whats your mantra?

Lucky man to have Shiva as savior and ishtadevata. Because Shiva is very easy tro love and propitiate. I think of stories where a hunter climbs a tree and a Bilva leaf falls on a linga and that man is freed through his offering even though he didn't purposely make it. Or where a dog dies and a rudraksha is ten feet under the ground and that proximity liberates the dog. Shiva is very quick acting for ones liberation.

 

plus he has the best hair

 

Forgive my ignorance, but wouldn't a mantra which is in a person's native language bring a stronger concentration of the meaning of the mantra (since the person grew up knowing the words' meaning and it's ingrained). I would think that a mantra like 'I wish to bring joy to others' or 'I am at peace', be more effective than one in a distant 'Om havishani, etc.' language of which we only mentally know the meaning. I'm not an expert, but it seems like the intention would be focused more easily in that manner, rather than trying to be traditional. It seems that a specific phonetic combination with vague meaning to the speaker would be less effective than a not-so-traditional English (or whatever language) mantra that channels the speaker's intent with a specific meaning. If you know an answer, however distant, to my question, please reply.

 

The mantras rescribed in the vedas arent merely words.

Everything in the universe affects everything else in the universe. Vedic mantras and even buddhist mantras are not only a way of tuning the mind and focussing on the higher self, they are phonetically designed to create positive vibrations that have certain definite effects, healing, prosperity, knowledge, etc. This is why the vedic mantras must be correctly pronounced, with the right intonation and the right swaras. If not there is a possibilty of ill effects arising from them.

In a way your argument does make sense. However if you can find a vedic mantra that really moves you, that touches your heart, then that would definitely be more meaningful and have guaranteed positive effects on the surroundings. Using a sentence like May there be joy, i am bliss etc... is fine, but you dont know what kind of vibrations it may create from the phonetics of it.

 

mines hare krishna too!

hare krishna hare krishna krishna krishna hare hare hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare...

it just makes me happy!

 

Mine is, "Quiet breath, quiet body, quiet mind, quiet soul." It used to be "I am content in this moment." but I tend to get a bit fidgety even when I'm meditating, so the former helps me to calm everything down. I've never tried any mantras in other languages. I wonder if non-Indian languages have mantras too?

 

Aloha!

I'm new here =)

Is "Hrim" said as Heereem or just Reem?
Or does how you pronounce it even matter so long as you feel it in your soul?

Mahalo!

 

There's a few I do in the now,

Ram ram ram ram ram ram ram

Om Shiva Shankara Hare Hare Ganga

and others


Namaste

 

I heard one that I like:

OM Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya

 

The hrimkara mantra is pronounced Hreem it rhymes with cream and dream. The h is not silent (sanskrit does not have silent letters).

 

I'm suprised how effective mantra can be in creating one pointedness of mind deep into the BEING.


RAM RAM RAM RAM RAM

thanks baba... thanks now, love!

 

ONG NA MO GURU DEV NA MO

Summons your higher self and EEEEEXXXXXXPPPPPPPAAAANNNNDDDDSSSSS your mind.

All You Need Is Love​

peace.................​

 

I'm quite fond of using "Gate, Gate, Pargate, Paramsagate, Bodhi Svahag"

 

Actually, in some systems of transliteration silent letters are used. EG - Vasudeva - instead of Vasudev, Avatara instead of Avatar. The reasons for this are probably best known to scholars who invented the system.

Ayamatma Brahma!

Love & Peace.

 

my mantra is peace within, peace without. Simple n sweet only used occasionly.

 

They are used in transliteration true, but they are not a part of the language itself, in devanagari script there will be no silent letters, except in certain sandhi's where the a sound is removed and a sign kinda like "S" is put in its place to maintain the metre. This is not a silent letter, it is a part of the sandhi or joining of words.

Vasudeva and Vasudev etc...these are very innacurate methods of transliteration. In the correct transliteration system, which is called ITRANS and is the only unambiguous method of transliteration I have found. In this system Vasudeva or Vasudev would be vaasudeva and avatara or avatar would be avataara. Of course, I am assuming that you mean these words in their most common usage, vaasudeva as in krishna (kR^ishhNa), son of vasudeva.

As you can see this can become cumbersome, especially to those who are not very familiar with the system of transliteration. Therefore, we assume the person reading knows the word we are using and its pronunciation and therefore type it like that. This can be very ambiguous if the reader doesnt know the correct pronunciation.

The ITRANSliteration of the hrinkara mantra is :

OM hriim.h

 

Thanks Bhaskar - another difficulty arises because also some systems of transliteration use accents, lines above letters and dots to indicate missing letters. So we get Krsna, with dots under the R,S & N. Long vowels, such as distinguish Vasudeva, from Vaasudeva are indicated by a dash or accent placed above the a. I recall meeting someone who had read Swami Prabhupada's books in isolation for some time - they got used to calling him Prabhupada, and found it hard to adjust to Prabhupad!


All this can tend towards confusion. Where mantras are concerned, I think there is no substitute for hearing it pronounced properly. Saying it incorrectly could perhaps lead to bad results. But once one becomes more familiar with Sanskrit pronunciation, it is quite easy to know how to pronounce new words.

I fully agree that ITRANS is by far the best system.

 

The trouble with mispronouncing the mantras is that it
a) robs them of their beauty to some extent
b) changes the vibrations they create and could easily have the wrong effect (vipareeta). In fact, with upanishadic mantras, even chanting them with the wrong tones creates vipareeta. That is why in books such as mantrapushpam, there are tonal markings along with the text.

 

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Om Mani Pame hum