the use of the mantra, sacred syllable, name or mystic formula which is of so much importance in the Indian systems of Yoga and common to them all. This secret of the power of the mantra, the six chakras and the Kundalini Shakti is one of the central truths of all that complex psycho-physical science and practice of which the Tantric philosophy claims to give us a rationale and the most complete compendium of methods. All religions and disciplines in India which use largely the psycho-physical method, depend more or less upon it for their practices. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/rajayoga#p4</ref>

Any Yogi who knows something about pranayama or japa can tell you that the running of the name in the breath is not a small phenomenon but of great importance in these practices and, if it comes naturally, a sign that something in the inner being has done that kind of sadhana in the past. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/the-value-of-experiences#p10</ref>

===Consecration Of Thoughts===

The fear, anger, depression etc. which used to rise when making the japa of the names came from a vital resistance in the nature (this resistance exists in everyone) which threw up these things because of the pressure on the vital part to change which is implied in sadhana. These resistances rise and then, if one takes the right attitude, slowly or quickly clear away. One has to observe them and separate oneself from them, persisting in the concentration and sadhana till the vital becomes quiet and clear.<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/inner-experiences-in-the-state-of-samadhi#p32</ref>

Now, I think that doing japa with the will and the idea of getting something out of it spoils it a little. You spoil it. I don't much like it when somebody says, "Do this and you will get that." It's true—it's true, but it's a bit like baiting a fish. I don't much like it. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/03/february-3-1962#p69</ref>