A poster on a school notice board declares: “What we habitually say in our heads, we usually end up saying with our lips, which ultimately direct our feet.” Words are powerful. From others they often influence or direct our decisions and behavior while our own words act to elicit responses from those who receive them.
 

In the Bible, the Book of Proverbs has much to say about the value of well- chosen words: "A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger." It goes on to prompt us to choose our friends carefully, partly on the basis of the kind of words and speech they habitually use.
 

"Speak that which is kindlier," the Quran instructs us, “a kind word with forgiveness is better than almsgiving followed by injury…” A commentary on the meaning of these verses says that the tongue affects the ear. The ear affects the soul. The soul affects the entire body. Every word makes an impression on the listener. But the deepest impression made on the listener is either a kind word or a harsh word.
 

Whichever way we look at it, there is no doubt that what we say or write could have impact and so the prudent would use the power of speech very carefully indeed.

In Buddhism, one aspect of the Eightfold Path, Sama Vaca, is most often translated into English as Right Speech, but a more accurate rendering is Wise Speech or even Skilful Speech. The concept of Intentional Speech is being mindful of one's purpose in speaking.

An old Buddhist master spoke to his students: "Tonight i would like to speak to you about wise speech. According to the Buddha, wise speech is that which is truthful, gentle, helpful, spoken from a kind heart and is timely." Then he spoke at great length about the harm that results from rude, mean spirited, harsh or careless words. A young disciple said, "Venerable sir, i do not understand how this can be. A stone can bruise. Theft can deprive. But words are just sounds, having no substance. I must disagree with you when you suggest they are so powerful." The master replied, "If you weren't such an ignorant idiot, you'd understand. So sit down, shut up and stop interrupting."  The startled young man fell silent, but about 10 minutes later jumped to his feet, face red, eyes bulging, fists clenched, his whole body shaking. The old man turned to him, "You seem perturbed. Your gentle disposition is shattered. What happened to you?" "You hurtled harsh insults i did not deserve. You cannot possibly be the great teacher you pretend to be. You are a fraud!" 

The old man responded, "Ah, i see. It was my words that had such a transforming effect upon you. It seems you and i agree that speech can be quite powerful."
 

Words, especially from those we consider leaders, can guide us or deceive us, make us knowledgeable or ignorant, violent or peaceful, sad or joyful, wise or foolish. Words give birth to ideas, which in turn create powerful emotions, which rule the hearts of men and women, who then can act constructively or destructively, for justice or injustice. 

Marguerite Theophil

The writer is a Mumbai-based consultant, personal growth coach and workshop leader. E-mail: weave@vsnl.net

Whichever way you have ‘become’, you have only created and cultivated a small part of it consciously. A large part of you is unconscious because most of what you perceive is not in your awareness.

    

Sense perception is like that – everything that goes in through your sense organs gets established in your system to be remembered forever. This is karma. Every impression that the five sense organs take in is stored. This is not against you; this information is useful. If you clean up all this information, you will not know how to handle even the simplest aspects of life.

It is only because the information is coming in such torrents, it is so complex, and most of it goes into you without your consciousness so it has become a problem. How you became the way you are is just a tendency that you developed because of the information you gathered.

This tendency is traditionally called vasana. It is like a smell. Whatever is there in maximum quantity is the kind of smell you experience. Because you produce this kind of smell, a certain type of life moves towards you, and you also tend to move in that direction.

    

Now, you use perfume to cover the smell. In the first meeting, people may get deceived. The moment they notice the stink, they are going to run away. Is that the way to live?
    

So it doesn’t matter what impressions you have gathered, what you make of it is in your hands. An unpleasant experience is carried by most like a badge, always talking about it. “This happened; somebody did this to me, that’s why i’m like this.” They try to cover all their unpleasantness with this one badge.

    

One basic symbolism in yoga and Indian spirituality has always been a lotus. This is essentially because a lotus grows best wherever there is dirt. Either you can resist the dirt; you can become the dirt, or transform it into a wonderful blossom. It’s your choice.

    

If unpleasant things have happened to you, it is all the more important that you turn wiser and more beautiful as quick as possible, because you know the pain of unpleasantness.

    

If unpleasant things have happened, all you have to do is see how such things do not happen again to you or to those around you. Whatever you are right now is your own creation, perhaps an unconscious one. Unconscious processing of your impressions has landed you where you are now. If you consciously process the impressions, you could turn them into something else.

    

To drop your vasanas, and get released from these tendencies is an endless work because in the process you may end up creating more karma. So, instead of trying to erase the smell, you need to distance yourself from the source.

    

Whatever the nature of karma, the recording mechanisms are only two – your body and mind. If you create little space between you and your physical body and mental structure, then whatever the karma, or vasanas, they have no impact on you. Then, they just die.

    

The choice is yours – you could be a victim, a spectator, or the master of your life. 

Discourse: Sadhguru

When we are afflicted with a disease like malaria, we don’t treat each symptom like fever, pain and shivering, one by one. We just treat the disease and the symptoms automatically vanish. So deal directly with the mind and symptoms like stress and strain will disappear. Vishvas meditation is mind management.
 
