On Mar 1, 2011, at 12:28 PM, Michael Flatley wrote:
We need routines that can promote heightened awareness in a few minutes. That would be practical. And we need something that can go into auto-pilot in the background of activity, or even sleep. My understanding is that 125,000 repetitions of a mantra puts it into auto-pilot. The tissue will run that vibration as needed without conscious participation. That might be why MMY felt that mantras failed in India. People had no TV, radio, etc. So there was plenty of time for mantra, and people learned dozens of them, and got it where too many were on auto-pilot, perhaps diluting potency. That might've been what he was actually referring to with "loss of purity." Getting to experiment on thousands of westerners with a blank slate was a terrific discovery process. Now we're getting to a point where it should be possible to develop a treatise on how to optimize mantra methods.
Different mantra texts give different numbers. They're all rough estimates as to when you'll gain the siddhi of that mantra. But you can gain the siddhi much faster if you fast, etc.
I don't share any mantras I haven't done at least a million repetitions of.
I often recommend people into mantra practice subscribe to something like Snowlion news. They list all the Buddhist transmissions going on at any particular time or place. Then pick a force you dig and get a transmission. You'll typically get a seed mantra and the mantra "chain", a visualization of the deity, etc., the teacher will take you to the place they're at, and then transmit the mantra and a practice text, sometimes a fire ritual. Often it's done for a mere donation and quite inexpensive. Even if you decide to never use it, it's a fun experience just the same.
You can do the same with many Hindu teachers as well, for example Amma gave me my TM mantra in it's full form...very lively, very nice. I had another teacher initiate me into Her yantra. You can do whatever you want.
