Japa

(Mother to Satprem, 1959:) “An imperceptible little change, and one can pass from a more or less mechanical, more or less efficient and real japa, to the true japa full of power and light. I even wondered if this difference is what the tantrics call the ‘power’ of the japa. ”

(Mother to Satprem, 1959:) “Of course, I could do my japa in trance, I could walk in trance while repeating the japa, because then you feel nothing, none of all the body's drawbacks. But the work has to be done in the body! So I got up and started doing my japa. Then, with each word pronounced — the Light, the full Power. A power that heals everything. I began the japa tired, ill, and I came out of it refreshed, rested, cured. So those who tell me they come out of it exhausted, contracted, emptied, it means that they are not doing it in the true way.
         I understand why certain tantrics advise saying the japa in the heart center. When one applies a certain enthusiasm, when each word is said with a warmth of aspiration, then everything changes. I could feel this difference in myself, in my own japa.”

(Mother to Satprem, 1959:) “Perhaps for the japa to become true, a kind of joy, an elation, a warmth of enthusiasm has to be added — but especially joy. Then everything changes.”

(Mother to Satprem, 1960:) “When I started my japa one year ago, I had to struggle with every possible difficulty, every contradiction, prejudice and opposition that fills the air. And even when this poor body began walking back and forth for japa, it used to knock against things, it would start breathing all wrong, coughing; it was attacked from all sides until the day I caught the Enemy and said, “Listen carefully. You can do whatever you want, but I'm going right to the end and nothing will stop me, even if I have to repeat this mantra ten crore times.” The result was really miraculous, like a cloud of bats flying up into the light all at once. From that moment on, things started going better. You have no idea what an irresistible effect a well-determined will can have.”

(Satprem, 1960:) “For us who want an integral realization, are all these mantras and this daily japa really a help, or do they also shut us in?

(Mother:) It gives discipline. It's an almost subconscious discipline of the character more than of thought.
         Especially at the beginning, Sri Aurobindo used to shatter to pieces all moral ideas (you know, as in the Aphorisms, for example). He shattered all those things, he shattered them, really shattered them to pieces. So there's a whole group of youngsters here who were brought up with this idea that ‘we can do whatever we want, it doesn't matter in the least!’ – that they need not bother about all those concepts of ordinary morality. I've had a hard time making them understand that this morality can be abandoned only for a higher one ... So, one has to be careful not to give them the Power too soon.
         It's an almost physical discipline. Moreover, I have seen that the japa has an organizing effect on the subconscient, on the inconscient, on matter, on the body's cells – it takes time, but by persistently repeating it, in the long run it has an effect. It is the same principle as doing daily exercises on the piano, for example. You keep mechanically repeating them, and in the end your hands are filled with consciousness – it fills the body with consciousness.”

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See also

• Mantra
• Om Namo Bhagavate