In my college days in India I was on the debating team, and I enjoyed debating very much. I enjoyed preparing ahead of time to present both sides of the issues that the debating masters proposed. And when facing a well-spoken and well-prepared opponent, I enjoyed the intensity of debate itself. For me it had all the drama of an athletic event, with its possibilities for mastery of a difficult skill and for grace under pressure.
What I didn’t like, however, was the feeling of intense stage fright that I felt for about an hour before each debate was to begin. During that hour, I suffered all the well-known symptoms of this common malady: sweaty palms, irregular breathing, a pounding heart, and, worst of all, the question that would go through my mind over and over: Why did I ever join the debating society? And the anguished answer: I wish I never had! I can’t go through with this; I can’t go through with this.
I was a young Hindu boy, from a small village in Kerala State, South India, and it was my first year at a Catholic college where English was the medium of instruction. All debating was, of course, done in English. I had studied English in my high school, but it was not my native language. Needless to say, I felt insecure about my abilities to speak English on the debating platform.
There I was, just starting my college career, with a love for public speaking and especially for debating, about to give it all up because I couldn’t bear that hour of terror before stepping up onto the platform. Yes, it was unreasonable; but it seemed an obstacle I just couldn’t overcome.
Then I went to my grandmother, my spiritual teacher, and asked her what to do about the anxiety that gripped me whenever I had to stand and speak before an audience. She told me not to dwell on the anxiety, but just to keep repeating in my mind the words Rama, Rama, Rama. I knew this was a mantram that my granny used. When I was a child, I used to wake up every morning in our spacious ancestral home to the sweet sound of her singing her mantram as she swept the courtyard with her coconut fiber broom. At that time I didn’t give the mantram much thought; it was just something I heard every morning from the lips of someone I loved very deeply.
So I knew that Rama was used as a prayer or mantram, but I wasn’t a particularly devout young man, and my unspoken reaction to my granny’s advice was, “That’s too easy, too simple, too miraculous.” I was skeptical, but such was my love for my grandmother that I tried it anyway. “I hope it works,” I said, and the next time I sat on the platform waiting my turn to speak, I kept repeating the mantram in my mind. It seemed to help.
After that, whenever I was called upon to debate, I would silently repeat the mantram beforehand, and after a while I said, “I think it works.” I would still get a few butterflies in my stomach, but I no longer suffered from a pounding heart and irregular breathing.
Then I began to use it on any occasion that I found stressful. Today, after many years of using the mantram, I can say, on the strength of my own personal experience, “I know it works.”
Thanks to the wisdom of my grandmother, I enjoyed debating throughout my college career, which was crowned by the day our team won the intercollegiate debating championship. Later in life, also due to her blessings, I have enjoyed two careers involving public speaking: one as a college professor of English and one as a teacher of meditation. And I have never been paralyzed by stage fright, all because I followed her simple advice to “just repeat Rama, Rama, Rama.”
Simple and practical
Repeating a mantram or holy name is a simple spiritual practice that you can use today, no matter what your situation, to tap your deeper resources in all the ups and downs of daily life. It doesn’t require any special gifts, and you don’t need to follow any systematic program. You can begin using and benefiting from it right now. You can use it anytime, anywhere. And it works.
Over a long period of time, the mantram can bring about far-reaching changes in your state of mind, gradually elevating your consciousness.
A mantram – or mantra, as it is often called – is a short, powerful spiritual formula for the highest power that we can conceive of, whether we call it God, or the ultimate reality, or the Self within. When repeated silently, in the mind, this formula has the capacity to transform consciousness. There is nothing magical about this; it is simply a matter of practice. Whatever name we use for this supreme reality, we are calling up what is best and deepest in ourselves. The man-tram is practiced in every major spiritual tradition, West and East, because it fills a deep, universal need in the human heart.
When we repeat the mantram in our mind, we are reminding ourselves of this supreme reality enshrined in our hearts. It is only natural that the more we repeat it, the deeper it will sink into our consciousness. As it goes deeper, it will strengthen our will, heal the old divisions in our consciousness that cause us conflict and turmoil, and give us access to deeper resources of strength, patience, and love to work for the benefit of all.
When we repeat the mantram, we are not hypnotizing ourselves, or woolgathering, or turning our backs on the world. Repetition of the mantram is a dynamic discipline by which we gain access to our inner reserves of strength and peace of mind. With the mantram we regain our natural energy, confidence, and control, so that we can transform everything negative in us and make our greatest possible contribution to the welfare of those around us.
“The mantram becomes one’s staff of life,” declared Mahatma Gandhi, “and carries one through every ordeal.”
