A Note on reading and writing with the essays…

Please take your time with the content presented here. You don’t need to read the whole essay in one sitting— in fact, it could be most beneficial to take it in small doses, allowing yourself time to ‘feel with it’, to use a quote from a Sutra on and off your cushion before moving on to the next one. Hopefully reading, meditating and free writing can become a powerful and productive part of your regular practice. So take your time and let this experience ‘work for you’ instead of approaching it like your normal work. Namaste!

You only need to post one free-write based comment on this essay, even though there are multiple free-writing points to comment upon. If you would like to comment more, you are welcome to do so, but one is all that’s needed for the sake of your homework.

Beyond the Mind with Mantra

The mind is a tool we use to navigate our reality. We use this tool to speak, to listen, to learn, to create, to build, to navigate— there is no end to its usefulness in our lives— but according to the yogic tradition, it is only a tool and not who we are. What we are is being, consciousness and bliss, and all we have to do to recognize this inner reality is learn how to calm the mind and re-direct our focus inside, instead of out. This is no easy task, in fact, it's the work of the entire Yogic tradition. For that reason we use Mantra to help us separate from mind’s chatter and identify with an inner state of being. The mantra of the ShambhavAnanda Lineage, Om Namah Shivaya, is particularly effective because it is a living mantra, handed down from realized teachers over 4 generations. But no matter how great the practice, or how clearly marked the path, it’s important to realize that only you can do the work of meditation. Philosophy, discussion and the entire Yogic Tradition may point you in the right direction— but only through practice can you arrive.

Setting Down the Mind to Re-Discover our True Nature

Mantra Practice in a Modern World

We use the tool of our mind everyday to skillfully navigate our reality, and there is no doubt of its efficacy. We are using it right now to communicate with each other through the written word, and to discuss an abstract topic. But even this amazing tool must be set down now and again, or else you and the tool suffer. For example, think of a tool that you use throughout your day, a phone perhaps, or your laptop. You can hold your phone to make a call for 15 minutes, or even an hour, and you can sit at your laptop to type for even more—but imagine if after that call was finished, or the email was written, you couldn’t put down the phone or close the laptop? No matter how light your phone, or how dim your screen, eventually you and the tool would suffer. As the Shiva Sutras teach, “Jnanam Bandha”— which can be translated in two ways— “not knowing your own nature is bondage” or “knowing your body/mind as your true nature is bondage”. This means that not knowing the difference between yourself and your phone (the tool), eventually leads to suffering. So the Sutra could read “not knowing that you are different than your phone,” or “knowing your phone as your true self” both lead to bondage, ie. suffering. And we’ve all felt this kind of bondage in our lives— the energy that is so easily wasted scrolling, or the physical imbalances that arise from poor posture at our computers— not being able to stop using these tools has consequences. When you can’t put your phone down, or look away from your screen, your “search for knowledge” has rewarded you with carpel tunnel. This is not a new phenomenon, it didn’t begin with the iPhone, it begin with the small “i”, the tendency for us to over-associate with our mind and body, the small mind, and become bound by it’s chatter.

Sri ShambhavAnanda teaches: “Meditation involves focusing the mind. In our tradition, mantra and pranayama are ways to do that. They help us get beyond the superficial chatter of our minds that we all have to deal with to obtain some separation from our small minds. When we can do a mantra and keep our attention on it, we may not always stop thinking, but what happens is that we are able to tell the difference between our everyday minds and being focused inside. We learn to stay conscious of a particular mantra or a practice. In the end we gradually begin to reach the witness state, where we clearly observe the activity of the mind.”

As we see here, we don't have to reject our phones/minds, we just have to practice setting them aside now and then so that we can maintain our perspective on the difference between our small self and our inner self, our small ‘i’ and our big “I”. It’s like so many scientific studies have shown, that simply taking 1 minute to look away from your device or monitor every 30 minutes can dramatically improve the health of your interaction with that screen— and it’s really that straightforward with our minds as well— We simply need to learn how to set the mind down when possible throughout our day in order to stay connected to what lies beyond our mind, our True Nature.

