The Mother on the mantra ‘Om Namo Bhagavateh’

It is there, all around me; it takes hold of all the cells and at once they spring forth in ascension. And Narada’s mantra too: “Narayana, Narayana”.

It is actually a Command which means: now you shall do as I wish. But it doesn’t come from the heart. What will it be?

It will simply spring forth in a flash, all of a sudden, and it will be very powerful. Only power can do something. Love vanishes like water running through sand: people remain beatific… and nothing moves! No, power is needed- like Shiva, stirring, churning.

When I have this mantra, instead of saying hello, good-bye, I shall say that. When I say hello, good-bye, it means Hello: the Presence is here, the Light is here, Good-bye: I am not going away, I am staying here. But when I have this mantra, I believe something will happen. (silence)

For the moment of all the formulas or mantras, the one that acts most directly on this body, that seizes all the cells and immediately does this (vibrating motion) is the Sanskrit mantra OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH.

As soon as I sit for meditation, as soon as I have a quiet minute to concentrate, it always begins with this mantra, and there is a response in the body, in the cells of the body: they all start vibrating.

This is how it happened. Y had just returned, and he brought back a trunk full of things which he then proceeded to show me, and his excitement made tight, tight little waves in the atmosphere, making my head ache; it made… anyway, it was unpleasant. When I left, just after that had happened, I sat down and went like this (gesture of sweeping out) to make it stop, and immediately the mantra began.

It rose up from here (Mother indicates the solar plexus), like this: Om Namo Bhagavateh, Om Namo Bhagavateh, OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH. It was formidable. For the entire quarter of an hour that the meditation lasted, everything was filled with Light! In the deeper tones it was of golden bronze (at the throat level it was almost red) and in the higher tones it was a kind of opaline white light: OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH, OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH, OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH.

The other day (I was in my bathroom upstairs), it came; it took hold of the entire body. It rose up in the same way, and all the cells were trembling. And with such a power! So I stopped everything, all movement, and I let the thing grow. The vibration went on expanding, ever widening, as the sound itself was expanding, expanding, and all the cells of the body were seized with an intensity of aspiration…. As if the entire body were swelling- it became overwhelming. It felt that it would all burst.

I understood those who withdraw from everything to live that totally. And it has such a transformative power! I felt that if it continued, something would happen, something like a change in the equilibrium of the body’s cells. So each time one must find something that acts on himself, individually. I am only speaking of the action on the physical plane, because mentally, vitally, in all the inner parts of the being, the aspiration is always, always spontaneous. I am referring only to the physical plane.
The physical seems to be more open to something that is repetitious- for example, the music we play on Sundays, which has three series of combined mantras. The first is that of Chandi addressed to the universal Mother:

Ya devi sarvabhuteshu matrirupena sansthita
Ya devi sarvabhuteshu shaktirupena sansthita
Ya devi sarvabhuteshu shantirupena sansthita
Namastasyai namastasyai namastasyai namo namah

The second is addressed to Sri Aurobindo (and I believe they have put my name in the end. It incorporates the mantra I was speaking of:
Om namo namah shrimirambikayai
Om namo bhagavateh shriaravindaya
Om namo namah shrimirambikayai

And the third addressed to Sri Aurobindo: ‘Thou art my refuge’

Shri aravindah sharanam mama.
Each time this music is played, it produces exactly the same effect on the body. It is strange, as if all the cells were dilating, with a feeling that the body is growing larger. It becomes all dilated, as if swollen with light- with force, a lot of force. And this music seems to form spirals, like luminous ribbons of incense smoke, white( not transparent, literally white) and they rise up and up. I always see the same thing; it begins in the form of a vase, then swells like an amphora and converges higher up to blossom forth like a flower.

So for these mantras, everything depends upon what you want to do with them. I am in favour of a short mantra, especially if you want to make both numerous and spontaneous repetitions- one or two words, three at the most. Because you must be able to use them in all cases, when an accident is about to happen, for example. It has to spring up without thinking, without calling: it should issue forth from the being spontaneously, like a reflex, exactly like a reflex. Then the mantra has its full force.

For me, on the days when I have no special preoccupations or difficulties ( days I would call normal, when I am normal), everything I do, all the movements of this body, all, all the words I utter, all the gestures I make, are accompanied and upheld by or lined, as it were, with this mantra : OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH….. OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH…all the time, all the time, all the time.

That is the normal state. It creates an atmosphere of an intensity almost more material than the subtle physical; it’s like… almost like the phosphorescent radiations from a medium. And it has a great action, a very great action: it can prevent an accident. And it accompanies you all the time, all the time.

But it is up to you to know what you want to do with it.
OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH

The first word represents: the supreme invocation, the invocation to the Supreme
The second word represents: Total self-giving, Perfect surrender.
The third word represents: The aspiration, what the manifestation must become- Divine.

(‘The Mother’s Agenda (Volume 1 and Volume 6)’. Translated from French, Institut De Recherches Evolutives, Paris, printed at Tata Press Ltd, Bombay)