As stated in the article on the 4 Primary Types of Meditation, Transcendental Meditation is a form of focused meditation using a meditation. A mantra is a word, sound or utterance that acts as the focus point of Transcendental Meditation. An example of an utterance you may already be familiar with is ‘Om’.
There are different purposes for the mantra in this form of mediation. Two purposes stand out as most common within this type of meditation:
- Focus and Awareness
- Subconscious influence
Becoming Supernatural
How Common People Are Doing the Uncommon
Focus and Awareness
Because Transcendental Meditation is a focused meditation, it allows for the practitioner to focus upon the mantra itself as an object. This in turn assists with removing the clutter of adjacent thoughts that crowd the mind bringing consciousness to the present similar to Mindfulness Practices. Instead of focusing on breathing however, in this case, the focal point is the mantra.
With focus, like Mindfulness Meditation, comes a heightened state of awareness. With this awareness the practitioner can utilize the mantra as a form separate from self and create an objective understanding of the form. In addition, by utilizing a mantra and moving into a state of awareness and shedding the form this can also be used as a means of reducing anxiety and stress.
Subconscious Influence
In addition, because there is a use of a mantra within Transcendental Meditation, the choice and meaning of the word can be utilized as a focal point and when entering a state of consciousness the meaning of the word can be used to influence the psychology of the practitioner. This is a technique similar to visualization. Let me explain this further.
The majority of your day your thinking is created by the subconscious mind. Our conscious mind is typically within a beta state of mind (think brainwaves) and with the majority of our actions and reactions being led by our subconscious mind the way we can influence that thinking is by bringing our minds back down from beta, through Alpha and back into Theta (subconscious mind). What is the key to all of this? Meditation.
Mantra Meditation
Using mantra meditation we can implant a word or phrase into our subconscious mind that will become a focal point for the majority of our thinking. Mantras like: I got this. Is this the real me? There is abundance everywhere and I am grateful. These are mantras that, when impressed into our minds, become the first subconscious reaction we have and in turn altering our reactions, creating a new experience, emotion and ultimately reality.
Imagine this, what if the majority of your day you actually spent your energies focusing in on the things you wanted to instead of constantly being pulled in the direction of whimsical interests? Your mind’s subconscious has already been programmed and conditioned by years of experience, emotion and previous thinking. You now have a self-talk that governs is either positive or negative or maybe somewhere in between, but it is an automatic reaction to your environment.
Short of creating new experiences that provide completely new emotions and thinking within your mind, which is important and takes time, how do you plant seeds of change within your mind to offer a new form of reaction to your environment? Transcendental Meditation is the key.
If you’d like to learn more and begin practicing, check out our article on Transcendental Meditation Training and read through to the bottom for examples of Mantras you can begin utilizing for your practice.
