Harmonizing with Saturn & The Formation of Our Solar System: Mantra Practice

In the video below, I describe my general intentions behind undertaking a practice of reciting 200,000 of the Saturn harmonizing mantra.

I also briefly recapitulate and reference a Caltech study on the formation of our Solar System, particularly the role played by the planet Saturn in saving Jupiter from spiraling into the Sun and swallowing the other planets along with it. I.e., Saturn is responsible for the fact that the Solar System, and therefore humans, still exists.

I have always been fascinated and drawn by Saturn since childhood. 

Planets are like gears in a clock, and people are like little gears. It's hard to scientifically know how planets affect our existence, aside from them being there and keeping the solar system in gravitational balance. And if there are many such large gears governing us little gears, all the large gears are just noise; it's hard to discern which signal is coming from which gear, and it all seems like noise to which we simply habituate (or mostly likely never notice) and forget exists.

Mantra is a technology -- yes, it is a technology, albeit a pre-modern one; see my earlier blog post -- it utilises sound as a means of knowing.

In the Vedic tradition, Saturn is said to be the ruler of karma (i.e. cause-effect relationships). In my own  practice (I have 6,000 recitations of this mantra behind me), I have noticed that the Saturn mantra increases awareness of thought-forms, tendencies, emotions, and unconscious scars that weigh down progress in life. A feeling of heaviness (Skt. tamas) can be produced, often along the central axis of the body. It's almost as if the mantra is kicking up detritus or debris from dead weight that may be being carried from the past.

2-3 hundred thousand mantra recitations is what is said in Vedic tradition to be required to achieve mastery over a mantra and its effects (Skt.  mantra siddhi). What's most important is how well something is practiced, not how much of it. That said, there's something to be said for repeated practice (Skt. abhyasa). This is my first time going for a 200,000 of any mantra, and I undertake it as an experiment with a certain intentionality behind it... a mixture of intuitive, visceral, and intellectual understanding and inference.

There are no modern tools to experience the essence of a particular object. Modern science currently has no way to prove or disprove that a particular mantra is associated with what it is claimed to be associated. In the meantime, if one is feeling experimental enough, it's worth giving it a whirl. The key is to have a "self-science" approach: notice effects of the mantra, be healthily skeptical (watch out for placebo effect), and pay attention how you feel before, during, and after a practice...

If you are feeling inclined to try mantra, and it's your first time, refer to my earlier blog post on the topic. If there's enough interest, I can do a separate post on Mantra 101. In any case, begin with utterance of simple phonemes, and become embodied in your experience of them. Rather than thinking about it, feel the sensations of the sound vibrations in the body and mind. This is an empirical venture.

If you're keen to try this mantra, begin with a few, slow recitations aloud. Once you can recite it from memory, pay closer attention to the sensations. If you're wanting more, use your fingers to count recitations and maybe go up to 108 using a set of mala beads.

Also, this practice overlaps with a social sadhana on Tao Semko's website.