Competition: The power of the word
Greetings friends of Steemit and Steem Venezuela
This is on japa the power of the "Divine name" and if you ask one takeaway recommendation action point what do I do after this especially on the path of devotion I would say this one that you go ahead and pick up a japa practice especially I would give a specific recommendation get initiated if you have not and if you are initiated then Double Down focus on the japa practice all right so what is japa and how do you do it what are the benefits we'll look at that over the next part japa is basically repetition of a mantra.
What's a mantra, what kind of reputation, what does it do we'll see later.
One can pick up a mantra and start repeating it and that would be japa but it is usually in our tradition especially and many other traditions it involves initiation into the Mantra.
The guru the spiritual master who initiates you, will give you a mantra to repeat and will show you how to do it what to focus on and what to expect. So all of that will be given to you by the guru that's called initiation in Sanskrit it's called diksha.
Conventionally the guru initiates us by telling us what is our chosen deity and what is the Mantra. How to repeat it and how to meditate and that's it and then we start practicing.
It's a verbal transmission, an oral transmission but this is a direct transmission of spiritual power so even the strange way of initiating he writes with his fingers he he would ask the person to stick his tongue out and write on the tongue with his fingers and then he would explain the Mantra to him tell him this is the Mantra now go and repeat it he would show you how to repeat it.
What we generally do is if I want to be initiated into the practice of japa I would approach a guru the one who was authorized to initiate.
So when you would approach the guru and if the guru agrees to give us it's not a done deal. It's not that you apply and purchasing a mantra you can't do that. It's a very great privilege and we are blessed to be initiated into the Mantra the guru would would give you the Mantra teach you how to repeat it and would design design a particular form of God it could be Krishna, it could be Rama, it could be Ramakrishna and show you how to meditate and so from that time onwards that becomes your own practice like it.
Let's talk a little bit about Sanskrit chanting Sanskrit. chanting connects us with an ancient tradition the prayers and chants found in the Vedas the ancient scriptures of Vedanta have been chanted for millennia for thousands of years by all so many countless seekers and also by great sages so it connects us to a powerful spiritual tradition and we get immersed in that stream every spiritual tradition is like a river flowing towards the divine when we get more immersed in that tradition it's like dumping into the river and the river itself will take us to the divine so chanting is one way to jump into the river and I'll share one of the great prayers the rudra prayer. It's called which is a prayer of seeking for us to be led to the light to the truth beyond death and it goes like this
"Osato ma Santa Maya Thomas Oh ma jyotir gamaya" - "from the unreal lead us to the real from darkness lead us unto light from death lead us to immortality reach us through and through ourself and evermore protect us from ignorance".
Before I conclude I would like to invite three fellow Steemians to participate in the contest
@crismenia
@eveetim
@alli001
Thank you for reading my post.