The True Nature the Yogic tradition speaks of has three specific qualities: Being, Consciousness and Bliss. These qualities are said to arise in the yogi naturally as they progress in their practice. Being can be interpreted as the experience of vitality, of life force. As you meditate, you begin to slowly accumulate energy which overflows into feeling more alive and inspired. This can be felt after just one practice, when you might start your practice feeling sleepy or resistant, but finish your practice feeling like you had a full night’s sleep. Consciousness is a big term that can be understood as awareness or clarity of mind. As a yogi progresses in their practice they become more skillful in their daily interactions. They become more present in their work and relationships, and by doing so move through them with less unnecessary struggle. They know how to ‘get out of the way’ so to speak, to ‘see what’s possible’ as Babaji puts it, and help any given situation flow towards its best resolution. And finally, as one meditates one does not become more stoic, or isolated, but rather becomes more blissful. As Shiva Sutra 1.12 states, “12. vismayo yogabhūmikāḥ // The predominant sign of such a yogī is joy-filled amazement.” Or as Sri ShambhavAnanda teaches, “the sign of progress in your practice is that you are becoming happier for no particular reason!” This doesn’t mean that our problems magically disappear because we decide to meditate, but it does mean that we begin to find a path through those challenges to our True Nature a little more each day.

Free Write: How have you experienced the growth of ‘Sat-Chit-Ananda’ in your life since beginning your practice? How do you relate to those qualities on a daily basis?

Calming the Thought Waves of the Mind

Mantra as a Means of Mental Clarity

The Yogic tradition teaches that most of our challenges, though, are not the result of external circumstances, but are the result of an over-active mind.

As Sri ShambhavAnanda teaches:“You are not far from the state of pure Truth, pure consciousness, and pure bliss that you are seeking. Even when you are in your darkest hour, it is very close to you. All you have to do is untangle yourself from the external world. You will find that the states of despair and happiness are created by your mind. As long as you are bound by your mind you will suffer the consequences of its fluctuations. That is why beginning a spiritual practice will help you. Your problems will not magically disappear – you simply will not be distracted by them. You will develop a spiritual mechanism to deal with them.”

Untangling ourselves from our mind is no small task, though. It is, in fact, the entire task of the Yogic Tradition. As the sage Patanjali taught in his treatise from 2,000 years ago, The Yoga Sutras, the main practice of yoga is calming the mind, ie. Everything you do in yoga is aimed at this central goal. This is because, as Patanjali tells us, when the mind is calm, our true nature comes into focus, and that when our mind is not calm, our true nature and the reality that we live within is obscured.

Patanjali Yoga Sutra 2-5: “The main practice of yoga is to calm the thought waves. When this technique is mastered, the practitioner is able to keep a steady focus inside on his or her own true nature, the Self. If the practitioner is not identifying with the Self, the fluctuating states of the mind cloud the perception.”

The classic metaphor for helping to visualize the relationship between our mind and our true nature is that of a lake or body of water. When the surface of the water is choppy, all you can see is the surface— but when the surface is calm, you automatically see past the surface into its depths. In similar fashion, when our mind is busy all we can see are our thoughts, the surface tension of reality. Our daily worries stir the surface, thought waves that collide with each other to create even bigger, occasional, waves of stress, anxiety or despair. But when our mind is calm, we see right past the surface and into the depths of who we are. This is like when you are walking in a serene setting and you ‘just feel better’ for particular reason other than you feel calm and peaceful. This feeling of ‘better’ that naturally wells up in us is our true nature— being, consciousness and bliss— and when our mind is calm, it’s right in front of us, like fish swimming in a clear pond. It seems too simple to be true, and on paper it is that simple, but in our lives it takes a lot of practice.

Student: “How do I begin a spiritual practice?”
ShambhavAnanda: “Begin by disciplining the mind, the emotions, and the body with meditation. Sit comfortably and turn your attention inside. All of the obstacles and obscurations that have accumulated will arise in your mind. It is the consciousness with which you deal with these distractions that determines your spiritual evolution. We are bound by these distractions. They obscure our view of the Truth. We don’t need to reject them, but through right understanding, through clarity of mind, and through a transcendental state of consciousness, they begin to dissolve. That is how to gain liberation. You are very close to the Divine. The perfection that you are seeking is as close as your breath. It is only because we get caught in a state of dualism that we feel separate from that experience.” (SR, 6)

As ShambhavAnanda teaches, when we start to work with our mind we soon find how slippery it can be, and it is how we work with our minds that determines our success. For example, if I told you not to think of monkeys, you will probably find yourself thinking of monkeys, even though you are trying not to do so. If you yelled to yourself “Stop Thinking of Monkeys!”, you would only see more of them. If you started surfing on your phone as a distraction you might not think of monkeys, but you will start to replace monkey with an infinite array of other ‘monkey like’ thoughts. So how do we ‘stop thinking of monkeys’, how do we put down this tool and calm our mind in order to perceive what is beneath and beyond it?

