Today, we don’t know how to start in a divine way even though we know the Vedas, shastras and other scriptures. Whatever we do, we should not accumulate dirt. Finally, our approach towards life should be to convert dust into gold in whatever we do. For this, we need to first understand what we are doing.
We must offer ourselves with a mantra of a divine form or divine entity praying to work inside us, cleanse us, improve our comprehending skills and bless us with the power of true understanding. Only with discrimination or viveka we can invoke the divine forces within us and consecrate them through a mantra or ‘nama japa’. Mantra or ‘nama’ is the password with which we enter the divine realm within us.
‘Nama’ in Sanskrit means name. When we call a person by his name, he immediately responds. When we address God by Her name with bhakti and state our intention, God the Supreme Loving Divine Mother will definitely respond to our call. This is called ‘saguna’ worship.
How do we make our call reach Her? We can reach the God within through our Guru. When the Guru assesses our power of comprehension and discrimination, He initiates us into a mantra based on our own devotion through several past lives. Through repetition of the mantra (mantra japa) that form of divinity will start crystalising within us as we go on chanting it daily for a certain number of times or a certain number of malas (108 beads cycle). Continuous practice of ‘japa’ eventually becomes a yagna.
Yagna means our concentrated effort with devotion and faith without any kind of stress, be it physical or financial. This is the very dharma prescribed exclusively for this Kali Yuga.
Scriptures such as Vishnu Puran and Skanda Puran have clearly declared that whatever fruits are begot by meditation in Krita Yuga, conducting sacrifice in Thretha Yuga and by worshipping in Dwapara Yuga can be had by ‘nama japa’ in Kali Yuga.
‘Nama japa’ is endorsed by the Vedas. It absolves all our past and present sins. ‘Nama japa’ grants all the desires of the human being. It is not dependent on any other means of worship or dharma. ‘Nama japa’ is not bound by place or time. This powerful sadhana surpasses all other forms of worship and actions prescribed by the Vedas themselves. Human beings regardless of caste, creed, community, religion and gender are eligible to chant the divine name or the divine mantra given. The power of ‘nama japa’ is greater than performing ‘gau daana’ or donating cows, than performing the great fire sacrifice ‘Ashwamedha yagna’, than taking a dip in all the sacred waters, ‘Teerthasnan’.
So to accrue the benefits of the yagna, to keep the fire of knowledge and comprehension burning, we have to perform the ‘nama japa’ everyday. Perform japa of a minimum of 10 malas (108 beads cycle X 10 times) to be able to retain the grace. Then, automatically we tap the power of intuition (‘sankalpashakti’) in us.
When we chant the mantra, it churns all our internal energies and the dust that is settled deep within us surfaces on the top. We need to offer this to God so that God discards the dust and only retains the gold for us. This leads to realising all our desires into reality. So, by default we end up performing the ‘Manokamna poorna yagna’—the wish-fulfilling fire sacrifice—everyday to cleanse ourselves, gather all our internal energies together, get rid of the dust and finally convert all opportunities into gold.
Ashram-india @shrinimishamba.org