Why repeating a mantra during daily activities doesn't make much sense

Recently I got to thinking about the many years (about thirty-five) that I did my best to mentally repeat a mantra not only during my morning meditation, but also as much as possible during the rest of my daily activities.

UPDATE: I meandered quite a bit in coming to the conclusion expressed in this post's title. Here's the short version: The world is always changing. Unexpected challenges, surprises, problems, opportunities, and such continually pop up. Our minds should be similarly flexible to deal with these happenings in the world and our life. Rigidity should be avoided. But some meditation practices have a mentality of "you should always do..." or at least "You should do ... as much as possible." If that ... is being mindful of the reality both without and within us, great. If it's anything else, that's too much rigidity.

What spurred these thoughts was a book by Adam Gazzaley and Larry Rosen, The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World. I bought it two and half months ago, but it had been sitting in a pile of unread books until I decided to pull it out and start reading it.

It's more interesting than I thought it would be. The general thesis is familiar: that smartphones, social media, and other twenty-first century innovations are messing up our ability to focus and concentrate. 

Of course, anyone who reads books about meditation written hundreds of years ago, and I've read a bunch of them, knows that people back then also were having trouble keeping their minds from straying to extraneous subjects. So the distracted mind is by no means a modern problem. 

However, Gazzaley and Rosen describe why our current technological devices and the internet made the habitual problem of distraction an even bigger problem. I haven't gotten to their recommendations yet for how to deal with this.

The first book of their book lays out why our minds aren't designed to stick with just one thing. This isn't a bug, but a feature. For they say that likely evolution selected for distraction as an effective foraging method.

There an early human is, happily picking berries from plants growing wild (no agriculture yet) in a particular berry patch. Eventually this person notices that the berries are becoming harder to find, since so many have been picked. What to do?

Staying in that spot would be easy, but increasingly unproductive. Searching for a better supply of berries somewhere else would take time and energy, but it makes sense to do this when a current foraging location no longer is paying off.

So we humans are wired to forage. The difference now is that most of us don't forage for food, but for information. The authors write:

Now let's consider the MVT [marginal value theorem] and replace foraging for food resources with foraging for information resources, and insert you as the information foraging animal. Here, the patches are sources of information, such as a website, an email program, or your iPhone. Note that each of these patches exhibits diminishing returns of resources over time as you gradually deplete the information available from them, and/or you become bored or anxious with foraging the same source of information. 

And so, given both your inherent knowledge of the diminishing resources in the current patch and your awareness of the transit time to reach a new information patch, you will inevitably decide to make a switch to a new information patch after some time has passed. Thus, the model reveals factors that influence our decisions about how long we fish in a particular information pond before moving on to fish in the next pond.

A basic point here is that our minds are flexible. Sometimes we're drawn to concentrate on a certain thing. Sometimes we're drawn to leave that thing and search out something else. This is one of the messages that is conveyed in the book through an easy to visualize scenario:

One of our thirsty ancestors is prowling through a deep forest and emerges into an unfamiliar clearing where he spots an enticing stream. Success! But, despite the powerful, actually reflexive, drive to drink, he does not charge forward. Rather, he pauses...suppresses the impulse, evaluates, reaches a decision, and formulates a goal.

Previous experience in this forest has taught him that where there is water, there is often also a highly effective predator hiding nearby -- the jaguar. This is where that critical pause in the perception-action reflex of "see water -- drink water" allows him to undertake an initial rapid evaluation of the situation to determine if this setting deserves more careful assessment. 

This leads him to decide that there may indeed be an invisible threat. He then advances to establishing the top-down goal of carefully evaluating the safety of approaching the stream.

To accomplish his goal, he now engages his selective attention to focus his hearing on detecting a specific sound that he knows a jaguar makes when lying in wait for prey: a deep, nearly inaudible, guttural grumbling. He selectively directs his vision toward detecting the characteristic pattern and color of the jaguar: a strippled orange and black.

And knowing the distinctive odor of this creature, he selectively focuses his olfactory sense on its characteristic musky smell. In addition, he has the insight to know that this particular predator tends to hunt in the thick brush that lies along the left bank of the stream, and so he directs this multisensory selective attention like an arrow at that specific location in space: he fires and waits for a signal.

This scenario gets discussed in more detail by the authors. I'm sharing it to illustrate that our attention involves both top-down and bottom-up influences.

Top-down is what I'm doing right now: deciding to write a blog post about the book I'm reading, then using my attention to carry out that decision/goal. Bottom-up is what would happen if our smoke alarm went off while I was writing this post. That would instantly grab my attention and spur me to find out why the alarm is sounding. 

