Online: | |
Visits: | |
Stories: |
“The mantra becomes one’s staff of life and carries one through every ordeal. Each repetition has a new meaning, carrying you nearer and nearer to God.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi
A long time ago when I was in school, I had a friend who used to have a tally counter. If you don’t know what that is, it’s a simple counter that you can press a button and well it counts. So he would be reciting his mantras and every time he finished one he would press a button. He had to repeat the mantra for a set amount of times.
At that point of time I found it funny, what difference would it make if you say it, are you hoping for God’s blessings? Well that incident was embedded in my subconscious mind and it surfaced when I was reading the “Bhagavad Gita for daily living” by Eknath Easwaran where he talks about Mantras.
According to Eknath, “Mantras are powerful spiritual formula that when repeated silently in the mind, have the capacity to transform consciousness.”
He covers points about how all religions have Mantras – the Catholics have the Rosary where they repeat the Hail Mary’s, the common Buddhist Mantra is ‘Om mani padme hum’ that refers to the jewel in the lotus of the heart.’ While Muslims repeat the name of Allah or Allahu Akbar, ‘God is Great’.
While Hinduism has a range of mantras to choose from, personally the one that resonates with me is the “Gayatri Mantra.” The Gayatri Mantra is a highly revered mantra, based on a Vedic Sanskrit verse from a hymn of the Rigveda.
Read more »