204. Sarvamantrasvarūpiṇī
The sounds have forms as forms have forms. The forms of sounds, especially standing wave patterns, can be photographed fairly very easily; with the help of high-speed cameras, the forms of sound wave fronts such as sonic boom can be photographed. The word mantra is derived from “mananāt trāyatē iti mantraḥ”. By constant repetition, it protects.
A rhythmic repetition creates a standing sound wave pattern in the brain of the devotee. This sound pattern evokes certain ranges of experiences in the individual. Then each mantra becomes a channel of communication between the devotee and some information that is described as the form of the mantra.
The meaning of the mantra is the sum total of all experiences evoked by the mantra. A mantra has consciousness. It has a field. It is an alter ego of the devotee. One can talk to a mantra and get replies from it.
When a Guru, the teacher, imparts a mantra to the devotee at the time of initiation, he passes on the sound form of the mantra to the devotee along with his own visual image of it. The image is transcended silently in the following process:
At the time of initiation, the Guru visualises one by one all the seven lotuses from Mūlādhāra to Sahasrāra in the devotee's body. Here [the Guru] sounds mentally, the seed letter of each of the petals of these lotuses thus resolving one by one the grosser elements composing the student's body, mind and intellect into the Universal consciousness. Having done that, he imparts life to the mantra by visualising the sound form of the mantra, which is called the yantra, and placing the bījākṣaras of the mantra at the appropriate places in the yantra. This yantra then is the conscious force through which the devotee later on gains knowledge and powers. After creating life forms of the mantra through what is called the prāṇapratiṣṭhā, the Guru retraces the steps backwards till he hits the Mūlādhāra of the student. While he is retracing the steps, he removes the ignorant upādhi of the disciple with his own knowledgeable upādhi in the body of the disciple. In effect, initiation is equivalent to killing the disciple and re-imparting the Guru's life into the disciple. The Guru transmits himself to the disciple, and like a light from which another light is lit, the disciple continues with the improved consciousness.
Thus it is that the Guru, the Mantra, the Deity represented by the mantra, and the Disciple all become one and the same. Rare indeed are the Gurus who can successfully do such an initiation. They are the Gurus who are living Gods and Goddesses transmitting Devi’s grace in abundance. They become vehicles for the expression of God.
Source: Śrī Amṛtānandanātha Sarasvatī "Sudhā Syandinī Bhāṣyaṃ" Typed Manuscript
(an incomplete commentary on Lalitā Sahasranāma)
