Mantras aren't religious — on misunderstanding mantras

The understanding of mantras changed as people grew distant from their spiritual nature. One example is the meaning of the mantra Om Namah Shivaya. "I greet Shiva, I bow to Shiva" is the literal meaning, but Om Namah Shivaya does not actually mean "I greet Shiva."

This is a powerful mantra; let's try to understand it:

In the beginning there was only Shivam, pure consciousness. This pure consciousness is Sat, Cit, Ananda: unbounded bliss, utterly devoid of any material content.

From this Shivam, pure consciousness, Shakti manifested into creation through a great explosion. The sound (naada) of the birth of creation is AUM. After this sound, light was emitted. This naada and bindu are what form Shiva and Shakti. (The Bible, too, says: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.)

From AUM arose the five sacred letters of Shiva, the PAÑCĀKṢARA (meaning "five letters" in Sanskrit): Na, Ma, Si, Va, Ya, which, spoken together, produced the sound Namashivaya.

Each of these letters holds its own power. From the subtle power of this mantra arose the five fundamental material forces, embodied in earth "Na," water "Ma," fire "Si," air "Va," and ether "Ya." The entire universe, with its countless beings moving and unmoving, its countless stars in the night sky, the planetary bodies that circle our Sun and other suns — in fact, everything in this vast cosmos, from the smallest to the unimaginably great, arose from the combination of these five primordial elements in different configurations.

At that time, the five letters blossomed/branched into fifty-one sacred sounds (the Sanskrit alphabet). Between themselves, they created two forces — attraction and repulsion, positive and negative — which led to their further branching into ninety-six principles, from which countless forces were born.

Half of them were created for attraction, the other half for repulsion, and they permeated the whole cosmos, all of it at once static and dynamic. The universe remains, to this day, an unceasing dance of these primordial and eternal atoms. It is precisely these twin forces of attraction and repulsion that are responsible for the endless dualities that arise and operate all around us.

Good and evil, appearance and disappearance, birth and death, day and night, heat and cold, shade and sun, rain and drought, earth and water, life-giving oxygen and deadly carbon dioxide, Ida and Pingala, Puraka and Rechaka, man and woman, nectar and poison, health and disease, joy and sorrow, laughter and tears, desire and aversion, youth and old age, noise and silence, knowledge and ignorance…

To produce fire, we use flint stones. One flint is held in the right hand, the other in the left. When they are forced into sudden, violent contact, a sound arises. This is naadam. When the process is repeated several times, a spark of light appears. This is bindu. Using the same analogy, when clouds collide in the sky, thunder is produced first, and then light — yet we ourselves see the lightning first and hear the thunder afterward. And our knowledge, being based only on our senses, sometimes leads us to mistaken conclusions.

When a carrier of positive electricity (the force of attraction) and a carrier of negative electricity (the force of repulsion) come close together, we hear a crackle, accompanied by sparks we are able to see. If they are integrated within a medium in which the fine wire filaments carrying them are twisted together, as in the case of an electric light bulb, we get the glow of bright light. By controlling and compelling these forces into submission, many powerful things are accomplished.

It is a well-established truth that the Power standing behind all things in the world, both conscious and unconscious, is the central Principle that mediates between opposites and holds them in balance. Invisible from the outside, it forms the core of every object, and it is present, at every change that occurs, in the innermost essence of every being.

We too are living beings saturated with this power. Becoming aware of this opens up the perspective from which truth reveals itself. The microcosm is an expression of the macrocosm. The cosmic force, expanded in the latter, is confined within the former. The macrocosm is this universe; the microcosm is our own body.

Within Om Namah Shivaya are contained six distinct mantras. The first is Om, the second Na, the third Mah, the fourth Shi, the fifth Va, and the sixth Ya. All six sounds are connected to different chakras. When you say Na, Mah, Shi, Va, Ya, you touch different chakras. When you utter the mantra Om, you activate the Ajna chakra. When you say Ya, it is the heart chakra, Anahata. When you say Va, it is the Swadhisthana chakra. When you say Shi, it is the Vishuddhi chakra. When you say Namah, it is the Manipura chakra. So these different sounds correspond to different chakras, energy systems, and systems of the mind.

When you utter the mantra Om Namah Shivaya, you are aligning and purifying the five primordial elements within your body. Each letter is the fundamental power that activates the element which originally grew out of it. Thus, the primordial source of the universe, unconfined by anything, is all-pervading. The Supreme Being to whom the mantra NA MA SI VA YA refers is both the source and the sustainer of the entire physical universe: earth – Na, water – Ma, fire – Si, air – Va, and ether – Ya.

In our body: Na represents the two legs, Ma represents the stomach, Si represents the two hands, Va represents the mouth, and Ya represents the two eyes, all encompassed by the Pranava Tattva, AUM.

IF, HOWEVER, YOU THINK that this is a prayer to SHIVA, you need to think again.

If you wish to know God, first know yourself. The God we worship is, ultimately, the Atman within us.

"If I cannot worship in the temple of my own heart, no outer temple will ever help me" — so said Swami Vivekananda.

"If I cannot worship in the temple of my own heart, no outer temple will ever help me" — so said Swami Vivekananda.

Because of misunderstandings and a lack of comprehension of how mantras work, people came to associate them with religion. All religions appeared on this planet many thousands of years after yoga. So why were mantras associated with religion? Why weren't they kept separate, as a Sadhana of yoga? This happens because people did not understand the intricate relationships between body, mind, and spirit.

Piyush Mittal

Nirmala.pl Institute of Yoga and Ayurveda

Based on the teachings of:

Swami Niranjanananda Saraswati