[inofindy]

namaste everyone.

I have some points to make about shrI Sangom's post no.9. Text in blue below is quoted from his post and that in black is my point.

Whatever we may discuss about "mantras" will have to be done within the confines of Hinduism and the idiom of the believers because, outside those limits, the mantras may become nothing more than pure gibberish.

• If (some) mantras are/may be considered as gibberish, then there arises the possibility that the sorts of gibberish that we listen to in Tamizh film songs could be considered mantras! For example, this popular hit 'Poonthamalliyilae' from the film 'Karunthel Kannayiram', being utter gibberish, could qualify to be a mantra for some!

uNda pakkara maara pakkkara hei hei hei
ahh barumaa yakka singaLa machchaan hei hei hei

• Compare the above filmy gibberish with the GaNapati bIja mantra that sounds gibberish, until one knows that there are definite inner meanings to the syllables:

OM OM svAhA |
108. OM OM shrIM svAhA |
109. OM OM shrIM hrIM svAhA |
110. OM OM shrIM hrIM ka.hlIM svAhA |
111. OM OM shrIM hrIM ka.hlIM ga.hlauM svAhA |
112. OM OM shrIM hrIM ka.hlIM ga.hlauM gaM gaNapataye svAhA |
113. OM OM shrIM hrIM ka.hlIM ga.hlauM gaM gaNapataye varavarada svAhA |
114. OM OM shrIM hrIM ka.hlIM ga.hlauM gaM gaNapataye varavarada sarvajanaM me svAhA |

For the meanings of the gibberish terms like 'shrIM, hrIM', check:
http://www.religiousworlds.com/mandalam/mantra.htm
Mantra-Sahastra

• Is it true that "the mantras may become nothing more than pure gibberish" "outside" the "limits" of "Hinduism" and "the idiom of the believers"?

‣ Such statements are belied by the efficacy of the yajnas involving such mantras. For example, yajnas conducted for the advent of rains are bound/found to accomplish their results even in these days of much non-belief in them.

‣ If mantras have their efficacy only for the believers, how come shrI MuraLIdhara svAmigaL could cause a heavy downpour in Australia by a collective prayer through a webcast that involved chanting a simple mantra?
YouTube - Prayers are Powerful

‣ As the Tamizh saying goes:
நல்லார் ஒருவர் உளரேல் அவர்பொருட்டு
எல்லார்க்கும் பெய்யும் மழை.

~nallAr oruvar uLarEl avarporuTTu
ellArkkum peyyum mazhai.

"If there is one single good person, for his sake, it will rain for everyone."

If, for the sake of this subject about mantras being gibberish--uLaRal, we change the Tamizh proverb as follows, to link it to a yajna for rains:

நல்லார் ஒருவர் உளறேல் அவர்பொருட்டு
எல்லார்க்கும் பெய்யும் மழை.

~nallAr oruvar uLaREl avarporuTTu
ellArkkum peyyum mazhai.

"If there is one good person whose sincere mantra-chanting seems gibberish to a causual thinker, it would still rain for everyone."

• The concept of mantra as a magical phrase has always existed in human consciousness, finding expressions in legends of Hinduism and other religions. In the classical 'Arabian Nights' legend, Alibaba uses the 'mantra' "open sesame" (or its Urdu equivalent) to gain access to the cave of treasure. And a modern legend of the adventures of Harry Potter, is full of magical spells evoked by uttering weird 'mantras'.

• When "our own pioneer from Mumbai, Shivkar Bapuji Talpade, made an aircraft and had flown it eight years" before the Wright brothers did, and it was reported that Talpade's plane was built using the techniques described in the book vimAnika shAstra where mantras are used to run the plane, this news was met with disbelief at first and then dismissed as legend in due course of time:
A flight over Chowpatty that made history - Times Of India

Today, we have voice-mediated systems in the Infotech sector that can launch a missile; and speech synthesis is becoming more and more common method of input in the electronics industry. We might even say that a computer code that looks gibberish to laypersons are similar to mantras that bring in action.

This makes me think that the endless repetition of a mantra, which by itself has no definite meaning, creates some 'looping' of the neuron circuits in the brains of the chanter as well as of the hearers.

• This purely physical and personal explanation might suit shrI Sangom's thoughts, but then there are stories of Europeans getting curious about our mantras and trying it out using physical devices. Although I can't trace the source now, I remember to have read a story during my college days, wherein the Germans tried to 'test the efficacy' of a DevI mantra whose legend was that if it was chanted for a certain number of times (one lakh times or so), one can have darshan of DevI. They used a spool tape recorder to play out the mantra. It ran for days together, and finally, when the task was completed, the tape fell into smithereens, its bits and pieces falling neatly into the shape of DevI!

• Suppose the experiment is tried today, and the rain-causing Veda yajna mantras are played out on a audio/video tape or disk, for days together, will the rains come? I doubt, because the experiment does not involve human participation. If the sentient human brains can connect to the Devas where the insentient electronic devices fail, can it be purely a physical phenomenon? Or should it happen only through the pancha-kOshas of trained human minds?

While the conscious mind, which is mostly rational, fails in finding any meaning in this repetition, the subconscious perhaps meets some sort of cul de sac situation and gets into a state of exhilaration. This exhilarated state of the sub-conscious mind gives the chanter the feeling of having realized the object of his chanting in the very manner in which he/she perceives it beforehand.

This could hardly be the logical explanation of physical science, IMO, unless physical science can map with exactitude 'the mind' in its 'conscious and subconscious' states into the physical brain and explain how thoughts and feelings arise therefrom and why a 'looping' involving a 'cul de sac situation' takes place with such an efficacious organ as the human brain, which has the capacity to get past any limiting situation?

It is strange that scientists try to explain their experiments done with a physical organ like the brain, with all sorts of trans-physical concepts to fill the gaps in their findings. Stranger still is how public opinion gives credence to these reports with no second thoughts. On the one hand we dismiss all concepts of mantra, japa and dhyAna as frivolity of the mind without ever trying them out personally; and on the other, we blindly belief all that science says, since we don't have the knowledge or capability of its experimental verification.

Thus, for a person who thinks that Lord Rama will appear in front of him if he chants ramanama certain number of times, it will seem that Rama came in front of him and this is what happened most probably with Thyagaraja.

For those of us who believe in the anecdotes relating to the life of saint TyAgarAja which shaped up his RAma-bhakti, here are some links:

Saint Thyagaraja
THYAGARAJA
http://www.carnaticcorner.com/articl...araja-svk.html
CARNATIC MUSIC GUIDE: Biography Of Sri Thyagaraja Swami
Biography, compositions of Thyagaraja - Hari's Carnatic