---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <fairfieldlife@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
When MMY first started out in Kerala, according to 'Beacon Light of the Himalayas', he only used Ram (for the guys) and Shyam (for the gals), not unlike the ISKCON pundit boys who sing the maha mantra. Sure about that? I found copies of the beacon light online, and there is no such reference in it. Rather, to the opposite, there is a report, that the persons mantra is selected according to their Ishta Devata, Also people are adviced to meditate for one hour, or if they don't experience Ananda, to just meditate long enough. There is no mention of the Ram mantra or the Shyam mantra there. On which page would that be? It was only later in 1957 that MMY started using the five bijas and created the sixteen variants bijas to include the Saraswati bija which he got from SBS. Again, where do you get this from? Can you name a source? In 1957 Maharishi was still in India, and AFAIK there was no other uniform method of selection there. According to MMY, the Shankaracharya tradition is the custodian of the bija mantras. This makes sense because the sixteen bijas are enumerated in the Sound Arya Lahari, compiled by the Adi Shankara, the main scripture of the Sri Vidya sect. Go figure. A yoga teacher can use any seed sounds they want toin spiritual practice, even make up new ones, as long as they are given out in a ritual initiation. Otherwise, they are just simple phonemes or quasi-phonemes with no apparent meaning. However, most Indians, and thus most TMers, only use bijas in a short sentence, such as with the word 'namah' at the end. You get one single bija mantra in TM and then you get the more advanced technique with the added words. So, you get the seed sound and then the fertilizer; you water the root and enjoy the fruit. All you have to do is start the mantra and then just baby sit your bija and watch it grow. It's that simple! On 10/10/2013 9:41 AM, Michael Laurenson wrote: Hi Richard, I taught TM in the early 70s and been reading FFL posts for awhile. I've read that shyam, shyama are related to Krishna. Are these still considered Saraswati mantras? Warm regards, Michael