There is no attempt, however, to control the mind; the idea is to go beyond it. The mind is compared to a monkey drunk with the wine of desire, stung by the scorpion of jealousy and possessed with the demon of pride. Lust, greed, jealousy, anger, ego, tensions, reactions, grudges, depression, stress and strain are, however, the symptoms and not the disease.
 
The common misconception is that meditation is concentration of mind and various techniques are taught to achieve this. Meditation has got no technique. There are techniques for concentration. Concentration is a mental exercise between the mind and the object of attention. But meditation is neither a mental exercise nor a practice. Meditation is a direct and natural process beyond the mind itself. Meditation is not concentration; it is the mother of concentration.
 
Remember, concentration is where one tries to control thoughts, where thoughts get dissolved naturally, enhancing your powers of concentration, memory, will, right thinking and fitness.
 
When your thought current is interrupted – which means that all thoughts are fixed on one object – it is concentration. But when the flow is uninterrupted, that is meditation. This is when the thought is not fixed on any one object, rather we just remain a non-doer and directly watch thoughts as a neutral energy without any judgement, analyses, participation, visualisation, imagination, contemplation, suppression, repression, condemnation or concentration. Meditation is a non-doing entity where you are simply a seer, witness, you are an observer of the mind’s happenings. To watch is our true nature. It is a natural, nondoing state. No effort is required to watch. We all have full potential to look within directly as we all are blessed with the ‘Third Eye’. 
 
Meditation is mind management. It is not forcing the mind to be quiet. It is to find the quiet that is there already. We are children of bliss. We suffer from stress and strain because we gave all the powers to the mind and made it our master. Not only that, we consider ourselves nothing but the mind.
Mind is matter. It has no power of its own. It is useful in the external world but in the spiritual, internal world, it has to be overcome. Otherwise we will be the victims of mental and physical diseases. Meditation is seeing the mind as a witness, a neutral energy. It is not interfering with the intricacies and doings of mind. Just be a seer, be a witness. We just stay in our own source, in our true nature: All-bliss.
 

We are happy when the mind is cheerful. We are depressed when the mind is gloomy. We are at the mercy of the mind that waxes and wanes. We consider ourselves nothing but mind. It is blasphemy to consider ourselves as victims of an unforeseen incident when the unending Bliss is flowing within all of us. Meditation is mind management. Meditation is homecoming.

 

Swayam Vishvas
The writer is a member of the Vishvas Foundation. E-mail: vishvas@vishvas.org

Mantra is a Sanskrit word derived from two roots: manasa or mind and tarana or save. Mantra is something that saves, which uplifts. Who we are today is based on what we identify with. If i identify with the body or the mind then i am a finite person limited by my own finite identification. What is needed is a tool which chips away at this finite identification and helps us become infinite in our awareness and capabilities. Mantra is one such tool.

A mantra contains a string of syllables, set to a meter. The mantra is chanted in a certain set way to get results. Mantras and their sound conceal an image of the deity they represent. When chanted, they produce a specific form of that deity, so a Rama mantra will produce a specific image of Rama, within the consciousness of the one who chants. But initially, this image will form only for the duration of time that the person repeats the mantra. Later on, as the mantra becomes more potent within our consciousness in terms of its ability to produce an actual form of the deity, this image remains with us for longer periods.

We are eventually led to the point where the deity actually becomes present within the sadhaka. This may sound somewhat fantastic, but Ramakrishna Paramhansa, it is said, could see the divine Mother Kali whenever he wanted and eventually his identification with his body had been destroyed that only God was present there. His ability to go into superconscious states is well known.

Mantra sadhana is ideally done in private, where the practitioner feels safe, in a clean and dry place after the sadhaka has bathed and completed ablutions. No food should be eaten at least two hours before the practice is undertaken. The body must remain as still as possible. If you are trying to achieve a goal, then don’t publicise your sadhana.

Most Vedic mantras require specific intonation of specific syllables, which may be impossible for you to master correctly. A Vedic mantra incorrectly recited is unlikely to yield result.

Mantras can be repeated in three major ways, the most common with your oral speech or vaikhari. This may destroy tamas in the practitioner, but still relies on oral speech and if your Sanskrit is not good then there is a danger that you may not get any result. Furthermore, the problem is that you are unlikely to remain still during recitation.

Upamsu or using your lips is another method, but produces no sound. Finally comes the manasika method that is recitation of the mantra in the mind. This method is best for achieving concentration and mental peace and it should eventually lead to the start of severing the identification of the practitioner with the self. Identification with the deity follows eventually.

Counting of mantra numbers may be useful in the beginning for the first few years and can be done on a rosary of 108 beads. Later on as mantra recitation becomes a daily practice and the need for a rosary diminishes quite significantly. Eventually the identification of the self with the body may so diminish that the practitioner may enter a state of divine bliss in which one may forget to chant the mantra itself, so overpowering is the silence of divine bliss.

THE SPEAKING TREE

Manish Pandit

The writer is a consultant nuclear medicine physician in the UK, an astrologer, author and a film-maker. www.saraswatifilms.org