MANTRA YOGA - CHAPTER 1 - POSTING # 2

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Mantra Yoga, too, helps us similarly, by incorporating the above four yogas as follows:

· Raja Yoga (through meditation that is involved in chanting mantras),

· Karma Yoga (through the discipline, regularity and punctuality that accompanies the process of Mantra Yoga, whose final goal is to benefit all of humanity)

· Bhakti Yoga (through love of the mantra and the deity that presides over each mantra – more of this in Chapter Two)

· Jnana Yoga (the rationale that underlies it).

In this book, Mantra Yoga is looked at without an appeal to blind beliefs. Even love and devotion, (Bhakti) the discipline required for chanting mantras, (Karma) and the mystic realm (Raja) are explained through the lenses of rationale. Hopefully one can easily relate to and understand their practical applications.

This chapter lays the foundations that explain how Mantra Yoga achieves this union of our lower selves with our higher, divine selves. Certain fundamentals of spiritual life such as the nature of pleasure, defining enlightenment, the necessity of transcending the relative world, the importance of faith are briefly delineated in this chapter. This will help in gaining a strong foothold on which to build further, as we delve into the more subtle aspects of spiritual life.