Japa - The Chanting

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Q628. Why a student of Vedanta, listening and reflecting upon discourses on the Upanishads and

the Gita, should care to take up any other method of sadhana other than pure meditation?

 

A628. It is natural for seekers, in their blind enthusiasm to come to question the importance of japa for a

Vedantic seeker. This doubt comes out of a confusion in the understanding of Japa Yoga. Japa

properly done can more effectively bring about a sustained single-pointedness than all the hasty

methods of meditation. A mind seasoned with Japa is like tinned food which is ready for consumption

after a few seconds of warming-up on the fire. A short period of meditation can take a Japa-conditioned

mind to unimaginable heights in an impossibly short time. Even though the Asan, the beads-rolling, the

Ishta Devata and such other equipments for Japa are external, Japa in itself is not physical but it is

to be mental and is to be raised to a level very near to that of the Spiritual. What is meant is that neither a

mere rolling of the beads nor a non-stop muttering in the mouth can constitute the Japa Yoga. It should be

an all out intense and sincere effort of the Japist to bring forth from his mind and intellect all the possible

faculties - like emotion, discrimination, sensitiveness, will, logic, reason, sympathy,love,faith - and pour them

all into the act of concentrating upon the 'mental chanting' of the Sacred Mantra, performed at the feet of the

Lord's form, which is visualised steadily within the naked chamber of one's heart.

 

- Swami Chinmayananda