Section 8: Quickly Accessing Inner Stillness During Challenging Times
You may be familiar with the particular practice of meditation that incorporates the silent repetition of a mantra or sacred word while sitting in stillness.
A mantra’s purpose is to facilitate the calming of our mind. It’s a tool for centering ourselves and entering into the state of being.
One of the most powerful and familiar practices of this kind is to repeat the word “om.”
Om represents the alpha and omega, and everything in between. It stands for the oneness of the “I Am” that’s the Source of our being.
The verbal or silent saying of “om” and other sacred mantras carries a refined energy that cuts through the bone of our unconsciousness and hits the marrow of our spiritual essence, so to speak.
It takes us “home.”
People often speak of accessing their oneness with the divine in terms of “going home.” Although we often choose dysfunctional ways of trying to get home, we all long for the experience of home.
For this reason, some of us find it helpful to use the very word “home” as a mantra, since it not only contains the sacred “om” but also helps evoke the feeling of being at home, which is characterized by states such as peace, safety and security, unconditional acceptance, a quiet joy, freedom, grace, and love.
In other words, we can say this mantra with the intention of it taking us back to our state of felt oneness with our divine essence. Often we are surprised by how quickly it returns us to a state of realization of our being, especially at those times in life when we meet with a challenge.
If we cannot use the word “home” without it bringing up sadness or anxiety because of personal experiences, we may wish to avoid this particular practice. Alternatively, we could elect to redefine “home” in terms of a spiritual ideal.
We can experiment with this mantra, noticing how it acts as a signal that it’s time to go into our inner energy body, the field of presence. As our attention shifts from our external world and into our inner reality, we find ourselves becoming centered, which evokes an invited calm. We can then bring this calm, centered state to our external circumstances.
If at first we find it hard to experience this state upon uttering “h-om-e,” we can begin by silently saying “going h-om-e,” until we start feeling we are at home in a spiritual sense. Then we drop the word “going” and substitute the word “at,” saying “at h-om-e.”
We continue saying silently “at h-om-e” until we feel this blessed state of being. At this point, we can drop the word “at” and just say “h-om-e.”
Finally, when even the word “h-om-e” is a distraction, we drop it too and rest in the still and silent arms of our own divine presence.
Whenever we encounter anything disturbing, we can immediately say the word “h-om-e” silently to ourselves. This anchor will bring us into the calm of presence, so that we can continue with our external activities from this state.
Opportunity for Self-inquiry and Sharing:
A. What have you found helpful as a means of staying present and centered during challenging times?
B. Can you recall a particularly challenging experience in which you used a mantra to quiet and center yourself?
This ends Section 8
The next section will be posted on May 10
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I personally am not drawn to any particular meditation technique or word. When I can be present and feel the space within, I feel a sense of meditation.
The closest thing I have to a mantra is the question "How does this affect me now?" This usually brings me to a place where I can enter presence.
About Om:
First, Om is not just a simple word. It has special vibrational sound. It is not pronounced as it is written for chanting. It is chanted with a long trailing vibrational sound which is more important for focusing the attention than the basic word Om. Listen to Om chanting on youtube. There are many different ways of doing it.
Second, even though the word may sound as Om, another way of writing it is AUM, at least in Sanskrit language. These three alphabets represent the three states of human life - Sleeping, Waking and Turiya. Turiya is the state of a realized being. One has to just listen to Eckhart to understand the state of Turiya. As far as I know nobody has explained that state as well as Eckhart. Most realized beings stay away from the crowds, it is only rare ones like Eckhart who explain their own life. We should be thankful to have one like Eckhart in our time.
As far as I understand a realized being is a very special person. In him the identification with form is completely gone. One may say we are becoming silent, present etc. Will our silent state be called Turiya? No. All we are trying to do is follow the instructions of a realized being in the hope that we can be like him. Even the realized one may not be sure how to get to his state. We can see the problem ourselves - however much we may try, can we completely dis-identify with out thoughts, with our body? At least I cannot lose my identification. What we can do is try to imitate the state of the realized being and hope that when grace descends we are ready for the transformation. The descent of grace has been observed and proclaimed by realized beings. Eckhart had that grace when his transformation took place.
How do we know when we have achieved realization? The one who has achieved it knows for sure without anyone telling him. It is described as being as clear as having a fruit in your hand. One can always know whether one has a fruit in his hand or not. In the same manner one is always absolutely sure if he has achieved realization. Eckhart has said that if Buddha had come and told him that he was not realized, Eckhart would not have believed Buddha. Nobody needs to confirm, you know for sure.
In Hinduism there are ten main upanishads. These upanishads are considered the most authentic writings for reaching the realized state. One of the smallest is Mandukya Upanishad. It describes the three states of AUM. It has some 10 lines of text and is of the sutra style. Even though it is not so short as the sutra, it is still saying a lot in those 10 lines. Those 10 lines contain so little teaching that I do not know what to do about it. The ten lines are only pointers and I am not intelligent enough to understand those pointers. Most people read Mandukya with a big explanation written in a book form called Karika. Mandukya itself is from unknown time, maybe 5000 years back, the Karika was written almost two thousand years back by a realized being. It is claimed that if you can understand those 10 lines of Mandukya it is enough for realization.
As far as I am concerned if we can understand the simple teaching of Eckhart it is enough for realization.
We love you, Pittsburgh.
Michael Brown the author of The Presence Process talks about "The Pathway of Awareness". If you pose your question to Michael on his blog, I'm sure you will get a very clear and understandable answer.
Dear Constance
Thanks for such loving words. It means a lot coming from you. I will pose the question to Michael Brown.
Thanks Vim. It is great to see your response. Thanks for sharing the answer coming directly from Eckhart.
This posting brings up many aspects that warrant a comment.
First, Om has many aspects that need to be addressed. That word should not to be used casually. I will let this slide at this time and address it another day.
The central question being raised here is whether we should use a mantra to center us specially in challenging times. My current experience makes me say no. Recently there have been two possible situations for me when challenging experiences occurred.
First possibility - I was in a present and peaceful state before the challenging experience occurred. In that case I seem not to care about the challenging experience at all - it seems as if the challenge is to somebody else not to me. I treat it that way - that is generally I move out of the situation since smiling may offend some involved people. Where is the need for Mantra in this case?
Second possibility - I am not in a centered state when the challenge happens. Something else not quite that challenging had already made me move out of the conscious state. Several times recently it has happened because of physical problems - for example a headache that lasted for several hours. In that case when I am faced with a challenging situation I have responded using my old habits - that is reacted negatively. Now in this case could I use a mantra? My answer is again no because the reaction happens so swiftly that the idea of mantra would not occur to me. Once I am a little away from the situation recognition of my stupid behavior happens and then of course becoming centered or using a mantra would not help since the stupid act has already happened.
I must also add that I am only talking about the recent state of affairs. The first possibility has only been happening recently. Earlier I was usually in the second situation and did not worry about reaction - justifying it by saying that if I did not react that would send a wrong message to the perpetrator. After all it was not me who caused the situation - the mistake always belonged to the other party.
Another way I used to handle a challenging situation in the old days was to suppress my reaction justifying the suppression on moral ground. This logic never seemed to last. I would later keep arguing with myself whether a reaction would have been better. This argument I now recognize as pain body. The new method of non-reaction coming from the state of presence seems to work much better since I do not argue about the non-reaction later.
So now I ask others - when could you use a mantra to center yourself?
Hi Pittsburgh, I did post a response to your question in section 3. You may not have noticed. Vim