Which gets me back to the mantra-repeating that I used to do. I still repeat a mantra occasionally when I meditate, and usually when I'm going to sleep. However, I have stopped repeating a mantra at other times during the day, which was encouraged during the thirty-five years I practiced a form of meditation taught by Radha Soami Satsang Beas, an spiritual organization headquartered in India.

This now strikes me as making little or no sense. I talked about this in a 2024 blog post: "A time for mindfulness, a time for mind wandering."

During my intensely meditating years, when I'd spend about two hours a day in disciplined meditation, I also tried to repeat a mantra as much as possible during the rest of the day.

I'm not sure how to classify this activity, as mindfulness or mind wandering. Repeating a mantra while doing everyday activities like driving a car, washing dishes, or even talking to someone, seems to have characteristics of each.

For example, I started to do my mantra meditation thing seriously just after I graduated from college with a degree in psychology. While waiting to start in a master's of social work program, I had a job as a teacher's aide at Santa Clara High School.

Part of that job involved counseling students with behavioral problems. I didn't really know what I was doing when I talked with a student. Plus, I was so enthused about repeating my mantra as much as possible during the day, even at work, often I wouldn't be listening very attentively to what a student was telling me.

Looking back, I wasn't very mindful of the moment in which I found myself. My mind wasn't wandering, but it also wasn't paying full attention to the here-and-now of sensory/external reality. I was focused on repeating some words in my mind, my internal subjective reality.

So I can see the wisdom in the New York Times piece. It's good to let the mind wander, and it's good to let the mind be concentrated. No hard and fast rule here. Whatever seems appropriate at the time.

This is similar to the ancestor coming to a stream where a jaguar could be hiding. Mindfully walking to the water, bending down, and taking a drink while repeating a mantra to keep the mind focused on that activity risks becoming jaguar food. Using all of his senses to determine whether a jaguar is present is what our ancestor needs to do.

Likewise, we need to be flexible in how we use our minds, especially since there is no difference between us and our mind. Our mind is us, which is why we're constantly changing and adapting to new information, just like our ancestor approaching a stream.

Comments

[Karim W. Rahmaan]

How unreal is the supernatural?

How can one know for sure?

For the scientific adept, the whole thing could be bogus.

But how about for those who believe in things like Spiritual Medicine and that old, old, field of real study?

Bing it, or what so have you. Or Google search these lost studies to see all the individuals who may have recovered medically but without a known science to back up the reasons as to why..

So to me, the supernatural doesn't need to exist for someone not in that hospital bed. Perhaps dying because of for example, a Ranbaxy medicine that is lightly regulated. Then sold to a Japanese buyer who made a haphazard investment.

But life is fair, and a karma is universal.

Damn, meds affected me personally. But whatever and whoever bought the Ranbaxy Company bought its debt and owes me more than they know, plus all their 'grabbed land.'

smh

---
sorry Brian I tried to post this in the ".... Beas truly has two gurus now" - Thread, but only my true name showed, but no writing above it. Maybe some bug or supernatural haha
---

[Ron E.]

I’d reckon that repeating a mantra is somewhat akin to continually thinking, as for instance when driving a car; so caught up in thought one can arrive at the destination having no recollection of the real world one passed through. Great if trying to plan or remember something but as many non-dualistic writers point out regarding meditation, thinking is of the past whereas to be present in the moment is, along with change, the only thing we can really know. It is known that, chanting can affect the brain giving the impression of achieving certain states that can be assessed as spiritual!

In the authors scenario re our ancestor and the stream (and maybe a bit pedantic of me) but they talk as though there is a person who is evaluating everything - i.e. “He selectively directs his vision toward detecting the characteristic pattern and colour of the jaguar: a stripped orange and black.” Whereas the reality is that all the processes our ‘ancestor’ accessed here in approaching the stream would all be performed via the brain’s previously acquired store of information.

The nature of the mind is information; its as though the huge network of neurons and synapsis are a seething web of information, much like the world wide web system. As well as continuously regulating the various body organs the brain also predicts how we need to respond to our environment via the senses. It is not necessary for there to be a separate decision-making self entity to do the evaluating – the brain/body organism along with the immediate environment is perfectly capable of assessing life’s on-going situation.

Of course, we habitually like to think that ‘I’ am in control which I guess is the real basis for the proliferation of supernatural beliefs and the basis for believing ourselves to be special and separate from the rest of the natural world.

[sant64]

The Church of Me.

Try to find just one essay where the author writes of the joys and benefits of serving others. Acts of charity? Nope. Anything along the lines of bodhicitta -- the compassionate motivation to help others? Nay. Any allowance for the positive effects of agape? Nein.

