Shiva Sutra 2.1- Mind is Mantra

This Sutra pushes us to explore the depth of our mantra practice. Lakshmanjoo tells us that Mantra in this Sutra can mean 2 things, a sacred word or the thoughts of a sacred person.  The idea being that you can repeat mantras in order to become purified, and that at some point in your practice your thoughts become aligned with a deeper reality and your thoughts and actions are as pure as a mantra.

For example, this would be like hiking Mt. Everest. The hike itself would be the work of mantra, and this work would change you so much that when you arrived at the top your state of being would actually encompass the work of that climb— to make it to the top you would have had to leave all your lesser thoughts behind, and at that moment the only thing that would remain in your mind would be the mantra, and the Sherpa that brought the ladders…But you get the idea, mantra can be both a sacred word, and eventually can be the thoughts of a sacred aspirant. 

The Sherpas here really represent the work of getting to the top, and this type of work is really at the forefront of the ShambhavAnanda Yogic Tradition. Going back to the Shiva Sutras, we see Ksemaraja citing quotes about the same idea: “Those are not really mantras which are only a matter of enunciation,” so If we were to stay at that level, of simply enunciating the syllables of Om Namah Shivaya, the the mantra would remain a crude rendering of the potential experience of Shiva. 

∆ Sort of like every persons first pot in pottery— hopefully you get to bring that pot home at an age when those types of objects actually feel triumphant.

But even this level of mantra repetition is a great deed, like taking a pottery class as an adult— the effort is commendable and worthwhile, and almost no one does it. We all have to start somewhere and it’s the only way to get to the goal. ∆ But eventually you run out of room for any more “incense burners” and that’s where this Sutra came in for me! 

This Sutra helped me not only throw more pots by doing more mantra, ∆∆∆ but throw them in a way that produced something great∆. My experience of mantra has catapulted off of the cushion and into my life because of this Sutra. It has transformed mantra from being an after thought that I might glaze over an activity that I was doing, and made it an integrated part of the activity itself. The coinciding of this Sutra with Navaratri bestowed upon me the boon of seeing what real mantra repetition can do for us. 

This Sutra told us over and over that “enunciating” a mantra won’t get you anywhere, that without “knowledge” of the source of the mantra you will never succeed, or that when the energy of Shakti is not present in your mantra, “all those collections of words are useless just like a mass of clouds in the rainless autumn sky”— you know that feeling, you see a heavy cloud in fall ∆  that makes you think it’s gonna rain ∆ , so you get all  cozy, but it never does rain ∆ ∆ and you’re stuck feeling hot and awkward in your PJs at 4 in the afternoon. 

So the Sutra is telling us that repeating the mantra externally is only half the task, and to help illustrate what’s missing we can look at the Shiva Sutras introduction, where JD Singh describes reality as having two crucial aspects— Prakasha and Vimarsha. 

Prakasha is the light of awareness that shines from the inside of us to the outside, illuminating our reality- ∆  like looking through the kitchen in the dark with a flashlight— ∆ There’s the Peanut Butter!

But Prakasha alone is like eating straight peanut butter, ∆ you can do it, but it doesn’t feel like a sustainable reality.

With only Prakasha, reality is just a series of objects with no awareness, no identity ∆ — “Mere Prakasa cannot be the nature of Reality.” Writes JD Singh, “Even diamond is prakasa, but the diamond does not know itself as prakasa. Vimarsa is that aspect of prakasa by which it knows itself. That self-knowledge is an activity.”

Vimarsha is an activity that considers what is being illuminated in front of us, but also remains aware of the vehicle through which we are moving. ∆ Like driving a car at night in the snow, you have to take in the outer world while navigating your steering wheel simultaneously— Vimarsha is when you stay present with the outer circumstances of your life while keeping a firm grip on the inner circumstances, steering your energy, so to speak, through the storm. 

Which is how we understand Pranava Mantra, as Lakshmanjoo describes— “It is praṇava mantra when you come out from the internal world and travel to the external world and then travel again from the external world to the internal world. So, it is said that this praṇava mantra is truly a mantra…”

∆ That means you do your practice, then you go out into your life, and then you reach for your practice while in your life. Going from inside to outside and then back in. Mantra is not only an activity itself where in you bend your attention back towards it’s source, it takes place during activities as well. 

Which brings me to my biggest take away from this Sutra. When you watch a movie, or chop a carrot, or run on a trail, mantra is probably already a part of that, but this Sutra is asking us, to literally try to experience the activity itself through the mantra— that is, not to just run and repeat Om Namah Shivaya, but to repeat and feel Om Namah Shivaya as running itself. Activity is at the heart of mantra, the activity of turning your attention within while being immersed in an activity without. The carrot and the mantra are not separate, the activity of chopping the carrot requires the internal activity of turning your attention back to it’s source to be complete. Don’t just watch the road, feel the wheel, feel the pedal under your foot, feel the complete revolution take place. 

As Muktananda says “We can’t keep our mantra and life….in separate compartments.”

And remember that mantra here doesn’t just mean verbalized syllables, as Ksemaraja says “not a mere conglomeration of various letters-“ it means  “doing your practice”, like consciously breathing, circulating energy, or expanding your heart.  Anytime you respond to the external circumstances of your life through the internal experience of your practice, that is ‘truly a mantra’, encompassing the light of Prakasha within the active reflection of Vimarsha.