Don’t Starve your Mantras!
One of the highlights for me at the recent Sadhu Sanga Kirtan Retreat was an instruction on mantra meditation. It was spoken by Sacinandana Swami in reference to the Gayatri Mantras that are chanted when one receives advanced initiation in the practice of Bhakti Yoga, but it’s a guide that can be applied to any mantra meditation practice: “Don’t starve your mantras”
Our devotional yoga involves the chanting of many mantras, the main one being the Hare Krishna mantra. A successful chanting practice needs both regulation and attention. When we neglect either of those, the mantra becomes weak and has little or no impact in our efforts for transcendence.
When we skip days in our practice, sometimes chanting, sometimes not, we are starving our mantras. When we chant mindlessly, just getting the prescribed number of mantras done, without attention or emotion, we are starving our mantras.
When we starve the mantras they leave us.
They will also come back to us, to our life, when we give them time and attention. The mantras themselves don’t need anything, they are transcendental sound vibrations, but will not work without our participation. If we chant with committed regulation, and chant with deliberate attention, they have the potency to shift our lives to higher ways of thinking and being. The sound purifies, frees our mind from misery and reawakens our original love for Krishna. This is their magic, the gift they give to us.
So don’t starve your mantras. Give them the time and attention then need, which is really the time and attention you need.