The key to success in mantra yoga

The role of expressing the Will in mantra yoga

In yoga, everything begins with the expression of Will, "I will to open the mouth and start practicing!" If there is expression of Will, the rest will follow. If it is not present, then even a million auxiliary rituals and preparations will not make you engaged in the practice. Besides, not everything is determined by prana only. Success in practice to a large extent is influenced by the internal state of bhava, the internal attitude towards practice. A person can have very favorable conditions, she may be bursting with power and vitality, but it may not make her to consistently work in the field of speech, so no results will be achieved from mantra yoga. The practice works only if you execute it.

Having surplus of prana is like having money, it does not guarantee that you are able to use it properly. For example, an entrepreneur wants to open a new business. He is going to need some idea, skills and consecutive execution of business plan in a chosen direction. Under those conditions availability of money helps, it is the accelerating factor. Another example is when a person has a lot of money, but she doesn't know what to do with it, so nothing real happens. That is, availability of money is not the guarantee that you will successfully create a business. You can just spend them on trifles. This is also the case with prana: if you have no internal motivation to practice, no internal expression of Will to explore yourself through mantra yoga, then prana will not do any good to you. This is the complexity of this field of yoga.

There is a formal requirement for awakening of a mantra. It is necessary to read it one million twenty-seven thousand times, then you will get the effect. And people try to do that, read mantras that quantity of times. They do, and there is no effect. Because they were not in the proper condition while reading mantras, they had no internal expression of Will. Inner attitude toward the practice is very important, and it goes down not to prana but to expressing the Will. If there is Will and there is prana, the process will go much faster. If there is prana, but there is no expression of Will, then there are no guarantees. We are almighty, unless we are willing not to be so.

Where does Mantra Yoga begin

Mantra yoga begins when you realize the power of this tool. The problem is not that you do not know mantras necessary for you. Mantras can be easily found. The problem is that you just do not feel the power behind it. At first, mantra yoga is perceived to be some kind of abstraction, even if it is tempting. Therefore, your very first purpose in mantra yoga is to realize that this science really works. And to realize it not at the level of studied books or attended seminars, but at the level of inner intuitive trust. If you have that trust, you will want to practice and if you practice, you will receive the result. When you receive your first result, it will be easier for you to get results further. Therefore, do not wait, begin to practice starting right now.

One of the obstacles that arises on the way to mantra yoga is the lack of trust and an excessively doubtful mindset. Imagine an uneducated man coming to a Guru who whispered a mantra in his ear. This man is a poor shepherd, he does not understand the high philosophy, and his mind is not too developed to block the trust. He still believes in miracles. And he begins to practice the mantra with sincerity, and gets the results. At the same time, the same Guru gives the same mantra to an intellectually developed person who received higher education and considers himself to be quite a modern man, and he has already formed doubts about mantras. These doubts eat away his belief in that mantra, and so, he does not practice the mantra to full effect and his mind does not get clear. And if he practices it, then only "for the show", one part of his mind is practicing and the other is watching the practice. In fact, he is marking time: one step forward, two steps back. At first, he committed to achieve something, but then in doubt he steps back. And it turns out that a civilized man with a keen mind does not get the result of a mantra. But aborigines, who know only two mantras (one heals from a snake bite, and the second relieves hunger), fully use them to get results in life.

Trust is a very important factor. Our suspicious and critical mind often kills practice from the very beginning. We do not encourage you be gullible, to switch off your mind. We just want you to be aware that the mechanism of mantra yoga is too complex to understand it using formal logic. So, the easiest way to build trust in mantra yoga is by practicing, and getting real results. First you start with a pure belief, but then every successful step, every tangible effect brought to your life by the practice will give you confidence and help to achieve more comprehensive results and rediscover the whole grandeur of this science.

Practicing and Watching

The emotional attitude to practice should be one of trust. Often people in a class are divided, one part are practicing and others are observing. These observers look as if they are interested in getting new experience in yoga, but they have their own opinion on everything. On one hand, they seek to transform themselves, but, on the other hand, they strive to keep their own world in the shell of ego intact. On one hand, such people are attracted by potential abilities and powers obtained through the practice, but, on the other hand, they do not want to change themselves at all. And it turns out to become a kind of split in personality, trying to go into the river, but not to get wet. Such a mindset completely blocks the practice of yoga.

