There are 70 million mantras of Śrī Vidyā It is not possible or useful to record all of them. We will take up a handful of them and try to understand them in some measure.
First of all, mantras, yantras, and tantras are channels of communication: for us to know about the worlds of Gods and for Gods to respond to us in favorable ways. As such it is not possible to give a precise meaning to mantras. For example, what is the meaning of a particular TV channel? Or again what is the meaning of a pigeonhole for keeping your letters? The meaning is variable; it is the information passing through the channel of communication. In the morning you may receive or send one program; in the afternoon another, in the night, yet another. Rarely does the program repeat. Still, it is possible to distinguish the type of information that comes through; for example, there could be one channel which broadcasts only music, one only box office movies, yet again, one of your friends may send you love letters, some legal notices, some junk mail like me. It is such a distinction that we are trying to make.
What is a mantra?
It is a word or sentence of power. It has a bandwidth, which is smaller for a larger mantra, and larger for a shorter mantra. Single letter mantras have very wide bandwidth, they allow very large categories of information to flow through them
How can words have power?
Of course, they have. If someone tells you "I love you" you are in the seventh heaven; if someone rejects you and says "don't ever see my face again" then you are depressed. What is happening is that these words acquire their power through the intensity of feeling with which they are spoken. Words that are recognizable derive their power through 'feeling' or intensity. Words that cannot easily be recognized go deeper.
Why are mantras said to be composed of seed letters?
The essence of any seed is information. Take, for instance, the sperm or ovum. It contains information on how to construct a human life form. Since mantras can construct divine life forms, they are constructed out of letters that are seed-like. If you stop to think how letters were discovered, you will understand that they were imitations of some sound forms which aroused intense feelings in the primordial men. When language was not born, some thinker, probably we should say some 'feeler', meditated for long on the sounds of water flowing over rocks, and the imitation probably became the sound “glauṃ" It is not surprising that most of the letters have deep anthropomorphic symbolisms, and dealt directly without inhibitions about creation.
Who constructed the mantras and how?
Can I construct my own mantra? Yes, you may indeed; but remember, if you try to go by meanings of words as you know them then you are likely to go wrong. They are best when they appear spontaneously in meditation, out of feeling, rather than thought. In other words, you must see them or hear them spoken, and you are not the real author; you are just a medium for a higher intelligence who is trying to create a communication channel through you with the linguistic or other tools that are available to you at your level of evolution. If you are a mathematician, you may receive a theorem that is true but you don't yet know how to prove, these are intuitions given to you when you have pondered over a problem for long and relaxing. It is not a coincidence that discoveries art made in a relaxed state rather than when you are struggling. You can be a seer of a mantra if you are a regular meditator. The tantric diagrams are also mantras having a visual form rather than sound form, Śrī Yantra is such a Yantra, seen in meditation. A picture is worth a thousand words, they say. This one was worth 70 million channels of communication. So you can imagine the power.
What is Śrī Yantra?
Śrī Yantra is a geometrical star pattern and lotus pattern through which several divine forces can be marshaled in cooperative and harmonious ways We see them through it; they see us through it, giving us their qualities.
OṂ, HRĪṂ, ŚRĪṂ, AIṂ, KLĪṂ, SAUḤ.
Oṃ is called the praṇava, the unbroken bell-like sound heard as if coming from the heart in the stillness of a tranquil mind. If you listen carefully, you can hear it any time; except for three days before impending death. As a mantra, it is to be pronounced as an elongated aaaaaaa-uuuuuuu-mmmmmmm------- the sound of mmmm continuing to ring afterward merging into silence. The sound of aa is the channel for all waking stale experiences; sound of uuuu for all dream states; the sound of mmm for all sleeping slates, the ringing continuing sound is the channel for the state of existence where you merge into the infinite light, peace, and power of God, called the transcendent slate. This is the highest mantra, the universal name of God who encompasses all life and beyond.
Hrīṃ, Śrīṃ, Aiṃ, Klīṃ and Sauḥ are called the Śakti Praṇavas, or the modes of manifesting God's supreme, power. The supremacy of divine power is this; it knows all, does all, pervades all space, time, and matter.
Hrīṃ is the power of limiting God's supreme effulgence, making a limited living form. You may compare it to the power that produces a wave or a drop of foam out of the sea. The wave or drop of consciousness thinks that it is different from the sea that it sees till it falls back into the sea, and loses its individuality hrīṃ is the individuating, life-giving, life-affirming channel of making this world that is confined to space, time and matter. To us earth beings, it streams as Sūrya Kuṇḍalinī from our star, the Sun, as the creative power of moods, the Soma Kuṇḍalinī from our planet Moon, and as the lust for life from the bowels of our earth, as the Agni Kuṇḍalinī, the passions we experience.
Śrīṃ is the opposite of Hrīṃ. What Hrīṃ does, the Śrīṃ undoes it if Hrīṃ creates all this world with the stars, moons, earths, and all life, Śrīṃ makes all these tilings into the primordial oneness of God. Hrīṃ makes you small, and so, different from God; Śrīṃ makes you grow into God. Hrīṃ is known as the seed of shyness, of self-covering, of limitation; Śrīṃ is called the grace of God which may appear terrible to you because it takes away all that is familiar to you: your family, friends, this world, even yourself. But it is the Grace that removes your limitedness and makes you GOD.
