Christopher Isherwood re: Mantra Repetition
Here is the excerpt I was referring to in class this week by Christopher Isherwood. Yes, the Author of Berlin Stories (Caberet) was a Vedantist. And a good one at that.
From Ramamkrishna and His Disciples by Christopher Isherwood ©1965
In these days of commercial and political propaganda which makes use of subliminal indoctrination and the hypnotic repetition of slogans, it shoudl no longer be necessary to prove, even to an atheist, that japa [repetition of mantra] is effective. If a television advertisement can so permeate the consciousness of a community that the little children sing it in the streets – if some demonstrable lie about a neighbouring country can, by being repeated often enough, drive a whole nation war-mad – then how dare anyone claim that the repetition of the name and idea of God will have no effect upon the individual who practises it? We are creatures of reverie, not of reason. We spend a very small proportion of our time thinking logical, consecutive thoughts. It is within the reverie that our passions and prejudices – often so terrible in their consequences – build themselves up, almost unnoticed, out of slogans, newspaper headlines, chance-heard words of fear and greed and hate, which have slipped into our consciousness through our unguarded eyes and ears. Our reverie expresses what we are, at any given moment. The mantra, by introducing God into the reverie, must produce profound subliminal changes. These may not be apparent for some time, but, sooner or later, they will inevitably appear –first in the prevailing mood and disposition of the individual; then n a gradual change of character.