People with such a latent position usually have very detailed expectations of what they should experience, and they suffer the most when what they imagined is not the case. For example, nowadays you can easily get to some ashram (school of yoga) in the Himalayas, and many people take such trips to see all this mysticism and magic of ancient knowledge themselves. But majority of Western people begin to feel strong doubts the very moment they step into such an ashram: is it all not a hoax?! What they see is that yoga ashram is a real coop, the doors are always open and all the inhabitants look like homeless bums. Amid all that she has seen emotional jolt arises in our hero: she painted a picture of something mysterious, exciting, but sees something very different! But the thing is that if the person is sincere, if she is open and gets involved, then soon enough comes fine tuning to the desired wave. If the person pursues some side goals, is insincere and inclined to deceive others, everything begins to be seen as a fraud, a trickery. The person’s mind begins to rush, it becomes filled with lots of doubts and, consequently, the yogi obtains no result, although the place may be super saint. This is the state when one part of mind is participating in the practice, and the other part sees everything with cynicism, analyzing and judging everything. All this completely closes the path in yoga.

The key point is to express your Will

In yoga, it is postulated that it is possible for everyone to achieve what anyone had ever achieved. Or, everything that was opened or discovered in yoga, can be achieved by any person practicing yoga. This is the basic axiom. But the question arises, "Do I trust this statement?" Well, I say that I have my Atma, it is immortal and omnipotent. Yeah, I like that I have Atma, sounds good. But do I believe in these words or do I doubt them? What if I am nothing and nobody, and generally I will never achieve anything? And the negative karma is right there, "Yes, you are nothing and your name is Nobody”. There comes the time to practice asceticism, that is, to move forward clenching your spiritual teeth. It is essential to will, "No matter what, I will practice", and this is the key to the revival of any mantra. We need to express our willpower for the mantra to work. If we have suddenly found that we are, on one hand, involved in the practice, and, on the other hand, are observing, rushing inside, then we need to express the will to get rid of the fuss. In any yoga practice, the key point is Will, without which it is impossible to achieve any results. Anything we wish to have by expressing our willpower comes into our lives, each of us is the Almighty: if you want to see, then you will see.

A very serious fundamental issue in all spiritual practices of yoga is that the last word remains for our "Self", whether you like it or not. And if you don't really want something deep inside, it cannot happen, although you may do all the necessary practices. But, perhaps, even performing these practices in the "do not want" state you will change your view, it is the process of cleansing and transformation. The cleaning process may occur if you do practice quite a long time. And to make it long enough, your practice should become a habit. In hatha yoga, as well as in all other types of yoga, there is one important observation, "...while yoga is not the habit, whether you understand it or not, doubt it or believe it, there is no guarantee, but if there is the habit to practice yoga, then there is the hope that all goes as it should..."

Decide what we want, or what to do if nothing helps

A person can practice mantras, but remain in her ego-shell and observe all that goes around, and then complain that the mantras do not work. They do not work because the person does not express the will, because deep inside she does not want for the mantra to work. Human beings are very complex, very contradictory. Our mind says one thing, instincts – another thing, feelings – something else. Everything is very changeable in people. We, inside us, present a very muddy tangle of desires, covert and overt ones. Click on one button and the reaction will go completely in a different way than what we expected. And the only thing that can bring clarity is our will. There is an anecdote about a man who looked for something walking under a streetlight in the night. Another man came up to him and asked, "What are you looking for?" And he replied, “The keys, I lost them somewhere on the way”. The second asked, "Why are you looking for them here and not on the road where you lost them?" The man replied, "It's a lot brighter here". Like this man, we start to practice yoga from the side that is already clear, and we are afraid even to look in the dark, unknown part inside of us. And to look there we sometimes should clench the teeth. Another point is that we need to be always honest with ourselves. If we express Will to look there, sooner or later, all the darkness will get dispelled and the effect will show up. But for that you need the internal state of willpower and constant practice.

If there are no changes appearing in you, and no practices help, it is worth to seriously think about it, and be honest with yourself. In this respect, yoga is a very fierce science, but completely honest. According to the axiomatic of yoga, if everything seems bad to you and nothing helps, it is not actually as bad now as it will be. And the time when it becomes bad you will change and yoga will start working for you. Up to the point, when you change your attitude yoga can be a hobby, a kind of masochism even if you put a lot of effort in practice. So, when a person says that all is bad, but nothing helps, nothing works, it is hypocrisy. It is cruel to say this, but it is the truth. When it becomes very bad, then people will begin to act vigorously.