Our real nature
Most of us are aware of the motion of the mind only on the surface level of consciousness, where our thoughts jump like grasshoppers from one thing to another. Stray observations on our surroundings, old memories, plans for the future, a rush of elation over some good news, regrets over the past, a line from a popular song, worries about our problems, physical sensations, resentments towards those around us, and a craving for something to eat all follow one another in just a matter of minutes. In themselves, most of these thoughts are not actually harmful; a few of them may even be rather elevating. The trouble is that we have very little control over them. If you ask the thoughts, they would say, “This poor fellow thinks he is thinking us, but we are thinking him.”
And below the surface level of consciousness, what storms rage! Here are our deep-seated fears and hostilities, our cravings and conflicts. These are the deep divisions in our consciousness which make it difficult for us to concentrate, difficult to be loyal and steadfast. Often these divisions are at the root of serious physical ailments. They come to us in our sleep as nightmares, and all too often they plunge us into depression. Such storms sap our will and our vitality.
The vast majority of us see no way to change this situation; we have come to accept it as inevitable, as part of human nature. But let me assure you that this is not our real nature; it is only our conditioning. Deep within us we have immense reserves of will, loyalty, patience, compassion, and love; it is only that we do not know how to unlock these resources and bring them into full play in our daily lives. But this is something all of us can learn to do if we can gain control of our minds.
The elephant and the bamboo
The mantram can be of great value in learning to keep the mind even and steady, for it gives the mind something to hold on to, something to steady itself by.
In the Hindu tradition, we often compare the mind to the trunk of an elephant – restless, inquisitive, and always straying. If you watch an elephant sometime, you will see how apt the comparison is. In our towns and villages, caparisoned elephants are often taken in religious processions through the streets to the temple. The streets are crooked and narrow, lined on either side with fruit and vegetable stalls. Along comes the elephant with his restless trunk, and in one sinuous motion it grabs a whole bunch of bananas. He takes the whole bunch, opens his cavernous mouth, and tosses the bananas in stalk and all. Then from the next stall he picks up a coconut and tosses it in after the bananas. There is a loud crack and the elephant moves on to the next stall. No threats or promises can make this restless trunk settle down.
But the wise mahout, if he knows his elephant well, will just give that trunk a short bamboo stick to hold on to before the procession starts. Then the elephant will walk along proudly with his head up high, holding the bamboo stick in front of him like a drum major with a baton. He is not interested in bananas or coconuts any more; his trunk has something to hold on to.
The mind is very much like this. Most of the time it has nothing to hold on to, but we can keep it from straying into all kinds of absurd situations if we just give it the mantram.
The mantram is a transformer
If we can take advantage of all the opportunities for repeating the mantram – while waiting, while walking, while falling asleep at night – the mantram can help keep the mind calm and secure. When we are afraid or angry or driven by a strong urge for our own personal satisfaction at the expense of those around us, the mantram can transform these strong emotions into a source of tremendous positive power and help us refrain from acting or speaking impulsively. This is not repressing these powerful emotions; it is using them rather than letting them use us. The mantram has the power to turn fear into fearlessness, anger into compassion, and hatred into love.
A mantram is more than just a word or phrase; it is a force, and in order for this force to heal the divisions in our consciousness and to give us access to our deeper resources, it must be working from deep inside. At first, of course, we will be repeating the mantram only at the surface level of the mind. But if we repeat it with regularity and sustained enthusiasm, it will take root deep in our consciousness until it becomes as natural to us as breathing.
There is nothing mysterious about this process. We all have the capacity to concentrate, especially on things we like, and concentration itself is a deeper level of awareness. When we get absorbed in an intricate problem, or in reading our favorite author, or in listening to music we love, or in doing anything else that commands our full attention, we are no longer aware of our surroundings or of extraneous sights and sounds; we may not even be aware of our body. In moments of intense concentration like these, we experience a deeper level of awareness. It is just the same with the mantram; it can come from a level beyond awareness of sights and sounds, beyond awareness of the body, even beyond the level of words and conceptual thought.
Sometimes, in the West as well as in the East, you hear that the mantram is only effective if repeated in a particular way – with exactly the right pronunciation and intonation, or a set number of times. Let me assure you that any way you say it, the mantram works. Whether you say it fast or slow, with an Oxford accent or a Tennessee drawl, for five minutes or for hours at a stretch, you are still repeating the name of the Self, who is waiting to be discovered in the depths of your consciousness.