Oṃ is the whole, the four-dimensional sphere, the golden egg which is sexless and contains in it the seed and full-grown form of the world, the heart of all things, of life. Hrīṃ and Śrīṃ are the two split halves of it. Oṃ is the heart, and Hrīṃ and Śrīṃ are two breasts of the Divine Mother. They have poles, the nipples which nourish the separateness in this world through attachments and also provide the knowledge by which you overcome these attachments. This is how the symbol of Puruṣa, the whole and Prakṛti, the split halves come about. The two halves try to complete their incompleteness; and that is the odyssey of life
Aiṃ, Klīṃ, and Sauḥ are channels for manifesting, sustaining and dissolving the world, all working under the control of Hrīṃ. The nature of Aiṃ is seed, whose essence is knowledge hence this Goddess called Saraswatī is located in the face. Klīṃ nourishes the world like a mother nourishes her child with milk from her breasts. So the seat of this channel is heart, the seat of universal love that nourishes this world This power is known as Lakṣmī, the wealth of God. Sauḥ is the power of action that leads to escape from the cage of body, mind, and thought. It is known as Kuṇḍalinī, the power of action. It starts from the source of all things, the womb of the universe and the individual. The function of Kuṇḍalinī is to dissolve the world of sensations and limited experiences and take you back to the source, God. It eliminates step by step the powers of smell, taste, form, touch, and sound; finally, it eliminates time itself. It takes you to the state of Hiranya Garbha the golden egg of four-dimensional sphere, and collapses it to a point. It starts in the body as a pleasant sensation similar to an orgasmic release of tensions in the body allowing you to experience a glorious climax of a festival of galaxies. Its seat is supposed to be in the clitoris called the Kumara, the little, all-powerful son of Śiva, the liṅga, the essential maleness embodied in a liṅga, the penis.
Aiṃ is the mantra resident on the tip of the tongue Klīṃ resides in the nipples and Sauḥ, the Śakti, also called Parvatī, Durgā, Bālā Tripura Sundariī, Gouri resides in the womb. We have to meditate with each mantra at a place appropriate to it, where its energy manifests Aiṃ Klīṃ Sauḥ is a powerful mantra.
Glauṃ, the sound of water flowing over pebbles in a small brook; overcoming, negotiating difficulties or hardships. There is a hardness associated with the body which presents difficulties in going beyond it and realizing the unity of the seer and the seen. There is a very humorous cosmic intelligence presiding over this transformation called Mahāgaṇapati. He has a lovable big tummy which results from excessive indulgence in eating for taste. He has the head of an elephant which is a symbol of Oṃ. He resides at the entrance to the womb, preventing the further entry of male generative organ. Thus he watches over the procreative act and then the creative giving of a life form.
Sauḥ is a sound of a hissing snake; it brings about an upward movement of the energy of Kuṇḍalinī residing al the entrance to the vagina. The presiding deity of this purely sexual energy is Kumara, the little son of Śiva, pulsating, vibrating in the clitoris and the glans penis. While Sauḥ is the upward moving force that releases the sexual tensions, Sauṃ preserves the tensions and keeps on circulating them around the genitals. Sauṃ is an essential component of any mantra connected with Kumara, also known as Kartikeya, Subrahmanya. Subrahmanya is supposed to have 6 faces. They are the five sensations (smell, taste, form, touch, sound) and the mind, which grasps them. That is why he is called Śanmukha, the six-faced. He has two wives: Śrī Valli and Deva Sena. They represent the pleasure consciousness in the labia, left and right. Neither Gaṇapati nor Kumara, who represent the awareness in the cervix and clitoris respectively, can affect penetration, nor procreate. They are said to be Brahmacarins because of this yet they are epitomes of bliss of intercourse. This is what Brahmacarya means for a Grihastha, a person having a family. The sexual tension is not permitted to be released in the physical sense. If that is done, the desire dies. On the contrary, if the seed is not allowed to be released, then an upward movement of sex energy has to take place of necessity, releasing the tensions through the mind, at the eyebrow center. It is then that the third eye, the eye of wisdom and transcendence opens up. In a mental plane, the body is burnt up, and divine life begins with the realization that all are one.
So’ham, Hamsaḥ, are the mantras of a union of Śiva and Śakti of cosmic intercourse of yourself with the world. Ha is the sound of breathing out, Sa is the sound of breathing in. Between these two is the Bindu, the mind, the life. So, both Hamsaḥ and So’ham are recited unconsciously by every breathing life form, even without initiation these are the esoteric forms of Gāyatrī Mantra which has two other forms called the Prakaṭa Gāyatrī and the Gupta Gāyatrī.
The Prakaṭa Gāyatrī is the familiar form known to every Hindu. Gupta Gāyatrī is given through initiation by a Guru of Śrī Vidva tradition. The former is available to those who can study the Vedas. The latter is available to all, irrespective of caste, color, or creed. Gupta Gāyatrī is like a high-class woman who can be enjoyed only after a proper marriage of initiation; the others are available in the market like common prostitutes. Gupta Gāyatrī is known as Pañcadaśi, the fifteen-lettered mantra starting with the letter Ka.
When you breathe out your life gets merged with the whole world; when you breathe in, it comes back to you. Thus you are indeed getting out and getting into the cage of the body with every breath, dying and being reborn with every breath. No wonder your life continues beyond the physical end of the body.
Ha takes away your individuality to make you Śiva, the cosmic phallus; Sa makes you an individual Śakti, the cosmic source. The sound of Oṃ connects these two. It is both a mantra for separation as well as a mantra for a union. Oṃ is divided into two parts: O and M. O is connected to S and M is connected to HA. This is how So’ham is formed.
If you wish to know more about the science of mantras, you must study Śiva Sutras, the aphorisms formed by the drum of Śiva. At the end of His great cosmic dance, Śiva sounded his drum 9 times and again 5 times these are the 14 drum beats. They are the letter sequences of Sanskrit alphabets, which are the basis of Yoga, Grammar, Dance, Literature and Music.
Guruji Amritananda
