--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > On Apr 18, 2008, at 8:47 AM, Richard J. Williams wrote: > > >>> traditionally it has no meaning: its > >>> just a sound whose effects are known to be good. > >>> > > Vaj wrote: > >> Actually, traditionally, it does have a meaning as > >> is witnessed by the numerous bija dictionaries which > >> define their meanings in some detail. > >> > > Nonsense. > > > Give me your mantra, I'll tell you it's meaning and quote the text it > came from. > > For example: > > ...another level of the TM mantra "Shreeng" is "Sa (the first letter) > indicates Mahalakshmi, Repha (the guttural whirring of the "R-sound") > indicates "dAna" (giving, imparting, "paying back"); "ee" (I) > indicates "Tushti", satisfaction and contentment, the Nada indicates > "Para", the transcendent--that which is "beyond"; and the Bindu > indicates the destroyer of discomforts and uneasiness. Thus shreeng > is the Bija or Seed for the worship of Lakshmi." -The mantrarthabhidanam > > (msg # 164856) >
This is the significance, the alleged affect the sound of the mantra has. When the TM organization says that the mantras have no meaning, they mean, and are starting to say "no intellectual meaning." Assuming your exposition above is correct in some verifiable sense, your term "meaning" becomes similar to "explanation"in scientific theories: this is how such things are thought to work, and the existence or non-existence of some "god" becomes irrelevant, save in philosophical debates, because it is an assumption that these effects are due to the god associated with the effect. One could easily assert that the god is associated with the effect because the effect was observed and some stone-age rationale was created to explain the observation. Lawson Lawson
