What is mantra? The etymology of mantra is simple: mananat trayate iti mantraha. Man means repetition, manan, again and again, again and again. Tra means freedom, liberation, mukti, release. You become free. From what? What are you freeing with the mantra? You are making your karmas free. You are providing an outlet to your passion, your bad mind, your tamoguna, to all kinds of samskaras. After all, there is no harm in this. I am not asking you to kill somebody, but if you are angry with someone, at the time of doing japa and if you mentally take a revolver and shoot him, you are letting your karma out, you are making it free. One point of shankhaprakshalana is finished.
The same is the case with kama and krodha. Kama means passions, krodha means frustrations, anger. Lobha is greed and covetousness. The various samskaras are mostly negative. I mean, when you do shankhaprakshalana you never get the French fragrance of Eau-de-Cologne. Have you ever smelt Eau-de-Cologne while doing shankhaprakshalana? Never! In the same way, when you are doing japa, you will never come across the fragrant samskaras. You will always come across the rotten karmas because they have to come out.
Life after life, year after year, you have accumulated so much pain and frustration. There are so many difficult karmas stored in the computer memory of your mind, in that little silicon chip in the brain. You have to take it out. If you do this expulsion of karma by any other method, you won’t be able to handle it. There are very strong methods in yoga, too. Mantra is a very mild homoeopathic dose. It expels your karma in such a way that it does not disturb your mental balance.
Mantra is a commitment, a relationship between guru and disciple. That is why at the time of mantra initiation, the guru will only ask you to practise five malas, seven malas, ten malas. If you cannot do these five malas, how are you going to fulfil your commitments to your guru? What do you expect from him and what does he expect from you? If you have not fulfilled the basic commitments and obligations, how can you go further? Therefore, the first condition is to practise mantra. Second, the mind is not a static substance. It is an ever-progressing, ever-moving substance which is always growing. You are not the same as you were yesterday or a moment before. The mind is like a burning candle. There is consistency in the fame, but the atoms of the fame are moving out at a certain rate, every second. The fame which existed a few moments ago is not the same now. The composition of this fame is a different atomic structure. Similarly, the physical body does not remain the same and the mind also keeps changing. You can become an atheist, a sceptic, an agnostic or just a sensualist, but your mantra must continue.
This happens in every man’s life. In Rishikesh, my guru gave me a mantra and told me to do five malas every day. I do them even today because his words are in my mind. I have made a resolve and given my promise to him, so I will always do it. However, in between, I have gone through a lot of turmoil, not pain, but philosophical upheavals because I have been thinking about many topics, both relevant and irrelevant.
There was a time when I was very impressed by Karl Marx. I like his ideas even today, but I am not a communist nor a politician, far from it. I do not want, need or accept it and that is the reason I never went into politics, although I had a lot of chances. I was very impressed by his philosophy. I have also read the entire literature of Dr Sigmund Freud and Sartre. I liked their books. I have read most of the books of Acharya Rajneesh and I liked his ideas, but the person who influenced me the most from the philosophical and social angle was Karl Marx. There came a moment when I said, ‘Yes there can be a creation and event without God, because matter is a self-evolving process and is eternal’. This is how I came to many conclusions. I also studied Einstein’s view of energy and conversion of matter. Matter is the basis for energy. Energy is not higher than matter; energy is not the basic material. Matter is the basic material and energy is the composition.
With all that, I did five malas of my mantra every day. This is what every sadhaka should do and if you are expecting undiluted, unbroken concentration and spiritual light as early, as quickly as possible, then you do not know the purpose of mantra. It has to be done with the mala; it does not matter where your mind goes. Do not worry about it. You do not have to make the mind retreat; it will come back by itself. It will go by itself because you are not a swami of the mind. You are subservient to the mind and therefore the mind will come back on its own and the mind will go on its own; you just keep quiet for some time.
Do mantra, Om Namah Shivaya, Om Namah Shivaya, Om Namah Shivaya, then think, ‘When I get my son married, I need one hundred and one thousand rupees, ornaments, Fiat car, oh no, Maruti is better, Maruti is not good, another expense takes place, it has that colour, I will have that Fiat also . . .’ You see these ideas, and then suddenly you come back, Om Namah Shivaya, Om Namah Shivaya. Then there comes repentance, ‘Oh my God, what am I doing, I do my mantra with these passions, anger, greed, ego and ambition, I don’t know what is happening to me.’ Surdas said the same thing, Mo soma kutila khala kami - Who can be a better rascal than me?
This rotten rubbish must go out of your mind, because you have been accumulating it in your mind life after life, incarnation after incarnation. These karmas are stored and you have not allowed them to express themselves. Religions suppress you. Society suppresses you. Parents suppress you. You cannot do anything you like, so naturally everything is stored. Now at least during dhyana, during sadhana, you enjoy one hour of kama, krodha, lobha and a day will certainly come, I assure you, when you will become free.
26 February 1986, Ganga Darshan, Munger