Gayatri mantra

[Chang dao ling]

Namaste, anyone here practice Gayatri mantra? Recently I came across Gayatri pariwar I really liked their books. I am planning to practice Gayatri mantra. If anyone practice please share your experiences 

[Ajay0]

 

You can pair the mantra chanting with meditation. Practice is best during dawn and evening, at the junctions of day and night.

 

I remember reading about the mantra by a  sage stating that the mantra should be pronounced precisely, as the sanskrit words have a lot of potency attached to them.  If it cannot be precise, then chanting it with love and feeling can achieve the purpose. 

 

There are videos in the net describing the chant.

 

Here is an article where you can find tips on the mantra...

 

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/soul-search/the-importance-of-chanting-gayatri-mantra-early-in-the-morning/photostory/107819231.cms?picid=107819254

Edited July 23, 2024 by Ajay0

[Chang dao ling]

1 hour ago, Ajay0 said:

 

You can pair the mantra chanting with meditation. Practice is best during dawn and evening, at the junctions of day and night.

 

I remember reading about the mantra by a  sage stating that the mantra should be pronounced precisely, as the sanskrit words have a lot of potency attached to them.  If it cannot be precise, then chanting it with love and feeling can achieve the purpose. 

 

There are videos in the net describing the chant.

 

Here is an article where you can find tips on the mantra...

 

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/soul-search/the-importance-of-chanting-gayatri-mantra-early-in-the-morning/photostory/107819231.cms?picid=107819254

Thanks 👍 

[dwai]

On 7/22/2024 at 11:25 PM, Chang dao ling said:

Namaste, anyone here practice Gayatri mantra? Recently I came across Gayatri pariwar I really liked their books. I am planning to practice Gayatri mantra. If anyone practice please share your experiences 

It’s best to be initiated by a teacher. I’ve been practicing it for about 30 years now. If you do it, go from vocalized practice to silent practice as quickly as possible.
 

Mantras need to be practiced in a cycle. A 100,000 repetitions for each syllable  of the mantra. The gayatri has 24 syllables - so 2400,000 repetitions will make one cycle. 
 

Once you start, you can’t miss a day. If you do one set of 108 reps a day, it will take you ~ 60 years for one cycle. If you do 10 sets of 108 a day, it will take you 6 years. 

It might take more than 1 cycle for the effect to manifest. Just be aware of the commitment to practice it. 

 

[Chang dao ling]

4 hours ago, dwai said:

. If you do it, go from vocalized practice to silent practice as quickly as possible.

Yes I am currently practicing silently. I am getting magnatic pressure between eyebrows while chanting and I feel calm

[Robin]

On 7/26/2024 at 12:30 AM, dwai said:

It’s best to be initiated by a teacher. I’ve been practicing it for about 30 years now. If you do it, go from vocalized practice to silent practice as quickly as possible.
 

Mantras need to be practiced in a cycle. A 100,000 repetitions for each syllable  of the mantra. The gayatri has 24 syllables - so 2400,000 repetitions will make one cycle. 
 

Once you start, you can’t miss a day. If you do one set of 108 reps a day, it will take you ~ 60 years for one cycle. If you do 10 sets of 108 a day, it will take you 6 years. 

It might take more than 1 cycle for the effect to manifest. Just be aware of the commitment to practice it. 

 

I find there are two approaches to the formalities of Vedantic practice. One is very rigid and prescriptive, while the other is more about following your natural affinities - maybe something like the (metaphorical and approximate) 84,000 path to enlightenment described by the Buddha. I personally think natural affinity trumps orthodoxy. For example, if the Gayatri mantra comes into your mandala somehow, you may well have already chanted it many thousands or millions of times in a different lifetime. If in addition to it coming into your mandala, you also feel an affinity and a desire to chant it, then I consider this to be more than sufficient qualification. Om swami agrees:

While I can see some value in practice guidelines etc., and of course ideally transmission from a living master, there is also a strong tendency, IMO, for unnecessary hierarchies to develop around spiritual knowledge, which can end up looking like medieval Christian priests selling pardons etc. The Quakers did not acknowledge the need for an intermediary between us and the Divine, and I think we can take the same position with Vedanta. Affinity is king, friendly guides are wonderful. Dogmatism has little value, IMO.

Edited April 7 by Robin

[Annnon]

On 25/07/2024 at 8:30 PM, dwai said:

Once you start, you can’t miss a day.

 

Hi, can you please give more detail on this?

What bad could happen if someone start chanting a mantra and then suddenly stop?

[Tommy]

1 hour ago, Annnon said:

 

Hi, can you please give more detail on this?

What bad could happen if someone start chanting a mantra and then suddenly stop?

I think he means that skipping a day means that one would lose the benefit from having done the all the chanting before. So effort would be lost for skipping days. For me, it is important to balance one's life. A time to do what is needed at the moment and lessons to be learnt from them.

[Annnon]

6 minutes ago, Tommy said:

I think he means that skipping a day means that one would lose the benefit from having done the all the chanting before. So effort would be lost for skipping days. For me, it is important to balance one's life. A time to do what is needed at the moment and lessons to be learnt from them.

I hope so, because in the past I did "Om Namah Shivaya" for a week and then stopped, I really feel drawn to do it again but I'm not sure if I can keep consistency, my life is a mess

[Tommy]

I think being consistent is important part of practice. Like my practice has been on and off for a long time. So, I am stuck where I am. But what I have learnt in the mean time, it will stay with me. Advance? Move to the next stage? No. It is just being here is better for me, now.

 

I do encourage you to do what brings you joy. Joy that is not absent that which brings true happiness for you and others. Something along the lines of wisdom and compassion. 

[dwai]

19 hours ago, Annnon said:

 

Hi, can you please give more detail on this?

What bad could happen if someone start chanting a mantra and then suddenly stop?

Nothing bad unless you’ve taken what is called a “sankalpa”. Sankalpa is a promise between yourself and a deity (for instance, with Lord Shiva) to perform certain practices/ritual for a certain period of time. Depending on the deity and the type of practice (tantric ones are both potent and dangerous at the same time), stopping your practice is not a good idea. But if it’s just your own personal practice, there is no harm in stopping. Only that usually when we undertake a spiritual practice it is especially normal to encounter difficulties (consider it as being tested) - those who can persevere will grow, those who don’t will not (or not as much).