APPALACHIAN FILM FESTIVAL, Jean Carlo Stephenson Auditorium, Huntington, WV April 26-28, 2024
This affirmation mantra is a component of Bill's daily mantra practice and is taken from the Mantra-tantra-prakāśana ('Light on the Expansive power of Mantra'), a lost text. However, the mantra was preserved by Śrï Lakshmaṇa-gupta, in his commentary on the Śāradā-Tilaka-Tantra (1493 A.D.)
अहं देवो न चान्योऽस्मि ब्रह्मैवाऽहं न शोकभाक् ।
सच्चिदानन्दरूपोऽहं नित्य-मुक्त-स्वभाववान् ॥
ahaṃ devo na cānyo'smi brahmaivā'haṃ na śokabhāk |
sac-cid-ānanda-rūpo'haṃ nitya-mukta-svabhāvavān ||
I am Divine and nothing less
Love manifest not Sorrowful
Being, Aware, and Bliss forms me
.Essence Nature boundless and free.
(rendered in anuṣṭubh metre by B.Price)
This mantra is chanted in classic anuṣṭubh metre with 2 lines of 16 syllables each. It was mentally recited while the yogin practiced meditation supported by 'outer' breath retention (bāhya-kumbhaka), or holding space between expiration and inspiration. The purpose is to still all sensual distractions and thus the mental activity (buddhi) that follows leaving only pure subjective awareness (manas). In this state, manas becomes untethered from ego (ahamkara) leaving it in pure aloneness (kaivalya - the goal of Patañjali yoga) only receptive the eternal (akṣaram) sound of OṂ. While all the senses are fully absorbed, the only remaining connection with life is through awareness of this internal/external sound resonance (nāda). In this state the yogin can easily become untethered from life and experience actual death from this state of yoga sleep (nidrā). In that moment, with the yogin teetering on he edge of death, recites an affirmation mantra like this one. One that is said to produce the very reality described in the mantra itself!
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