Mantram

For the great mystics, the mantram has taken root and become established in their consciousness; the holy name echoes continuously in the depths of the heart. In sickness and in health, in favorable circumstances and in times of turmoil, the mantram continues to fill the heart and mind.

Easwaran argues that the mantram’s ultimate function is to become an autonomous, continuous presence in deep consciousness — the experiential criterion of God-consciousness — rather than a deliberately initiated act.

Easwaran, Eknath, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living: A Verse-by-Verse Commentary, 1975thesis

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where the mantram goes on continuously without any conscious effort. This is how Christian mystics explain St. Paul’s injunction, ‘Pray without ceasing,’ and it is how I would explain this verse: ‘Make every thought an offering to me.’

Easwaran identifies the self-sustaining, effortless mantram with the mystical ideal of ceaseless prayer, framing it as the interiorization of devotional surrender at the deepest stratum of consciousness.

Easwaran, Eknath, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living: A Verse-by-Verse Commentary, 1975thesis

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Repeat your mantram silently whenever you get the chance: while walking, while waiting, while doing mechanical chores like washing dishes, and especially when you are falling asleep. You will find that this is not mindless repetition; the mantram will help to keep you relaxed and alert.

Easwaran presents the mantram as a portable psychic regulator — deliberately inserted into all interstices of daily activity to sustain mental steadiness and counter emotional agitation.

Easwaran, Eknath, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living: A Verse-by-Verse Commentary, 1975thesis

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you just repeat it a few times and the nexus between stimulus and response is cut. When your mind is stuck in some thought you do not like, you can repeat the mantram, lift your mind out of its rut, and switch it over to something better.

Easwaran theorizes the mantram as a precision instrument for interrupting conditioned mental chains, functioning where meditation has built sufficient depth to make volitional redirection of thought possible.

Easwaran, Eknath, Essence of the Upanishads: A Key to Indian Spiritualitythesis

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Meditation slows the thinking process down; the mantram keeps it from acting on its conditioning and speeding up again during the day.

Easwaran articulates the complementary relationship between formal meditation and mantram practice: meditation decelerates thought; the mantram prevents re-acceleration of conditioning between sittings.

Easwaran, Eknath, The Upanishadsthesis

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mantram [or mantra] A holy name or phrase; a spiritual formula.

Easwaran provides a compressed definitional anchor for the mantram within his glossary, establishing the equivalence of the two spellings and the term’s status as sacred verbal formula.

Easwaran, Eknath, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living: A Verse-by-Verse Commentary, 1975supporting

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a breakdown is to go for a long, brisk walk repeating the mantram, and anger will become compassion, fear will become courage, and hatred will become love.

Easwaran presents mantram repetition combined with physical activity as a practical alchemy capable of transmuting destructive emotional states into their constructive opposites.

Easwaran, Eknath, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living: A Verse-by-Verse Commentary, 1975supporting

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I would give them the mantram notebook and ask them to write the mantram in it two hundred times. When they had finished writing, they would leave with their minds peaceful.

Easwaran extends mantram practice to written repetition as a therapeutic intervention for agitated minds, demonstrating the pragmatic versatility he attributes to the practice.

Easwaran, Eknath, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living: A Verse-by-Verse Commentary, 1975supporting

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it is like a welding torch burning away in consciousness; but there are no goggles you can put on, because this torch is not outside. And it bursts into your awareness at the most unexpected hours. When you are asleep you may suddenly wake up with this torch burning away, and the only help available is the mantram.

Easwaran describes the mantram as the sole available resource during the most intense phases of advanced sadhana, when purificatory suffering erupts unbidden from within.

Easwaran, Eknath, Essence of the Upanishads: A Key to Indian Spiritualitysupporting

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And it bursts into your awareness at the most unexpected hours. When you are asleep you may suddenly wake up with this torch burning away, and the only help available is the mantram.

A parallel formulation reinforcing the mantram’s indispensable role as emergency support during the involuntary purificatory ordeals of advanced spiritual practice.

Easwaran, Eknath, The Upanishadssupporting

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As long as you cling to the mantram, all that these fierce distractions can do is dance around and try to tempt you out.

Easwaran frames the mantram as a defensive hold against the heightened temptations characteristic of the final stages of sadhana, where Maya makes its most intense effort to recapture the practitioner.

Easwaran, Eknath, Essence of the Upanishads: A Key to Indian Spiritualitysupporting

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As long as you cling to the mantram, all that these fierce distractions can do is dance around and try to tempt you out.