As Sri ShambhavAnanda teaches: “Classically, meditation is described as stilling the thought waves of the mind. You can’t force your mind to be quiet, you can’t suppress thoughts, and you can’t ignore them, but you can surrender them…There are many techniques in the yogic tradition that help quiet your mind. One is mantra. I know while many of you are chanting the Guru Gita [the morning mantra practice at the ashram] you are also thinking about other things. Meditation is the ability to bring your attention back to what it is that you are doing and not to be caught up in your thoughts, emotions, fantasies, old rock and roll songs, or anything else that attracts your mind.” (SP, 12)

Free Write: How do you work with your mind? When does it control you and when do you have some control over it? What types of “skillful means” do you use to focus it?

Chaitanya Mantra

The Shaktified Path of a Living Tradition

The Practice of Mantra

As Yogis, Mantra is one of the first and foremost tools for calming the mind. It creates a physical barrier between you and your monkey thoughts, which is why the word mantra is translated as “mind protector”. On the other hand, mantra is also a tool to harness and focus your mind, which is why another translation of mantra is “mind instrument”. In a literal way, mantra is a sacred set of syllables that you repeat out loud, under your breath, or silently in order to focus your mind and connect to your true nature. For example, in order to ‘not think of monkeys’ you have to give your mind something else to focus on. You might ask, why a mantra, why not just another word, like ‘serenity’. It is possible to calm your mind by focusing on any object or word, and a beautiful calming word like ‘peace’ or ‘beauty’ might work for you— but in the yogic tradition, mantras are more than just words, they are energetic pathways to an inner experience.

The mantra of this lineage is ancient, and was not created by any one person or culture— it was discovered in a meditative state, and then used by that teacher, and their students, to return to that state again and again. Bhagavan Nityananda gave this mantra to his student Swami Muktananda who used the mantra to attain his enlightenment. Swami Muktananda then gave this mantra to his student Sri ShambhavAnanda, who also used the mantra to discover his true nature again and again. Sri ShambhavAnanda then gave this mantra to his students, who created this program as a way of giving it to you. This makes the mantra of this lineage a Chaitanya Mantra, a living mantra— because the mantra has been empowered and kept alive by real practitioners, not simply stored in a book. In the yogic tradition a Chaitanya mantra is priceless— there is nothing you can buy or be given that has a greater value than a realized path to your true nature. For that reason, one should repeat the mantra as if it were a treasured family heirloom, even though one may not realize it at first.

The Chaitanya Mantra of the ShambhavAnanda Lineage is “Om Namah Shivaya.”

Om is the first vibration of the universe, the primordial vibration from which all of manifestation arises. The sound of OM is actually spelled A-U-M in Sanskrit, and can itself be practiced as a mantra, feeling the deep resonance of “ahhhh” in the base of the throat, and then the “Ooooo” (the sound of A+U) in the back of the mouth, and finally the “mmmmm” as the lips close and the internal vibration dissolves. The sound of AUM actually utilizes all of the sound capacities of our mouth and tongue in one fell swoop, which is another way of understanding how this sound could be considered the foundation of all sounds, and manifestation, in the Yogic tradition. Namah means to ‘bow with respect’, and is the same root word as ‘namaste’. When repeating the mantra “Aum Namaha Shivaya” we are essentially bowing to “Shiva”, which could seem awkward at first if you are unfamiliar with the concept of Shiva in the Yogic Tradition— so let’s take a moment to explain that.

In Yoga, Shiva is not an individual, or in this case even a specific Deity, but is considered the unifying force of all reality. It is also known as the “Inner Self”, and not just our inner self, but the Inner Self shared by all of manifestation.

Patanjali describes the Self in Yoga Sutras 1.24-1.29: “The Self is the Universal Soul. It is unaffected by afflictions and untouched by actions, although it abides in the individual person. The Self is unsurpassed, omniscient, and the source of all…unrestricted by time and space. It is perceptible as the subtle vibration of sound (OM). The goal of repeating sacred sounds (mantra) is identification with the Self, and in repeating mantra the individual soul can achieve mastery as well as relief from obstacles.”

So we see that the Shiva, the Inner Self, is not a thing or person or Philosophy, but a unifying principle of reality— unrestricted by time and space. Every tradition has a word that represents this ultimate reality, and for Shaivite Yogis, that word is “Shiva”.

You might next ask why we ‘bow’’ to this unifying force of Shiva? First, the bowing is an energetic expression, when you repeat mantra you do not need to bow physically, although you could if that helped you connect with the meaning of it. Essentially, we are bowing as an expression of releasing attachments— like the back pack full of our individual personalities, likes and dislikes that we carry with us throughout the day. So instead of bowing to our likes and pushing away our dislikes, as we unconsciously do all day long, repeating mantra gives us the opportunity to bow with respect to our present experience of reality in its entirety. This doesn’t mean that we have to envision all of reality, we just need to focus on ‘bowing to it’, to releasing any attachments to this or that thought, and keep pulling ourself into the present. You could say that ‘bowing with respect to Shiva’ is another way of saying bowing with respect to the present moment. We are not bowing to any ‘one’ or any ‘thing’, we are bowing to the unity of all. This is what is meant by “Shivaya”.