It's a body of sermons playing on the same theme of Me, First Last, and Always.

I suppose many people are interested in religious matters out of self-interest. No doubt many are attracted to Sant Mat because it offers a Disneyland of exotic esoteric experiences. I must admit I was one of them.

But there's a larger import to religion in general and Sant Mat in particular than just selfish interest in spiritual jollies and securing one's nest in heaven. That import is seva.

Real living is in seva, in serving. Real living is not in Me doing the correct meditation technique and through that realizing the truth of emptiness, or making the Guru appear in the til of the tisra, or seeing light. That's as big a pitfall as slogging off to church to get one's ticket punched. And reading philosophy and neuroscience to ferret out just what "I Am" is no better. Books and philosophy never truly helped anyone.

All the religions are correct that "the dharma" is in serving others. In the simplest terms, mood follows action. If I serve others, I feel good about it. But if I'm focused on my self, serving my self, I don't feel so good.

Probably the most significant evolution in Buddhism was the advent of Mahayana: The shift from meditating to liberate oneself to the motivation to save all sentient beings. A similar paradox of service is found in all religions. Give! In its most profound forms, service is total submission.

Judging from its silence on this topic of seva, this church apparently finds all of the above irrational and abhorrent, preferring a path of self-sufficiency. To each their own, but I don't see the Me path working for anyone.

[um]

Each meditation form is based upon repetition.
Why?

All practices are developed to manipulate the body brain system

Mantra training can be compared with the way how we learn mant day to day practices like walking, driving cars, dancing or taichi forms.

In the beginning all attention, awareness or whatever goes into mastering and coordination of separate activities. Once done the whole of the activity disappears by way of speaking into the "background". We are aware an not aware of walking when we go some where. If we go on focusing on the details of the process of walking we easily stumble and cannot make even a step forwards.

This happens also with the people working an assembly line. Not all labor at the line allows it and not all are able to do so but for some, the mastering of what has to be done, sets their minds free, so free that they have come up with brilliant ideas. Once they are transferred to other positions, they no longer have that skill.

So the practice of meditation HAS to be automated will it be fruitful and set the mind free ..the worst thing that can happening to an mediator is going on to hold to the practice as if he was still mastering the practice.

Again ..some people, with a particular mindset are prone to do so and will always stumble

[sevainmanyforms]

Sant64 is right that seva is a keystone.
But how we define seva and its various manifestations is open to discussion.
One could indeed argue that Brian Hines is doing a wonderful seva by providing a forum to rationally discuss the ins and outs of Radha Swami philosophy.
Beas for all its seva projects doesn't really provide much information about its flaws, about its finances, and so on,
So Brian is shoring that seva up by doing what he is doing here, and lest we forget--all free.

Yes, seva comes in many forms,

[Appreciative Reader]

My 2c on this:

There’s two ways to approach mantra:

One would be the theologically determined way, which I believe is how RSSB sees this: which is to see the mantra as an end in itself, as a unique and sacred password to higher regions and/or higher states of being. …As far as this, it is a question of belief. If someone believes that extravagant cosmology and/or theology and/or worldview, then mantra meditation will make sense to them on those terms. And if someone finds that theology unsupported and therefore invalid, as I do, then on those terms mantra meditation will not make sense.

The other would be the use of mantra sans the theological mumbo jumbo. In this sense it is no different thatn Anapan. Indeed in Buddhism, just like there is attention on breath to focus one’s attention before launching into Insight meditation: likewise sometimes specific mantras and yantras are used. Seen in this light, it is no different than Anapan really.

…As far as maintaining this attention during the rest of the day, when away from sitting meditation proper: again, if one is sold on the theology, then that makes sense in terms of the theology; but sans the theological baggage, my own personal take would be that while mindfulness can always be resorted to, at all times, but supports --- be it breath, or mantra, or yantra --- should only be “places” of support, of sanctuary, that one returns to, but does not abide in. This sanctuary is within us, and available to us at all times, not just when we sit for meditation: but it is just that, sanctuary; it isn’t where we abide in when we actually participate in life in general. (Mindfulness on the other hand, that, absolutely, that’s doable at all times.)

[Jim]

Yes meditation is not needed for enlightenment/experiences. What we need is the easy and quick technique. Listen to the Frank Kepple technique narrated on youtube video 1 ,the technique is 3/4 of the way in. No gurus needed or spending money on them. I call it the enlightenment for Dummies. Cheers

[Karim W. Rahmaan]

[Paraphrasing]

"A difficult journey of a thousand miles can be made by taking the first steps. Even if we fall along our path, it is better to fall forward rather than back. In this way we're still nearing our destination." -Maharaj Ji

[um]

@ Karim W. Rahmaan

In an earlier entrance you wrote about "spiritual medicine" etc what was that all about?

