Richard J. Williams wrote:
> menkemeyer wrote:
>
>> Om Namah Shivaya is known as the great redeeming
>> mantra also known as five-syllable mantra.
>>
>>
> Maybe so, but any word or phrase can be considered
> a 'mantra'.
>
> However, there are no mantras used in TM practice
> - we use only non-semantic tantric 'bija' mantras.
>
What about the advanced techniques? That's not a bij mantra. When I
talk about TM'ers being Saraswati worshipers, what exactly am I talking
about?
> If you insist on chanting 'Om Namah Shivaya' then
> you're probably not practicing TM.
>
Yes because it was not taught as a part of TM (though may have been on
some of the Primodial Sounds tapes). But it is just as valid if not a
powerful or more powerful than using just a bij mantra. The bij mantras
or aksharas are used to enliven longer mantras. I think why MMY used
them as first techniques (recommending the advanced technique to replace
it after about a year and a half) because they don't take much to be
lively and any idiot can initiate someone with them and get some
results. Clever but again lacks the safety and balance that other
programs have.
> If you wanted to, you could chant any number of
> Sanskrit phrases, but why go to the bother of
> memorizing Sanskrit phrases - you might just as
> well use English for that purpose and repeat 'I
> bow down to the old fakir'. There are no 'magic'
> words in Sanskrit.
>
The vibratory influence. English is frequently lacking in that. When I
was learning Sanskrit some of the slokas would spontaneously invoke
visions of ancient times which were sometimes a little disconcerting
though cool.