Mantram and meditation
In the eight-point program I teach (see page 2), the mantram plays a unique role as the bridge between the interior discipline of meditation and the other, external disciplines, for it helps greatly in applying the power gained in meditation to the other disciplines throughout the day. Meditation is like a big, broad-gauge train with a powerful engine, which gradually lays down a track into the depths of our consciousness. The mantram travels this track like one of those handcars railway men use in India: two men push a lever back and forth a few times to get the handcar started; then, once it picks up speed, it rolls on effortlessly down the line. In railway work this handcar can be a very convenient way to get from one place to another, and in the same way we can use the mantram handcar to bring the resources we tap in meditation into play in our lives throughout the day. Then, when we find ourselves provoked or worried or driven by some compulsive habit, just remembering the mantram will enable us to recall a little of the inner strength we glimpsed that morning in meditation.
In this way, the mantram can give the day real continuity. At the beginning, it may only extend your morning meditation a little into breakfast. You may have felt at peace with the whole world in your meditation room, but when you sit down to burned toast and cold coffee, that is the end of your patience for the day. Gradually, however, as your meditation deepens and you try your best to remember the mantram at every possible moment, it will extend your morning meditation into your mid-morning break, then to your lunch hour, and eventually into the afternoon. Finally, if you are practicing these disciplines sincerely, systematically, and with sustained enthusiasm, the mantram will enable you to take up your evening meditation exactly where you left off that morning.
Letting the mantram inside
Of course, these marvelous developments do not take place overnight. They take a long time, but the mantram begins its work of purifying our consciousness long before we reach the unitive state. At first, most of the work goes into trying to open the door of our mind a little so that the mantram can slip in. Once it gets in under the surface level, it can go on with its work of purification even when we are not consciously repeating it. But at first, it is all we can do to open the door of the mind even a little crack. All the time that we are repeating the mantram at the post office, while walking, while washing dishes, while falling asleep, we are working away at opening that door to our consciousness. When we can use the mantram to overcome likes and dislikes or to change old habits, we are beginning to open the door just a little, and when we learn to repeat the mantram to transform fear and anger and greed, we are not only opening the door but turning on the porch light and putting out the welcome mat, too.
Once the mantram gets its foot in the door, it looks around inside and sees what a messy housekeeper the mind is. It doesn’t dust, it doesn’t sweep, and it can’t stand to throw anything out, so our consciousness is bulging with photo albums, old projects we lost interest in halfway through, tapes of agitated conversations with our friends twelve years ago, even old childhood toys. The mantram slips inside and begins to straighten up the living room; it clears out the cobwebs, throws out the old magazines, and opens up all the windows to let in a little fresh air. Compared to this, those stables Hercules had to clean were like the house beautiful, but gradually the mantram will go through everything room by room. Only when the entire house is spotless from cellar to attic is it ready for its rightful owner: your real Self.
The mantram after years of repetition
From the very first day you begin to use the mantram, it begins to grow in your consciousness. It germinates like the tiny seed that will eventually grow into a magnificent tree, and as you repeat it often and enthusiastically, it sends its roots deeper and deeper. Over a period of many years, if you have been practicing all the other spiritual disciplines which strengthen your will and deepen your concentration, the taproot of the mantram will extend fathoms deep, where it works to unify your consciousness – resolving old conflicts, solving problems you may not even be aware of, and transforming negative emotions into spiritual energy.
Finally, when this mantram root reaches the bedrock of consciousness, you become established in the man-tram. It has become an integral part of your being, permeating your consciousness from the surface level down to the very depths. Then it is no longer necessary to repeat the mantram; it goes on repeating itself, echoing continuously at the very deepest levels of the mind. This is what St. Paul means when he exhorts us to “pray without ceasing.” As a Sufi mystic says,
Those who heard this word by the ear alone let it go out by the other ear; but those who heard it with their souls imprinted it on their souls and repeated it until it penetrated their hearts and souls, and their whole being became this word.
In more homely language, it is as if after all these years of knocking – repeating the mantram assiduously whenever we get the chance – the mantram finally opens its doors and lets us in.
Full of joy
Whether our mantram is Rama, Rama or Jesus, Jesus or Hail Mary or Om mani padme hum, it fills us with the same joy, security, and beauty. Whatever holy name we use, at this stage it is the perfect embodiment of the Lord of Love.
The holy name reverberating in the depths of consciousness transfigures our entire vision of life. Just as the mantram transforms negative forces in consciousness into constructive power, so it now transforms all our perceptions of the everyday world into unbroken awareness of the unity of life. When I go for a walk on the beach my ear hears the waves crashing and booming against the shore, but my mind hears them as Rama, Rama, Rama. This is not something I try to do; it’s simply how I hear it now. And when I hear the birds singing, their song too becomes Rama, Rama, Rama – with different accents, with different harmonies, but the final perception is the holy name. It is the same with the breeze, with music, with everything. When we are established in the mantram, everything is full of Rama – full of joy.
