Mahakatha's Meditation Mantras

Heard a lot of reasons why people don't meditate, and

yet the most common one of them, whether people say it out

loud or not, is this.

We are not comfortable listening to our own

thoughts. Let's talk about why this is

and where this comes from in today's episode. Before I

introduce you to today's mantra. So hello and welcome

back, dear listener, to this week's episode of the

Mahakatha Meditation Mantras podcast. I'm your host,

Preeti, and today we are talking about our

discomfort with our own thoughts.

We don't like a lot of our thoughts. A lot of our

thoughts are not positive. They are not uplifting. They are not

constructive. Instead, many of them

are dark thoughts. We may find that our thoughts tend to go in

some really dark places, so much so that we may be

embarrassed or ashamed of those thoughts. We might be

shocked by our own ability to think thoughts on

topics that might be taboo, or think thoughts of

hatred or anger or resentment,

or play out scenarios that are unimaginable

and too dark for an innocent heart.

We might secretly be ashamed of this side of our

thoughts. And some of us fear that as soon as

we sit down doing nothing else but observing our

thoughts, as soon as we close our eyes and

turn our attention inwards, within the

next few seconds, these

uncomfortable thoughts will begin to pop up.

We fear that our ability to think

uplifting thoughts, to think joyful

thoughts, helpful thoughts, bright thoughts, is

overpowered by our ability to think

dark, negative, or even destructive

thoughts. Many of us struggle with

this imbalance that we perceive within. And

as we speak about this today, dear listener, we are

indirectly, unknowingly, speaking about the

symbolism behind the very special, very

powerful weapon that is seen in Lord

Shiva's hands. That is the threshula,

the trident that Lord Shiva holds in his

hand, the one that stands tall with three

sharp edges, that threshula and

those edges symbolize,

symbolize the three states of energy

and thought that our mind is constantly

shuttling between. These three states

are also known as gunas in

Sanskrit. And the first of these gunas, the

first tip of Shiva's trident, and the

first state of our energy and our thoughts

is Sattva. Sattva

represents complete purity and

harmony. Sometimes our thoughts are full

of sattva. They are bright, they are

happy, they are peaceful. They are well

wishing towards others and to ourselves.

They are thoughts of patience. They are thoughts of

kindness. And they are those thoughts of

extreme spiritual calmness that we sometimes

show even in the most difficult situations.

That unusual wisdom that we experience

coming from within from our own minds, that

state is sattva. And you and I

know that Satva somewhere

exists and thrives within our minds.

The second state, the second guna, the

second tip of Shiva's trident,

is known as Rajas. Rajas is

passion. Rajas is activity, is

effort, is movement, is constant

creation. Rajas is that figurative

fire within all of us that gives us our

ambitions, that gives us our desires, our

drives, and allows us to dream and go

after our dreams, despite whatever gets in the way.

That energy, that focus, that determination,

is known as Rajas. Whether you are extremely

driven and you're always trying to create something new and you're

always moving, always doing things, or

whether you generally feel a lack of energy,

whether you feel lethargic, whether you feel lazy or

confused or directionless, a lot of the times.

This tells you how much Rajas you

have within your spirit. And the third and the

last tip of the trident, the third

guna that every one of us, every

living being has within itself,

is Tamas. Tamas

stands for darkness. Tamas

represents ignorance. Tamas represents

illusion, fear, negative emotions.

Tamas is a blanket of that darkness that we

sometimes feel within us, that we sometimes feel

sweeping over all our thoughts and taking over

our minds, putting us in a place of feeling

depressed, putting us in a place of feeling deeply

angry, deeply disturbed, deeply

pained and unable to come out of it.

That darkness that we are afraid to show the

world, that darkness that we are afraid to sit

down with, is tamas. And if you have

been having a hard time accepting that part of you,

accepting the darker, unsteady, uncomfortable

parts of you, know that darkness

is such a natural state of our

existence that it even finds itself

on the divine weapon of God himself.

We are mere humans in this physical world,

gifted with a mind that can go to the

extremes in either direction, we can

think of amazing things. We can create

incredible ideas. We can invent and

discover and solve problems and pray for

each other and create miracles and manifest

reality with our minds. But

we can also destroy our peace of mind. We

can also generate fear and

hatred. We can also lie. We can

also experience fear and greed and

jealousy and darkness taking over our

thoughts. The fact that darkness is not

simply ignored or discarded by

even the gods should be a sign for us

humans to not ignore it and discard

it, either. Instead, if we could visualize our

minds from a distance as this trident

of Sattva - that is pure, positive energy, Rajas - that

is passion and desire and ambition, and Tamas -

that is negative thought and energy. If we

can acknowledge that we are having a bad

thought. We are having thoughts that feel dark and wrong and painful

if we can first acknowledge that and then

say, all right, what else is my mind made up

of apart from this darkness? Every time we

look at our Tamas, if we were to slightly shift our gaze

and try to find one thought of

sattva, one thought of rajas, then

we would slowly become more accepting of

our Tamas, more graceful towards our Tamas,

more forgiving and nourishing towards our Tamas

instead of hating that part about ourselves.

And as we become kinder and gentler towards

our own Tamas, we notice that

that side of us starts becoming lighter. We

will notice that we experience

less and less fear, less and less

strong aggressive emotion.

We will begin to notice that we are more comfortable

with the silence of our own minds, and we are

easily able to soothe any negative thoughts

and cultivate a thought that is pure and positive

and joyful in its place.

Speaking of thoughts that are pure and positive and

joyful, I bring to you

today's special Shiva mantra.

That is. And that is the Shiva Rudra

Gayatri mantra. This chant envisions

Lord Shiva in the form of rudra, which is his

fiercest, perhaps angriest, and

perhaps most human form. This form of

Shiva and this mantra has a way of

slowly reaching out to our darkness,

to our most uncomfortable thoughts and truths,

to the things that keep us up at night, and

slowly soothing it with the power of

sound and with the power of your own intention.

The Shiva Rudra Gayatri mantra is

something I want you to try listening to at the beginning of

your day, for the next few days, or whenever you feel

that sudden overwhelm of negative thought, or when you

feel yourself entering that dark place in your mind

again, try listening to this mantra,

allowing that darkness to slowly

settle. You are more than your

darkest thoughts. You are more than the darkest

days of your past and present. You

are even beyond your purest thoughts, your

greatest ambitions, or your most

disturbing truths. You are a

fragment of Shiva who is

beyond all these three states of thought.

And I hope as you meditate, you

realize how blissful your life is

meant to be. If you don't already have this

mantra, you can buy this mantra now at a 30%

discount. Just use the code mentioned in the description of this

episode and try spending some time with this

mantra and with your mind and let me

know how it goes. If you find a minute in the coming

week, please leave us a review. Please let

me know your thoughts on this podcast and on the

themes that we discuss and open up about.

I would love to hear your story, especially if

you've been a regular listener of this podcast.

Thank you so much for joining in for today's episode. I will

be back next week with another beautiful

symbolism of Lord Shiva and a beautiful

mantra for you. Until then, my dear listener,

stay happy and stay blessed. Bye.