MANTRA: THE ART OF SOUND AND INNER SILENCE
An interview with Sri Shyamji Bhatnagar
by Sarida Brown

For the last 40 years, Sri (Shyamji) has taught Chakra InnerTuning, his method for psycho-spiritual growth based on the ability to balance the chakras with sound and melody.

SARIDA BROWN: What is mantra?

SRI SHYAMJI BHATNAGAR: Mantra really has two functions, one is to expand the mind, and second is to go beyond it. Mind is a very strange phenomenon in the sense that it functions with the energy of ego and as long as we keep on identifying ourselves with the mind, whether it's a thinking or a feeling mind, We function within the realm of ego, and as you know, all the great literatures of the world suggest that ego has to be surrendered. I have to diverge a little: many people who have not matured - meaning, their ego has not matured use a spiritual lifestyle to hide behind, instead of confronting the fact that they have not matured yet. The mind plays games, you see, and we really have to be able to analyse our own mind, otherwise we will succumb to some of the spiritual disciplines prematurely, and we will never be able to follow them to their depth.

I will give you an example. There was a twelve year old boy who read somewhere that if you breathe two breaths per minute you are in the state of meditation. So he sat down and put a watch in front of him and practiced a little and started to breathe two breaths per minute. When he was able to do that for five minutes he went to a great master, and told him that he was able to breathe two breaths per minute: 'Can you give me a mantra so I can meditate with it?'

The master knew what was going on, so he told him to just sit down and not think of monkeys, and he would be able to meditate. So the little boy went home and sat down and decided not to think about monkeys - and guess what? All he saw was a tree, with monkeys in it. He went running to the master saying 'Master, Master, I can't help but think about monkeys'. So this is an example of a master not giving a mantra to somebody who's not ready for it. Of course there are mantras for twelve year olds which he could have given. But he wanted to let him know that his ego had not matured yet, that he was aspiring to something that he was not ready for, and doing it for his self image, to impress others. Eventually the master taught him a mantra for his age, and actually he went on to be a very good yogi.

As I said, the function of the mantra is two-fold: one is to expand, and the
second is to go beyond the conditioned mind, that is a spiritual use. I have expanded upon the chakra system that has existed in India for thousands of years in such a way that if you make a study of chakra psychology in depth you can analyze your own mind in a way that will tell you where you might be hiding behind its nooks and corners.

Mind always thinks in terms of contentment or discontentment. So when you wake up you have a list of priorities to meet. That's what we do every day, whether our priorities are at the small village level or an international level. All the priorities deal with either the first chakra mind, livelihood; or the second chakra mind, relationships and business; or the third chakra mind, somehow maintaining your power and your control; the fourth chakra mind, helping people; the fifth chakra mind, creativity, communication; or the sixth chakra mind that wants to meditate; or the seventh chakra mind that wants to be with its own divinity, withdrawn from the world, as happens in sleep.

All these minds make demands on us, although in many of us some of them are not yet functioning well, because the lower chakra minds have to be somewhat contented before the higher chakra minds will come into play. The duty of the master when they see a student is to give them the appropriate mantra, because one mantra is going to do miracles for one person, and another mantra for another person that's why there are millions of mantras to choose from.

Then there are different types of mantras: ceremonial mantras; functional mantras for the society that are done at work, marriages and deaths; and devotional mantras to get into the mood of spiritual ecstasy.

SARIDA BROWN: You are especially known for your chanting. What is the power of sound that you bring through the singing of the mantra, and that you teach your students?

SRI SHYAMJI BHATNAGAR: I don't sing, 1 chant: there is a difference. Most singers from whatever tradition, when they sing, quickly breathe through their mouth in order to continue the melody or the improvisation, and then they release the air slowly to sing as long as they can within the breath that they have.
There are two types of chanting - one is devotional chanting, and one is chanting to internalize your senses to experience your own divinity. When you have concepts of the divine that is outside yourself, those concepts are based on religions. I make a clear distinction between spirituality and religion. You can be religious and spiritual, but you can be spiritual without being religious, because ultimately we have to accept that the divine is omnipresent and doesn't come with a beard or a veil - if there is a veil, that's our own mind that we have to clear so that the veil is lifted, and that can only happen if we go searching inside our self. But in the beginning people are very social, they like to do things together, and therefore there are churches and mosques and all kinds of religious places where people sit and the priest comes and ordains and talks and gives wisdom, but that's all to maintain a social order. Maybe we need that for many lifetimes, and then in some lifetime we realize that this search has been just like that of a musk deer. The great yogi sufl poet, Kabir, who's my favorite of all Indian poets, says we are like a musk deer looking for the source of the beautiful aroma that's in fact coming from his own navel, and he's searching for it outside and gets stuck in some bushes with his big antlers, and dies. Kabir says that's just like people, searching for the divine outside, while it has been inside all along.

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