Class Discussion on Mantra and the Mind
Essay 1: Setting down the mind to re-discover Our True Nature: Mantra Practice in a Modern World
Summary: The essay explores the importance of setting aside the mind, akin to putting down a tool, to rediscover one's true nature through mantra practice. Drawing from the Shiva Sutras and teachings of Sri ShambhavAnanda, it emphasizes the distinction between the small self and the Inner Self. By incorporating scientific findings and Yogic principles like Sat-Chit-Ananda, it highlights how meditation leads to vitality, clarity, and blissful living.
Pull Quote: “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.” - Sri Shambhavananda
Free Write Prompts:
•How do you ‘set down the mind’ during your day? Are there more opportunities within which you would like to try this practice?
•How have you experienced the yogic term ‘Sat-Chit-Ananda’— How do you relate those qualities to your personal growth? How have you see those qualities arise through your practice?
Essay 2: Calming the Thought Waves of the Mind: Mantra as a Means of Mental Clarity
Recap: Calming the thought waves of our mind is the main practice of Yoga
Summary: The essay explores the Yogic perspective on calming the mind through mantra practice to access one's true nature, emphasizing that our challenges stem from an overactive mind. Drawing from teachings of Sri ShambhavAnanda and Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, it illustrates how stilling the mind's thought waves leads to clarity, allowing perception of our inner depths.
Pull Quote: “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) -Sri Shambhavananda
Free Write Prompts:
How do you experience “thought waves”? When is the surf highest in your mind? How do you understand the experience a still mind? Is it still right now? Why or why not?
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?
Essay 3: Chaitanya Mantra: The Shaktified Path of a Living Tradition
Summary: The essay explores the significance of mantra practice in Yogic tradition, particularly focusing on the Chaitanya mantra "Om Namah Shivaya" in the ShambhavAnanda Lineage. It elucidates the mantra's origins, its empowering by practitioners throughout generations, and its profound symbolism, including the significance of each component — "Om," "Namah," and "Shivaya" — in connecting with the Inner Self and unifying force of reality represented by Shiva.
Pull Quote: “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.” - Patanjali, 1.24-1.29
Free Write Prompts:
What does “Om Namah Shivaya” mean to you? How has that meaning evolved over the course of your practice?
Essay 4: Mantra Japa: Working with a Wandering Mind
Summary: The essay explores the practice of mantra japa as a means of meditation, emphasizing the repetitive nature of mantra repetition to combat the incessant patterns of the wandering mind. Drawing from teachings of Sri ShambhavAnanda, it highlights the importance of focused awareness and internal direction to dissolve psychic and emotional debris, ultimately leading towards calming the thought waves and accessing one's true nature.
Pull Quote: “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” - Sri Shambhavananda
Free Write Prompts:
• How many repetitions of mantra does it usually take you ‘find your flow’? •How do you experience the ‘work’ of repeating mantra?
Essay 5: Stepping Beyond the Mind: A Path that unfolds as you walk it
Summary: The essay discusses the internal nature of mantra repetition as a path to transcend the mind and access true nature. It emphasizes the personal journey and the limitations of the mind in understanding concepts like bliss and consciousness, drawing from teachings in Yogic texts such as the Shiva Sutras and the Netra Tantra. Ultimately, it underscores the transformational potential of meditation to experientially reveal the unity sought by practitioners.
Pull Quote: “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).
Free Write Prompts:
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?