The Use of Mantras
Let us see how far we can help ourselves in this difficult work. I
will draw your attention to one fact which is of enormous help to the
beginner.
Your vehicles are ever restless. Every vibration in the vehicle
produces a corresponding change in consciousness. Is there any way to
check these vibrations, to steady the vehicle, so that consciousness
may be still? One method is the repeating of a mantra. A mantra is a
mechanical way of checking vibration. Instead of using the powers of
the will and of imagination, you save these for other purposes, and
use the mechanical resource of a mantra. A mantra is a definite
succession of sounds. Those sounds, repeated rhythmically over and
over again in succession, synchronise the vibrations of the vehicles
into unity with themselves. Hence a mantra cannot be translated;
translation alters the sounds. Not only in Hinduism, but in Buddhism,
in Roman Catholicism, in Islam, and among the Parsis, mantras are
found, and they are never translated, for when you have changed the
succession and order of the sounds, the mantra ceases to be a mantra.
If you translate the words, you may have a very beautiful prayer, but
not a mantra. Your translation may be beautiful inspired poetry, but
it is not a living mantra. It will no longer harmonise the vibrations
of the surrounding sheaths, and thus enable the consciousness to
become still. The poetry, the inspired prayer, these are mentally
translatable. But a mantra is unique and untranslatable. Poetry is a
great thing: it is often an inspirer of the soul, it gives
gratification to the ear, and it may be sublime and beautiful, but it
is not a mantra.
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