[FairfieldLife] Re: How to pronounce the mantras

[sparaig]

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Rick Archer" <rick@...> wrote:
>
> From: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com [mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com] On 
> Behalf Of William Parkinson
> Sent: Friday, July 15, 2011 11:48 AM
> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: How to pronounce the mantras
> 
>  
> 
>   
> 
> Hi Rob. What I found interesting in the pronunciation was simply this: books 
> on mantra meditation that I have state very emphatically that the mantra must 
> be pronounced absolutely clearly and correctly. I assume because they believe 
> that the mantra is some sort of sonic representation, if not sonic 
> manifestation, of the deity. Yet in TM we are told the mantra might will 
> change as we use it. And the mantra should ideally be a faint thought--not 
> something clear and strong in our minds.This was part of my interest in this 
> varient ways of saying the mantras.
> 
>  
> 
> The TM instructions explicit advise NOT trying to think or pronounce the 
> mantra clearly: “Mental repetition is not a clear pronunciation; just a 
> faint idea.”
>

The key word there is "try." It is perfectly acceptable, according to my 
understanding, for the mantra to be clear as a bell. I have found that during 
episodes of sleep deprivation or illness, that my mantra tends to be much more 
pronounceable than usual. Others may well have the opposite experience.

L.