[Karim W. Rahmaan]

"In an earlier entrance you wrote about "spiritual medicine" etc what was that all about?"

Posted by: um | September 15, 2024 at 02:09 AM

That people who believe in the supernatural, religion, spiritually, or the soul. Need it for studies like Spiritual Medicine. Have you ever heard of it?

With all the arguments here saying there's no evidence or sciences of the supernatural. 'Spiritual Medicine studies' have several sources:

https://www.google.com/search?q=spiritual+medicine+studies

[um]

@ Karim W. Rahmaan

>> That people who believe in the supernatural, religion, spiritually, or the soul. Need it for studies like Spiritual Medicine. Have you ever heard of it?<<

No I never did. This is the first time I heard of the term "spiritual Medicine" I have no idea what that is all about. Thank you for the link. I will try to find out.

That previous messages of yours is still cryptic for me. Maybe my english is not enough and/or my intellect ..or the wrong brand of coffee.

[um]

@ Karim W. Rahmaan

What I do remember are the words of Prof. Roberto Assagioli the founder of , Psychosynthesis. He said that the symptoms that make people seek the assistance of an therapist, can be due to a mental disease or a spiritual development process ... and ... that most professionals working in that field are not able to understand the difference.

I also do remember when I came to talk to an psychiatrist in trying to solve certain things he said that he could not be of any help as he considered it as an "spiritual problem"

I I have also come to the understanding that in these parts of the world spirituality was and stil is ...a no go ...for most professionals and that many of the people that asked for initiation in the past decennia from the different popular gurus etc were motivated such .That is my opinion and in no way it is intended to harm the feelings of anybody. by underlying psychological problems and are in fact not interested in spirituality as Maybe that is the carrot and the lords design ..I do not know. ...In the east it is poverty and maybe here mental problems that motivates people..

That all said, the late MSC wrote me in a letter that
>>the path of the saints is NOT meant to give any sort of psychic help to anyone, not for finding any truth at any other place in the world. It is not to be used for any other ulterior motive exept to take YOUR OWN soul back to the Lord<<

So maybe having mental problems it is better to see an counselor and otherwise seek guidance of a teacher if neeeded ...I do not know.

[Karim W. Rahmaan]

"..Psychosynthesis .."

Posted by: um | September 16, 2024 at 01:12 AM

This sounds like a very intellectual field. And an admirable one.

On coffee, I think Seattle's Best has a very good aroma. But the Shell gas stations don't always carry that brand. So 7-11's county jail tasting mix, also works when taken black.

Onward, you're correct on what the great Maharaj Ji told you. I brought up the spiritual medicine study per general. Even though the studies never comply with the constraints of modern science, the studies exist nonetheless. And they add more weight to the existence of the unknown or 'supernatural' argument WITH documented evidence.

Yet still, people can choose to believe in it or not. That's not bad. But what IS bad, is if someone DOES experience what the supernatural has to offer, say, inner LIGHT. Then turn around and deny that they saw it, that creates more confusion and untruth. Not only for them, but for others.

But so, did they really imagine that LIGHT? Were some kids outside playing with a flashlight piping it threw the window during that RSSB meditation sitting? Or were they awake the whole time and saw LIGHT just how RSSB claims? So why then deny that truth? As Brian did.

In conclusion, if they did see LIGHT while adhering to the method prescribed to them. They need to affirm that indeed they DID see LIGHT.

People know if they are daydreaming, or asleep. I did that a lot in elementary school. But if they were in fact meditating at the time, and they saw LIGHT. That gives even more weight to the supernatural/soul/there-is-a-God argument. Because here, even a nonbeliever saw LIGHT. When us believers are barely getting there.

[Spence Tepper]

Whatever method brings your mind to a top state of awareness, observation and balance is a good practice.

Every Olympian has their mental discipline to stay focused on their goal, alert, aware of their own functioning and location in space and time, and to push aside mental and emotional distraction.

That can also be an athlete at navigating this tiny life.

[Todd]

“Soon afterward, his father instructed him to repeat the longer Ram Mantra: "Sri Ram jai Ram jai jai Ram" and assured him that the chanting of this mantra would give him eternal happiness. Vittal Rao felt inspired to add "Om" to each repetition, and he began to chant the mantra "Om Sri Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai Ram" all through his waking hours.”

[Todd]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swami_Ramdas