A parallel passage confirming the mantram’s protective function against the seductive distractions that arise as the aspirant approaches liberation.

Easwaran, Eknath, The Upanishadssupporting

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without my even thinking about it, the mantram came to my rescue. I was determined to let nothing come in the way of my meditation. I went to a corner, sat down for meditation, and in a few minutes I had gone so deep that I had left my body behind.

Easwaran offers autobiographical testimony of the mantram’s spontaneous, involuntary activation as evidence that it has become sufficiently internalized to function independently of conscious intention.

Easwaran, Eknath, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living: A Verse-by-Verse Commentary, 1975supporting

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at the beginning, the practice of any spiritual discipline is bound to be mechanical. If somebody comes to me and asks, ‘You want me to repeat the mantram mechanically?’ I say simply, ‘Of course.’ How else can we repeat it

Easwaran defends mechanical repetition as a necessary and legitimate starting point, arguing that the mantram’s transformative power does not require initial understanding or devotional fervor.

Easwaran, Eknath, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living: A Verse-by-Verse Commentary, 1975supporting

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it is important to practice the disciplines related to meditation, such as repeating the mantram and putting the welfare of those around us first.

Easwaran positions mantram repetition as one of eight supporting practices that harness the energy released in formal meditation and direct it toward ethical and altruistic conduct.

Easwaran, Eknath, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living: A Verse-by-Verse Commentary, 1975supporting

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The Gayatri is a mantram from the Rig Veda, the earliest of the Hindu scriptures; it has been used throughout India for thousands of years. I interpret the word gayatri to mean ‘that which protects the reciter against all harm.’

Easwaran grounds the mantram in the Vedic scriptural tradition by identifying the Gayatri as an ancient instance, emphasizing its protective function as intrinsic to the meaning of the word itself.

Easwaran, Eknath, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living: A Verse-by-Verse Commentary, 1975supporting

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Herein lies the magic of the mantric word and its mystic power over the individual. the true Buddhist does not expect

Govinda locates the power of the mantric word in its function as a living stream connecting individual practitioners across generations through sanctified sound, emphasizing tradition over conceptual content.

Govinda, Lama Anagarika, Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism, 1960supporting

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mantric knowledge became a victim of power-politics of certain castes or classes of society at certain times. In ancient India the Brahmins, the priestly class, made the knowledge of mantras a prerogative or privilege of their caste

Govinda offers a critical historical analysis of how genuine mantric knowledge — rooted in religious ecstasy — was degraded into dogma through its monopolization by priestly elites.

Govinda, Lama Anagarika, Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism, 1960supporting

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each syllable becomes a vehicle for the realization of the compassionate power of Avalokitesvara, and at the same time the Sadhaka becomes conscious of the unsatisfactory nature of each of these states of existence.

Govinda demonstrates the mantric syllable’s dual function in Tibetan practice: it both embodies and transmits compassionate awakening while simultaneously conditioning the practitioner toward liberation from samsaric realms.

Govinda, Lama Anagarika, Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism, 1960supporting

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Patañjali has indicated that oṃ is Īśvara manifest as sound, and that meditation on Īśvara is to be performed by japa of oṃ. Moreover, one must recite this tad-artha-bhāvanam, bearing its meaning in mind.

Bryant’s commentary situates japa of oṃ as the specific mantric practice prescribed by Patañjali, requiring conscious orientation toward the meaning of Īśvara rather than mechanical vocalization alone.

Bryant, Edwin F., The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: A New Edition, Translation, and Commentary, 2009supporting

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The energy of action is breathing exercises, reciting mantras, reciting ślokas (hymns), and pūjā (worship). All these are in action, in the world of action. So, all these things are included in āṇavopāya and they will carry you to the state of Lord Śiva.

Singh’s Kashmir Shaiva framework classifies mantra recitation within āṇavopāya — the lowest of three means to liberation — situating it at the level of kriyā śakti and distinguishing it from higher non-formal approaches.

Singh, Jaideva, Vijnana Bhairava: The Manual for Self-Realization, 1979aside

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This is śāktopāya, pure śāktopāya. there is no mantra. There is nothing of that sort to be done — no mantra, no recitation, no breathing exercise.

Singh negatively defines a higher level of practice precisely by the absence of mantra, indicating that mantric practice marks a threshold below which more refined means of contemplation begin.

Singh, Jaideva, Vijnana Bhairava: The Manual for Self-Realization, 1979aside

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