RamDev – Healing at the Edge – Ep. 70 – Going Beyond

RamDev explores how mantras can be practiced at different stages of development, and how they help us in going beyond just being lost in the content of our lives.

Going Beyond

RamDev explores what mantra practice looks like at the beginning, intermediate, and advanced stages of development. The beginning stage is simply using the mantra as a tool to bring us back into the present, the next level of mantra is going into the heart, and then there’s a tantric level of saying a mantra. RamDev talks about how mantra helps us start going beyond just being lost in the content of our lives.

We’re using the repetition of a phrase or a word to begin to go beyond just being lost in the content of our lives… even beyond awareness of the content of our lives, into being much more aware of our relationship with what’s going on in our lives.” – RamDev

Raghu Markus and Lilly Cushman discuss the meaning of mantra on Mindrolling Ep. 334
Nondual Mantra (11:20)

RamDev illuminates the final level of saying a mantra, which is nondual mantra. The mantra is taking us to the place where we see where the mantra is coming from; it’s all one source, all pure consciousness. RamDev talks about how there are all kinds of different mantras, and that you don’t necessarily need to have a teacher give one to you.

“Mantra enables me to much more easily see God in people that otherwise I wouldn’t be able to open up to.” – RamDev

Mantra and Vibration (19:35)

RamDev explores the connection between mantra and vibration, dives deeper into the question of whether we need a mantra to be given to us by a being with power, and summarizes the different levels of mantra development again. He ends by reminding us what a wonderful teacher boredom can be.

“There’s not much to say about mantra. It’s a matter, though, of ego death. It’s a matter of being willing to let the mind be so simple that it begins to undercut the fascination of the ego.” – RamDev

Ram Dass writes about the benefits of mantra

       

Image by Alex Erofeenkov