The use of meaningful incantations is quite different from mantra use, and can help bring consciousness to greater clarity. Words can help because our minds are organic hybrid analog-digital computers that process symbols, and words are symbols. The words that deepen meditation form a strategic questioning, not a mantra.
Ramana Maharshi was a beloved Indian teacher who reached enlightenment through self-inquiry, by asking the most fundamental question "Who am I?" Here is a self-inquiry technique that expands Ramana Maharshi's method to make it even more powerful. Speak out loud the following incantation with total intensity before and/or during formal sitting meditation sessions. By the term "total intensity," I mean the same level of intensity you would feel if you were just told that you only had one hour left to live. Be emotional, be Italian, use your hands and body language if it helps. Plead with the universe the following question.
What is this ball of consciousness? What is this ball of consciousness? What is this ball of consciousness? - You can repeat this question more than three times if the spirit moves you. Go with the flow.
I am not this library of memories. I have no history. I have no biography.
I am the space. I have always been the space, and I crush these bonds of attachment now!
When speaking the words, "I crush these bonds of attachment now!," strike your upturned left palm with the back of your right hand, like a hammer hitting an anvil, upon saying the word "now!" Reverse hands if you are lefthanded. Do not overdo it and hurt your hands. Just hit forcefully enough to produce a soft cracking sound, which adds drama and helps wake up the central nervous system.
Resonate the words deep inside you without thinking of intellectual explanations of who you are. Just asking this question is purifying and ennobling. Self-inquiry is an innocent and fundamental endeavor, and you need an innocently naked mind to see reality directly without the distortions of memory and thought. You can use this questioning technique only at the beginning of formal sitting meditation sessions, or you can repeat the incantation every ten minutes during meditation sessions to help keep your energy focused.
Over time you will find the words become a trigger mechanism which allows you to instantly drop all peripheral involvement and come home to your primordial eternal being. We all have the same essential being, and that being is cosmic. No one is left out of this universe. If you are part of the universe, you are all of the universe! The small 'I' is dropped, and only the big 'I' remains. Then you can have a good belly laugh, and that is the way I end most of my own meditation sessions. I meditate until I start laughing from the hara center. Then I know I am cooked!
A gentler, less rigorous approach to this method is to mentally repeat the question, "What is this ball of consciousness?," about a dozen times without vocalization. This small amount of repetition will enhance and center your consciousness rather than dull it. For many students this softer approach is all that is needed.
Word exercises are not for everyone. If you try them and feel nothing, then concentrate on other methods first. As you slowly change your methods will change with you. A method that is unusable now may be of great help to you in the future
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