RE: Does this style of mantra meditation exist?

thumbnail
Griffin, modified 3 Years ago at 1/13/21 5:07 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/13/21 5:06 PM

Does this style of mantra meditation exist?

Posts: 271 Join Date: 4/7/18 Recent Posts
In Transcendental meditation, practitioner is instructed to let the mantra have a life of its own, spontaneously changing etc. I wonder if there is a tradition or individual teacher with a different approach: having an intent that mantra becomes as clear, realistic and "loud" as possible. The idea would be that the level of mantra clarity gives the immediate feedback about the level of concentration (similar to how, in kasina practice, the after-image loses the clarity and disappears if the concentration is lost.)

Do you know if anyone is teaching this approach, and what do you think are the pros and cons of this type of practice?
thumbnail
Siavash ', modified 3 Years ago at 1/13/21 11:01 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/13/21 11:01 PM

RE: Does this style of mantra meditation exist?

Posts: 1679 Join Date: 5/5/19 Recent Posts
There are different techniques for mantra in different schools of islamic mystical tradition (sufism is one part of it). They call it zhikr. I haven't studied it well, but last year someone introduced a book to me that had some of those techniques (And a lot of magickal practices as well), but since it's loaded with religious teachings, it's time consuming to extract the techniques. In that book the author describes stages for the mantra, that in the later stages the mantra (zhikr) fills the entirety of the experience. One interesting thing that they do is that they divide the mantra and the body into several sections, and say each part of the mantra to one part of the body, and also do some movements for each part too. I wish to find time and interest to extract them.
Tommy P, modified 1 Year ago at 11/8/22 4:45 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 11/8/22 4:45 AM

RE: Does this style of mantra meditation exist?

Posts: 11 Join Date: 1/11/22 Recent Posts
If I try to visualize / hear where the mantra comes from. When it's forced, it comes from the front or top down (prefrontal context). While when it is effortless, it comes from behind to the forefront (brain stem?). In any case, I believe this style of mantra meditation is explicitly not a concentration style practice. I'm sure that if you were to switch to a concentration version of a mantra, then it would follow a more concentration meditation style effect and path.

However if you practice it in the Transcendental Meditation style, I think it works more like this. You give your consciousness / mind the smallest possible unit of an object, being a one - syllable word with no meaning. As you repeat this object of consciousness, in the spaces IN BETWEEN the mantra the mind is truly still and comes into contact with Turiya, the fourth state of consciousness, consciousness evaluating itself, becoming aware of being aware. 

Rupert Spira, a practitioner of Kashmir Shaivism explains it more clearly in this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uy6jdK_f3wo&t=190s&ab_channel=RupertSpira

So because the original intent of this style of meditation is NOT to concentrate, it has a different effect. At least that's what my TM teacher told me. 

Breadcrumb