If I am gone and not present, still you will feel the Guru-link through this regular meditation practice. That is why I would like to see more collective mantra japa. In this way, minds become part of a single Guru-field then they find such a quiet link, that without having to speak much they understand each other. When you sit together, the field of consciousness is awakened. Those who sit together for meditation will become a family. The collective mind settles down and loosens its knots. Sometimes when these practices are done collectively, there is a larger affect on the mind. Now also with these mantras, it is better to first be initiated and then afterwards to do these intensive practices. You keep your personal mantra, your guru-mantra in your mind while you are walking or whatever, and for a certain period of 3 months, 6 months, or one year, you may do a special practice of Gayatri or Mrtyunjaya called a purashcharanas. Then, in addition to your personal mantra, a person may be given personal practices called purashcharanas. And you will find it revealed inside you very, very slowly because you do not have time yet in your present way of life.
The mantra in the yoga tradition is a direct linkage and it has its own mechanism, its own internal development. He strengthened their power to make that mantra fruitful to their disciples. Our master had done that with Christian leaders and with Muslim holy men. But what yogis do, as our master did, was influence first those leaders and teachers and give them the power so that the mantra would be fruitful. Very few of those who grant those mantras in the sampradhya are yogis. People of a particular sampradhya or sect are given the same mantra.
In India right now we have many priestly traditions or sectarian traditions. This is a later stage when the entire mind becomes one with that mantra that is, if the mantra is given in the yoga tradition. In the Siva Sutras, which is the primary text of the Kashmir Shaivism tradition it says, Chittam Mantram. And if you keep strengthening that with japa, the bindu enlarges and slowly begins to cover more and more of your mind. It is through the mechanism of the Guru-given mantra that you become linked to the entire guru-parampara. We call the mantra as though it were a drop of Guru’s mind. In our tradition mantra becomes the mind’s link with the entire tradition.
In the practice of japa, which mantra should be done, by whom, at what time of life? When we give mantra diksha (mantra initiation) in our tradition the guru has taught the student-initiator ( dikshata) to observe the personality and let the mantra be transmitted. So a prayer for moksha is a prayer for loosening our immediate knots. When one knot of your character, of your psychology, is loosened, one small step is taken toward liberation. You may say that you do not want to think that far about moksha however, liberation and enlightenment do not come dramatically they come in tiny little steps. Mrtyunjaya mantra is Shiva’s form and will settle people into its ultimate goal, into their ultimate goal: moksha (liberation). For example, the rshi of Gayatri is Vishvamitra to whom the mantra was revealed. In the beginning of reciting a mantra we always remember the rshi of that mantra. Please review my past tapes on the subject of mind.) (I am using the word “mind” incorrectly but we are just getting started, and it is the best word I can use at this level without going into a detailed treatment of this very deep topic. These mantras have been revealed in the “minds” of the rishis. There is the universal conscious sound, the Maha Nada of the cosmos, and certain waves of that cosmos are the mantras. A Devata has two forms, a jyoti form and a nada form. In the mantra vidya, we think of the mantra as the body of the devata. We give them bodies because we project those forms onto them. What is a devata? The pictures and images are not the devata. Through which ever deities’ japa you perform, the qualities, the attributes of that devata enters into you. It is a science of devoting the mind’s energies to a specific goal so that particular divine conscious forces may arise within us and make us their dwelling place. This is a transcript of a talk that Swami Veda Bharati made on January 14, 1997, at Himalayan Institute Hospital Trust in Dehradun, India.