Mantra Sadhana Threshold: Reflex-Action = Karma Actually Burning (3+ Hours Daily vs 15 Minutes); Long Texts (Aditya Hridayam/Chandi) for Unstable Minds; Multiple Deities OK Under Material Distress (Not Moksha Seeking); Vivekananda's Suffering in Maya

Remedies and Sadhana

Propitiate the dasha lord, who is also the lagna lord

• A student asks how to get the most out of Sun–Rahu. "Forget the antardasha, just focus on the dasha. It is Sun dasha. So propitiate Sun."
• Sun is his lagna lord. "Propitiating the lagna lord will give all-round progress in life."
• The prayer: Āditya Hṛdayam.

Hours, not minutes

"Any powerful prayer, if you do like 3–4 hours every day, definitely there will be a big impact on your life."

• He will not give a count. With a count, three hours' work gets done in an hour and a half. Set time, not number of times.
• Sitting in a chair is fine. Three hours a day for a couple of months has a major impact, on health as well as career.
• Ten or fifteen minutes has some impact but does not burn the blocking karmas. Hours do.
• In the beginning nothing seems to happen. After a threshold, karmas start to burn.

Blocking karmas

• A person suffers because of blocking karmas. They are unblocked by suffering their consequences, or by someone taking them away, and then that person has to suffer them.
• So either someone suffers, or the karma is burned through sadhana. "The best way to burn a karma is just do a mantra for hours."

The reflex-action mark

• Like a favourite song you start humming when idle: if you chant for hours daily, the mantra comes to the mind by itself, in the bathroom, while doing something else.

"Once a mantra becomes part of your reflex action, then you are actually making some progress."

• The mind still wanders, but some part of it is filled with the mantra.

Gāyatrī and Hanumān

• The native does Gāyatrī japa daily and prays to Hanumān. Both are good. Mars is his kāraka, so Hanumān suits him.
• But for Saturn in lagna, health problems and the lagna lord in an inimical sign, the teacher prefers Āditya Hṛdayam. A Veda mantra needs correct pronunciation, which he is unlikely to have. A paurāṇic prayer is safer.

Long text or short mantra

• The short Sun mantra is the eight-syllable Om Ghṛṇi Sūrya Āditya. Three hours of it is a huge count and the mind gets bored.
• A stable mind can repeat a small mantra for hours. An unstable mind cannot hold on to something so small. The teacher reads an unstable mind from this chart.
• A long text gives the mind a place to be: so many ślokas done, so many left. The mind still strays, but those thoughts are better than the others.
• Long texts named: Caṇḍī Pāṭha (700 ślokas), Viṣṇu Sahasranāma (108 ślokas), Āditya Hṛdayam (30–40 ślokas).
• When: morning is best; afternoon or evening will do. Preferably in the daytime. At night the effect is less.

The full prescription

• Āditya Hṛdayam: about two and a half hours. "Do Āditya Hṛdayam like a mad person." It gets priority.
• Mahālakṣmī Aṣṭottaram, for the Venus connection: 14 ślokas, read a few times, 25–30 minutes.
• Hanumān Chālīsā, which he already does: for Saturn's transit.
• "Once you cross some threshold with your effort, I will not be surprised if things start moving your way irrespective of the dasha."
• Fasting: he has fasted on Thursday nights for decades. A student suggests fasting for Sun instead. The teacher recommends no fast. "More than fasting, keep chanting."

One deity or several

The teacher's usual advice is one thing only: do not dig for water in five places, dig in one.

"This person is not digging to find water, he is digging to make a pile of sand. In that case, if you dig in different places, you may get sand of different kinds and you may get the right combination that you need."

• So he goes back on what he said earlier. Propitiating different deities is sometimes useful, especially when a material problem weighs so heavily that the mind cannot focus on anything.
• Telling such a person "it is all Māyā, be absorbed in Sat-Cit-Ānanda" does not work.

Vivekananda

• For several weeks Vivekananda had no job and could not find one. His father had died leaving large debts. The house could be lost. One sister went mad; sisters committed suicide.
• Ramakrishna told him to leave it all and come. Even he could not. Ramakrishna called him one of the seven ṛṣis come for a mission, and even he was in the grasp of Māyā and could not fix his mind on God.
• He came out of it not by doing ten mantras and getting a job, but by renouncing. He went into a special samādhi and then told Ramakrishna he was ready to do whatever was asked.
• That is not for everyone. Recognise who is a material person, who is a spiritual person, and who is a material person who will do some spiritual practice but is not meant for spiritual attainment in this life. Advise accordingly.
• For this native: a little Hanumān, a little Lakṣmī, and mostly Āditya Hṛdayam.