Use your name as a mantra

     Your own name can be used as a mantra very easily, and it is very helpful because your name has gone very deep into your unconscious. Nothing else has gone so deep. If we are all are sitting here, and we all fall asleep and someone comes and calls ”Ram,” no one will listen except the person whose name is Ram. He will listen to it; he will be disturbed in his sleep. No one else will listen to the sound ”Ram,” but why does this man listen? It has gone down deep; it is not conscious now, it has become unconscious, it is a very beautiful.  It has penetrated like an arrow into your unconscious. If you yourself use it, then it becomes a mantra.

     And for two reasons it helps: one, when you use your own name, if your name is ”Ram” and you use ”Ram, Ram, Ram…”, suddenly you feel as if you are using someone else’s name – as if it is not yours. Or if you feel that this IS yours, you feel that there is a separate entity within you which is using it. It may belong to the body, it may belong to the mind, but he who is calling ”Ram, Ram…” becomes a witness. This was for good reasons.

     Your name can be used as a mantra it will serve you a double purpose. It will be YOUR name – and you have heard it so much, so many times, and all your life it has penetrated deep. Then also, it is the name of God. So go on repeating it inside, and suddenly you will become aware that ”This name is different from me.” Then by and by this name will have a sanctity of its own. You will remember any day that ”Narayan” or ”Ram,” this is God’s name. Your name has turned into a mantra.

     Use it! This is very good! You can try many things with your name. If you want to be awakened at five o’clock in the morning, no alarm is so exact as your own name. Just repeat thrice inside, ”Ram, you have to be awake by five o’clock sharp.” Repeat it three times, and then just fall asleep. You will be awakened at five o’clock because ”Ram,”. Someone WILL awaken you. And if you continue this practice, one day you will suddenly realize that at five o’clock someone calls you and says, ”Ram, be awake.” That is your unconscious calling you.

     Your name becomes just a door for all names. But enter the sound. First, when you repeat ”Ram, Ram, Ram…” it is just a word. But it means something when you go on repeating.