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I will speak about mantra. What is a mantra? How should one practice it? And what kinds of mantras are there? Almost all of you know something about mantra, but I would like to tell you more. Mantra has a healing power. It is one of the most powerful energies which exist in the universe. The mantra is a kind of prayer. When the ṛṣis began to receive spiritual consciousness and spiritual energy, and they began to meditate and think on certain things, it was inspired by God Himself. You know, creation took place through sound. Whenever God or someone wishes to give a message to us, there are two ways: through some symbols as an indication, and second, through some voice. This can be the inner voice, a voice through someone, or the voice which comes from space—that is a sound. A particular sound indicates something to us. In this way, when the yogīs began to meditate and expanded their consciousness into the universe, they first found a great, great power. That great power, the Almighty—the most powerful power above every power—governs everything. That becomes a creator, a protector, a liberator, and a distractor. That great power was given the name God: that God which is in everything. How to come near to that power? How to enter into that cosmic power? How to become one with that power? You have to search for some channel of the power, a power channel. Like all rivers are channels to enter into the ocean, similarly, all spiritual channeling power is that which enters into God. Those channels are the mantras. The mantras are known as a vibration. Mantra is known as a resonance, mantra is known as a sound, and mantra is known as God itself. So the yogis tried to manipulate the different forces in the universe and put them together into one sound; that's called the cosmic sound. That cosmic sound is known as the cosmic language. As far as I know about Sanskrit, language is that which was received by the yogīs in this way—the sounds. Every language is a cosmic language because the human mind, human brain, and human consciousness are able to manipulate sound into words. Animals cannot pronounce; in their brain, they do not have the language center. You can train them a little bit, like some birds or maybe some monkey a little bit. Their language, their talking, is on the feeling level. There are only waves; they understand through certain waves. But humans took those waves and formulated them into words. How does language come? Where there is positive development, there is also negative development in your language. There are good words, and there are also bad, dirty, negative words. But the mantras are mostly holy, divine. Some selfish people played with those sounds and developed some mantras, what they call magic, the black magics, the harmful ones. That also belongs to that creature, and that also belongs to that Creator. In this way, they found the channeling system to enter into the Cosmic Consciousness, where the long sentences became a prayer and the short sentences became the mantra. So, mantra has many definitions. "Man" is the mind, and "tra" is liberation: to liberate your mind from material attachment and to come to Cosmic Consciousness. The mantra functions as a filtering system. It filters all the negative energy and directs your mind, your consciousness, toward the purities. That is what we call spirituality. Mantra is like a light. Whenever you bring the light, the darkness disappears. So whenever you repeat your mantras, the ignorance and negative karma disappear. The mantra is like a torchlight which shows you a way to walk through the darkness of this world. The mantra has healing power because it brings things again into their original position or original condition. But all this is realizable only when you get perfection over your mantra. We have to learn the language, we have to practice, we have to understand. Similarly, you have to practice the mantra. Generally, there are five steps of practicing a mantra. First is writing the mantra. Write your mantra with concentration, like meditation. It's like you are painting something. Akṣara Brahma. It is said, Akṣara Brahma: that Brahman, the Self, is in the form of the letters. The symbol should go into your subconsciousness. If you can write in the original Sanskrit language, that would be the best. Second is chanting. The sound goes to your subconsciousness, unconsciousness, and consciousness. Third is chanting inwardly. Fourth is practicing your mantra mentally with meditation, during walking, and so on, whenever you find the time. But do not practice mantra with tensions, with nervousness. Don't practice your mantra with fixed ideas, because that can change your consciousness in a negative way. You should chant and repeat your mantra in a healthy way. A healthy way means completely relaxed, without anxiety, without nervousness. Don't say to yourself, "Oh God, I must practice my mantra." You must not. Whenever you have some duties or something to do or something to decide, you should decide and do. Only when you have little time and your mind begins to think nonsense things, then it is better to repeat a mantra than to think nonsense things. Then the fifth step of the mantra will come, that is called Ajapājapa. That means spontaneously. Without your trying, your mantra is coming itself, even in the dreams. For example, you have some unpleasant dream, what you call a nightmare or a horror. In that case, in the dream, you will repeat your mantra automatically, and that dream disappears, and you don't wake up with fear. You have a very beautiful, nice dream, and during the dreaming, you will know, "I'm dreaming this because of my mind." That takes a few years, about 25 to 52 years. There is time calculated as a yuga. So the twelve years becomes one yuga. This is a mini yuga. You know that every twelve years there's a Mahākumbha Melā in Allahabad, because the most powerful constellation comes together once in twelve years. So, the minimum time of getting a japa yoga level—the stage of the japa yoga—is 12 years. If not in 12 years, then 