Using the mantram while going to sleep is one of the topics covered this week as we read pages 60–67 of Easwaran’s The Mantram Handbook.* Easwaran makes clear that the opportunity here is large: “It takes some time and some effort to master this, but once you are able to fall asleep in the mantram, it will go on working its healing effect in your consciousness throughout the night.”
And Easwaran ends the chapter with a simple reminder of what we are doing when we repeat the mantram: calling on God. “This prayer is not addressed to anyone or any power outside us, but to our deepest Self, the Lord of Love, who dwells in the hearts of us all. When we repeat the mantram, we are not asking for anything in particular, like good health or solutions to our problems or richer personal relationships. We are simply asking to get closer to the source of all strength and all joy and all love.”
Is there a relationship in your life that you wish you could improve? Read this article for tips from Easwaran. Try applying those tips, even if you can’t apply them directly to this particular relationship.
We have experimented with many different mantram-deepening exercises over the past few months. Briefly reflect and choose an exercise you found particularly helpful, and work on that again this week.
* For those using electronic versions of The Mantram Handbook with different page numbering: this week’s reading comes from Chapter 4, starting at the subheading “Little Compulsions” and continuing until the end of the chapter.
For our spiritual bonus this week, here is Christine Easwaran reading the passage “Think on His Name” from Tukaram.