It is said there are 70 million mantra(s).
In simple words, mantra is an instrument (tra) of the mind (man). To do what? To take it to the Final Objective.
And what is the Ultimate Aim? It is to take the mind to the Origin or the Source of whatsoever is, here or there.
Some call this Stateless State as the Alpha and the Omega or the Absolute Truth. Others refer to it as the Realization of the Universal Self i.e. Self-Realization etc. Most people call it God.
God is not any bodily entity.
But it may be conceded that most simple people - owing to their inherited simplistic notions handed down to them by their ancestral belief system - do believe God to be a human-like or spirit-like entity. Or something of this and that sort.
Therefore, there has been a higher and a lower concept of God ever since the beginning. Similarly, there are the lowly and the highly evolved mantra(s).
Any
perceived seed (beej) mantra, if it does not take the seeker to the
Absolute, then, it is a lower kind of instrument of the mind.
On the other hand, if it does - that is if the mantra has the divine potential or power to take one to the Ultimate Reality of Existence - then only is to be considered as the true-real seed or fruit bearing mantra; leading to the sprouting of the Tree of Eternal Wisdom.
Seed or beej mantra are single syllable sounds.
Except for OM, all other sounds are of the lesser or the lower kind.
The other beej mantra cater to some self-invented or fancied and believed in mind-made gods. Or the same are said to arouse the basic 7 chakra within the body, in line with the spine, that yogic literature tells exist in us.
Now, coming to the specifics of as to what has been my experience with the beej mantra; well, I can say that except
for OM, eventually, the other said single syllable ‘seed’ sounds did
not mean much to me as a seeker back then. And even now after getting
the ‘That’ of Which Is.
Without going too much into detail, it may be said that the seed-word OM did form the frontal word of the mantra(s) I chanted during my ‘tapasaya’ or the ‘hard’ devotional and meditation practice years ago.
I heard the sounding akin OM just once - that too when I tried to confirm if such a said sound does exist. Well, it does.
However, OM is not the Sound of the Universe as most people propound.
OM is definitely a mystical sound heard during meditation. But OM by itself is not the end and the beginning universal sound as such.
For, at the Beginning and the End the only sound is but of Eternal Silence.
Out ‘There’ - in self-realization or enlightenment - when the Buddha-to-be is single-eyed; then, only the One ‘I’ of Universal Self resounds as the Absolute of All That Is.
Meaning thereby that one may take assistance of the basic/beej/seed mantra ‘Om’ to get ‘There’: the Universal Truth or God, if you so prefer to call ‘II’. It is good. And it most surely helps. As would a lighthouse in the sea assist the sailor find the shore.
Best is to chant an all-encompassing mantra which includes the seed-word ‘Om’, akin gayatri mantra. Even chanting just ‘Om’ would be good by itself. But my advice is to practice such mantra only whose meaning the seeker can understand simply and straightforwardly. The ‘maha mritunjaya’ mantra too is fine.
Summing
up, use only higher seed or beej mantra. The ones catering to this or
that fancied godly figure - of one’s culture - is not for the really serious seekers.
Now,
this does not mean that in the beginning stages, and for quite a while,
I did not recite or chant the lower kind of mantra or pray to ‘lower’
gods as such. I did. But as I advanced, and learned more, I quit the
lower practice.
Problem is people keep following lower isms throughout their life.
If
one is born in a particular faith, one continues to believe in its
crappy part as if it only is the whole truth. One is unable to rise
above it. Till it is too late. And one conks off. Harboring firm but fanciful beliefs, of a simple ‘stiff’ kind. Thus one lies in dirt with a stuck-up butt and a stiff neck
in the grave or at the funeral pyre, as a stiff! Behaving akin a bot.
And right till the very end, as one rots, yet believing as a bigot and a
buffoon in a this or that ‘only god’ or a ‘personal’ god of a particular parochial religion or region to be the Almighty God.
And at heart yet cursing the infidel lot!
A
serious seeker must meditate, self introspect, and be incessantly
engaged in gaining a better metaphysical knowledge about matters that
be. Then, if need be, correcting oneself; and thereafter taking the
higher route. To get to the Absolute.
So too one must do with mantra.
Mantra is simply nothing but a vehicle and an instrument advocated by the seers and the sages to get the seekers to a higher metaphysical understanding, and get the higher spiritual experience. Thence, if possible - and it is very much possible - to reach the Highest Truth.
Choose a higher basic/beej/seed mantra. It will take one ‘There’
faster. It is akin taking either a car or a bullock cart to reach a
destination. Your choice. Your destiny. And you know your station. Be
wise.
From self-experience I say - mantra does seem to put us on the way.
But know its meaning in full, before indulging in it, and going at it full speed. Chant all you want. God speed! Yet know that it is only in the silence after the mantra that will get you the Truth.
Be silent. To know the ‘That’, which is ‘It’ - is the Cosmic ‘I Am!’
Such is the Way.
