WAVE BEHAVIOR

In order to understand the mode of this language, we must move away from the definitive approach of the English language to a more perceptual approach of understanding the meaning behind universal sounds. “Apart from the meaning a word has, even the sound of the syllables can bring about a good result or a disastrous result” (Khan 271). Hazrat Inayat Khan, a former master of classical Persian music, was told by his teacher to share an Eastern attitude toward the power of the spoken word to the West.

In the ancient languages words were formed by intuition […] words that have come purely by intuition and that form a language which is an action and reaction of man’s experience of life are more powerful than the words of the languages we speak today. Thus they have a greater power when repeated, and a great phenomenon is produced when a person has mastered those words. Every vowel has its psychological significance [as] the composition of every word has a chemical and psychological significance. The yogis use special words that they repeat in the morning or in the evening, and by this they reach a certain illumination or come to a certain state of exaltation (240).


These special words compose mantras. Mantra is a Sanskrit word—the root manas, signifies the “linear, thinking mind” and tram means, “to protect, free or deliver.” Thus, mantras are “sonic formulae” that alter one’s consciousness to “take us beyond, or through the discursive faculties of the mind” (Paul 48). Hindu texts from the 3rd and 4th centuries A.D., claim that a person who chants mantra can apprehend what “cannot be seen,” “impart strength” and “remove doubt” and “leads to inference of an entire matter when only a part of it is seen” (Paul 47). Each mantra is an instrument designed for a particular purpose. Japa is the repetition of these mantras often with the use of japa malas or meditation/prayer beads that are similar to rosary beads, but used in Hindu and Buddhist traditions. Typically, they comprise 108 (or a sum divisible of 108) beads. A meditator will repeat a given mantra for each bead up to any number of cycles of 108 times. Not only are the mantras themselves repeated to increase their power, but the sounds and syllables within them reoccur as if to strike the same chord to sustain its resonance. Repetition also serves to help the speaker “realize” what is said. The following are a few common mantras that illustrate this repetition in the form of roots and vowel sounds:

Asato Ma Sat Gamaya

Tamaso Ma Jyotir Gamaya

Mrityor Maamritam Gamaya


“Let us be led from the unreal to the Real / From darkness to the Light / From mortality to Eternity.” This mantra illustrates the recurrence of various syllables such as “ma,” “sat,” and “rit” as well as a reversal of these such as “ma/am” and “rit/tir.” One might say that these words are anagrams flowing in and out of each other. Manorama, a New York Sanskrit Studies teacher says, “meaning is a function of repetition.” As one chants, the overall feeling precedes the manifestation of the words.

This form is similar to the Gayatri mantra,

oṃ bhūr bhuvaḥ svaḥ

(a) tat savitur vareṇyaṃ

(b) bhargo devasya dhīmahi

(c) dhiyo yo naḥ prachodayāt


Swami Vivekanand translates this to mean, "'We meditate on the glory of that Being who has produced this universe; may He enlighten our minds.' Om is joined to it at the beginning and the end." Gayatri is personified also as a goddess that symbolizes the trimurti as one. This form is composed with eight syllables in the first line, eight or nine in the second, and eight in the last. The phrasing intends to meter out the breath as well so that the thread that holds things together or sutra is an aphoristic formula composed in a concise way for memory retention as these mantras initially were learned only orally.

From this mantra we can see which root is most emphatic.

Om Purnamadah Purnamidam

Purnat Purnamudachyate

Purnasya Purnamadaya

Purnameva Vashsihate


“That is whole. This is whole / From the whole the whole becomes manifest. / From the whole when the whole is negated / What remains is again the whole.” This chant almost visually seems to refer to itself. If we omit the various endings or even a word, the whole of it seems to remain. And another common chant, Om Shantih Shantih Shantih or “Om Peace Peace Peace.”

It seems repetition is a practice common throughout different cultures and religions. “Once we have uttered a sound, we take pleasure in repeating it. We find repetition in magic spells, in solemn oaths, in orations, in ads, as well as in the speech noises a baby makes for its own pleasure.” A poem may also use repetition for whatever its desired effect. Some forms may even call for repeating words, lines, phrases, rhyme scheme and so forth. “When a sound is clearly struck in a poem, it tends to attract similar sounds” when using assonance, consonance, rhyme, or alliteration (Nims 158).

Many agree that chanting mantra is a powerful tool used to heal the body. Dr. David Simon of neurological services at Sharp Cabrillo Hospital has found that “healing chants are chemically metabolized into endogenous opiates that are both internal painkillers as well as healing agents in the body” (Gaynor 18). Khan states, “modern science has discovered [...] that on certain plates the impression of sound can be made clearly visible. In reality the impression of sound falls clearly on all objects, only it is not always visible.” All manifestations are audible first, then visible and “all we see in this objective world, every form, has been constructed by sound and is the phenomenon of sound…. every syllable has a certain effect” (Khan 268).

These “certain plates” refer to experiments conducted by Hans Jenny (1904 – 1972) was a Swiss physician, who founded cymatics (the Greek root kyma means “wave”)—a field of study that refers to the “visual representation of the relationship” between “sound and form.” In his experiments, he used pure tones or “simple sine-wave vibrations within the human auditory range” in order to move materials such as “powders, pastes, and liquids into lifelike, flowing forms that mirrored patterns found throughout nature, art, and architecture” (Paul 12).

Among other phenomena, light and sound demonstrate their presence in the form of waves. A wave is “an oscillatory disturbance that moves away from the source and transports matter over large distances.” Our senses are receptors for perceiving various frequencies of vibrations. Radio waves are the lowest, then microwaves, then light waves all the way to U.V. rays to x-rays. Ancient Indian Rishis were like synesthetes whose faculties of sight and hearing became cross-wired as they “saw” and “heard” mantras, Mantra Dhrista, in their meditations. Therefore perceiving sound waves as light waves and vice versa. We can only perceive a small range of these frequencies through various instruments and measuring devices, but no matter what the frequency, these forms are manifestations of sound vibration. Although the human ear can only perceive a limited range of frequencies as tones, we often still sense waves that are beyond our auditory range. And the fact that a wave “moves away from the source,” or the speaker in the case of speech, and “transports matter over large distances” could hypothetically explain why one might utter a mantra and the effect can be far reaching. Thus, a person who chants mantra actually believes that the words spoken have the power to create an intended reality—in essence, generating and shaping sounds to create physical forms or affect existing ones (Paul 12). John Frederick Nims, who wrote, Western Wind: An Introduction to Poetry, says that “we can think of words as having not only a mind (their meanings) but also a body—the structure of sound in which their meaning lives” (151).