24 years, or 25 years, or 36 years, or 47, 50 years. Now, on what does it depend that you have a japa yoga or perfection on your mantra? Not only on practicing, but the discipline, what kind of life you lead—that's very important. How pure your food is, how much ahiṃsā you follow. How pure you are in your heart and mind. If you are jealous or not, if you are angry or not, if you are greedy or not, if you are selfish or not—everything will be counted in twelve years. There is one story about a very holy person. In his whole life, he was very humble, very kind, very pure, and at the end of his life, the decision... He came to the point where he would be liberated, completely liberated—Self-realization, God-realization. He and all were sure, but the Vidhātā, the destiny, came with a big book and began to look into the book. All the pages of the book were completely white, beautiful. But suddenly, one page had some black mark: that once he was angry at a dog. Therefore, what to do? Repeat next life. So, can you imagine? These twelve years, through which situation you go, that will decide how much power you will have in your words. Then your every sentence becomes perfect; whatever you speak becomes true. That's mantra. Besides this, what about your devotion? What about your devotion to your master? How many times you had doubts, how many times you were angry at him, or how many times you lost your confidence, through which waves and changes you went, how many times you did prayer, how many times you practiced—I can tell you, it's hard but divine. This all will count in 12 years. Therefore, in one bhajan, Gurujī said, "Oh Mā Prabhujī, day by day my love should increase to thee." Nita nita prema mayra adhika body: so day by day my devotion to thee, O Lord, should increase more and more. It should never decrease. So that's why there are very rare or few people who are holy and centralized. So if you have mantras for more than 12 years, and still you have not this perfection—which Swamijī is always telling and books are writing—then I can tell you something very important. There is one meditation technique, a very powerful technique, it's called self-enquiry meditation. Analyze yourself. In 12 years, what have you done? It will be very clear in front of you why you didn't attain the ajapājapa. So guru bhakti, guru bhāgya, and guru sevā—this is very, very important. Understand the Guru Bhāṣya, the words of the Master, and do the Guru Sevā, and then you will get what you call the Guru Kṛpā. Through the Guru Vākya and Guru Sevā, your Guru Bhakti will increase. Everyone would like to have a mantra. Everyone would like to get perfection. Everyone would like to be enlightened. Everyone would like to have the power and mokṣa. But that mokṣa is not so cheap. It is expensive: hard work on yourself, discipline. And also, you have to be very humble towards your wife. You have to be very kind towards your husband. If you shout at your husband only once, twelve years are lost. So never shout at your husband, yeah? It is like you have a very precious glass pot in your hand, very beautiful, very precious. And it falls down from your hands. It takes only some seconds. It's broken, lost. Similarly, it doesn't take time to destroy your spirituality, which you build with great concentration and discipline. So no one can help you? Only you can help yourself. There is one beautiful story in the Rāmāyaṇa. There was a great ṛṣi, his name was Viśvāmitra, and he performed a yajña for some power, for some peace in the world. But that yajña can only be successful if you are not angry. And if you get angry, it will not be successful. So when he began to perform this ceremony, the Rākṣasas used to come. They didn't want his yajña to be successful. They began to throw bones, meat, blood, and alcohol—these are rākṣasas' nourishment—into the yajña, into the fire. If a ṛṣi becomes angry, then he will lose everything; the yajña will not be successful. If he keeps quiet, and rākṣasas are throwing impure things into the yajña fireplace, then the yajña will not be successful, and Agni Deva will be angry. So Viśvāmitra went to King Daśaratha and asked Daśaratha to send God Rāma to protect the yajña from the rākṣasas, so the yajña could be successful. And so Rāma came with his brother Lakṣmaṇa, and they hunted away all the Rākṣasas, and then the yajña was successful. So you are the Viśvāmitra, and you are doing the yajña of your sādhanā. But the rākṣasas of anger, jealousy, hate, and the different disturbances from other people's side come and disturb your sādhanā. Sometimes the husband disturbs the wife, or sometimes the wife disturbs the husband. Lucky are they that both of them have the same feeling, the same way, the same thinking, and the same spirituality. So the yajña of your life will then be successful. So that's a little bit about mantra. There are still many things to tell about mantras. But you can begin now, from today onwards, your sādhanā. Don't be angry. Your husband is angry, let him be angry. You should not be angry. Or if your wife is angry, let her be angry. You should not be angry. When you will not be angry, then he will be more angry. And when he's more angry, you are more cool and nice. Then he will be angry at himself, thinking how stupid he is, that he is angry at such a humble... if you are a nice person. So, observe your twelve years. After twelve years, you will have ājñā powers. Write in your notebook every day. And if you tried to, you were angry; the years are lost. Hard work? Better Swamiji should have spoken something different. So I wish you all the best, that your words will have truth in them, power in them, and through your mantra, through your spiritual sādhanā, you will help all. Be honest, pay back all your karmas, because if you take from something or someone and if you don't give back, that's also karma that will be an obstacle for your liberation. Never cheat; it is better to be cheated than to cheat. Whatever happens in life, it is our mistake. It's our weakness, and therefore we should better develop ourselves. We are going to apply the same method.