“In the annals of Islamic mysticism we find a precise exposition of the power of the holy name to transform us,” Easwaran recounts in this week’s eSatsang reading:
“All the hundred and twenty-four thousand prophets were sent to preach one word. They bade the people say Allah and devote themselves to him. Those who heard this word by the ear alone let it go out by the other ear; but those who heard it with their souls imprinted it on their souls and repeated it until it penetrated their hearts and souls, and their whole being became this word. They were made independent of the pronunciation of the word; they were released from the sound of the letters. Having understood the spiritual meaning of this word, they became so absorbed in it that they were no more conscious of their separate selves.”
Easwaran presents mantrams from Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism in this week’s reading, from page 45 to the top of 49 in The Mantram Handbook,* and he assures each of us that we too can attain this absorption in the mantram.
What is Easwaran telling you about the workings of your own mind? This week, use this new understanding to get some cooperation from your mind when it is being uncooperative. Tell us how it goes!
We are working to deepen our practice of the mantram. This week, have the goal to use the mantram when surprised. Devise a strategy to say the mantram instead of any other sound or phrase when surprised. For instance, we usually say “Oops” (or perhaps worse) when we spill something, slip while walking, or when a car swerves in front of our car unexpectedly. Devise a strategy for inserting the mantram in the place of the usual verbal reaction. Try it out – and if you don’t manage to get the mantram in at the first surprise, start it up as soon as you remember. Before long, you will discover that the mantram has a sense of humor of its own – and it will start slipping itself in before you can say “oops.”
* For those using electronic versions of The Mantram Handbook with different page numbering: this week’s reading comes from Chapter 3, starting at the subheading “Buddhist Mantrams” and ending before the subheading “The Impersonal.”