Free Write: What does “Om Namah Shivaya” mean to you? When you repeat the mantra, how do you relate to it’s power and it’s vibration?

Mantra Japa

Working with a Wandering Mind

And we don’t just do a mantra once, we do it over and over and over again. “Japa” is the Sanskrit word for using mantra repetition as a means of meditation. The word japa implies that you will repeat the mantra many many times. Traditionally, you would repeat your mantra a minimum of 108 times, as this is the amount of beads on a mala, which is the yogic equivalent of a rosary, ie. A method for keeping track of mantra repetitions. But of course, any amount of mantra is worthwhile, even if you don’t have time for 108. The important thing to realize is that your mind works repetitiously, so your mantra practice needs to as well. For example, when you are worrying about something, you don’t just worry about it once, you worry about it ‘all day long’, over and over and over again. So to combat the hundreds or thousands of repetitions of this ‘worrying mantra’ we must use do hundreds or thousands of ‘chaitanya mantras’. For this reason, mantra can feel like an incredible workout for your psychic system, as the lineage teachers have said. When done with awareness you literally get stronger, that is, you are able to hold your focus better and better and are not a victim to your mind’s wanderings. This is the beginning of the path towards calming the thought waves enough to allow your true nature to rise up.

As Sri ShambhavAnanda teaches: “You should focus on what you are doing. An unfocused mind is a sign of a weak mind. We have been conditioned by our culture and by the media and all the technology that we have to seek more and more input, information, and stimulation. That makes our minds flabby. To focus our awareness and attention and keep it on one thing is a forgotten skill in our culture. We need to meditate, to focus on the mantra or the breath, and to direct our awareness internally, especially toward the heart and naval chakras. It is important to be present in the moment. Then all of our psychic and emotional debris arises. If we don’t glom onto it, the debris loosens up and begins to dissolve. I know it makes us feel uncomfortable to dissolve some things, but that is what we must do to grow.” (SP, 13)

Reflect: How many repetitions of mantra does it usually take you ‘find your flow’? How do you experience the ‘work’ of repeating mantra?

Beyond the Mind

The only way to discover the destination of mantra is to walk the path of mantra

One final aspect we must realize about this process is that no matter how well marked the path is for you philosophically, and how great the mantra you are given, the practice of repeating mantra is a truly internal task. No one can do it for you, and no can precisely tell you how you must do it. This is not meant to be mysterious, but to remind you that you are dealing with your own mind— not my mind, or Patanjali’s mind— and you are doing it within the context of your own life, likes and dislikes. The mind itself cannot fathom a place beyond it, meaning that you can’t understand bliss and consciousness with the mind. When you repeat a mantra, you are essentially trying to stop using your mind. Yes, you need the mind in order to repeat the mantra, but that is such a small fraction, such a small ripple, that it in no way impairs your ability to see below the surface into your True Nature. As Patanjali says in Yoga Sutra 1.17, "Through self-enquiry the practitioner gains insight, but eventually all mental logic must come to an end in bliss. Following that is the comprehension that all is the Self (yoga).” The unity that is at the heart of the Yogic tradition, labeled as “Shiva”, cannot be fathomed by the mind itself. To experience it we must go beyond the mind. It is the difference between looking at a picture of a fresh piece of fruit, and the experience of actually tasting it. No one can describe the taste to you exactly, and no one can taste it for you— only the actual experience of consuming it can communicate its essence.

This is why the Shiva Sutras, a 1,000 year old text of the Shaivite tradition, quotes an even older text, the Netra Tantra, in describing this precise aspect of our practice.

“You have to put all of these aside [the mind, elements, and senses] and enter into that universal being of awareness. This is what Śaivaite yogīs do successfully. This state of the Śaivaite yogī is actually the real state of Śiva. This state is not revealed to others; it is revealed only to the revealers.” (Netra Tantra 8.41–45)

So even though the unity we seek cannot be revealed or given to us, it can and will be revealed within our personal state of being as we meditate. Instead of simply learning about it, we can become it.

Free Write: What have you been shown in your meditation practice that no one could have ever ‘told you about’? What have you learned that you could have only learned through your direct personal experience?

Primary Essay: Beyond the Mind with Mantra

Beyond the Mind with Mantra

The Practice of Mantra

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