The only discipline required for the Calm Technique is that you practise it regularly and that you work at having only one thing on your mind at the one time. At no stage do you have to force yourself to concentrate or to think a certain way.
As a structured meditation, the Calm Technique requires you to follow a specified path of action (mental activity). Later, we will learn of modifications to this technique, but initially, there is an established route for you to follow. It is similar to one of the most well-known and popular routes in the world today: the mantra meditation.
THE HISTORY OF THE MANTRA
If we were to review meditation by technique alone, the Calm Technique would appear to have much in common with a type of meditation that Indian Yogis have been using for over three thousand years (as taught by Shri Shankaracharya). The methods and attitudes it was based on probably evolved even earlier. This same method was used in ancient ancient Judaic meditation, as well as some of the early Christian ones.
The core of this method was a single word or phrase, which in the Indian tradition was called the mantra. It was intuitively conceived by a teacher or guru and passed on to a student or disciple who used it exclusively as the major part of his or her meditation. Although it was permissible for this mantra to be any sound or phrase, it was often a Sankskrit* word or words from the Vedic hymns which form the basis of Hindu scripture.
The mantra was usually a single word or expression, or a complete prayer which was considered to be of great spiritual significance.
That is the classic application of the mantra. The mantra type of meditation (also known as 'Japa' or 'Japam') has been in constant use throughout the centuries by communities and sects who knew nothing of Sanskrit. Even though some non-Indian countries, such as China and Japan, often used Sanskrit mantras, most chose their mantras from their own languages, a practice that is still followed today.
*Sanskrit is a sacred language that was used in north-west India about 1500 BC.
For a Hindu, a Sanskrit mantra may be important. For a Westerner, where the opportunity of receiving the perfect Sanskrit word or phrase is a rather remote possibility, it has negligible importance. Where there is no cultural affinity with a language, however 'sacred' it may be, no great benefit to be derived from using it.
Ancient tradition also dictated that a mantra should be passed from teacher to student. Some sects today place quite a lot of emphasis on 'personal' mantras. Such a mantra is claimed to have been specially divined for an individual, often for a fee. Even though the results are successful, there is a fair amount of mystical show business and commercialism involved in the process. I very much doubt whether any Western teacher of a few years' experience can pluck a Sanskrit word out of either thin air or the Vedas to give you a mantra with more cosmic properties than one you would have chosen from your own humble English dictionary.
I remember once, as a child, being invited to a Catholic chapel for evening prayer. There were about 200 young men and boys in there reciting 'the Rosary', which incidentally, takes about twenty minutes, the same as the Calm Technique. I consider this my first practical demonstration of meditation, where the constant repetition of some wellworn phrases (mantra) managed to banish everything from the mind and elevate the consciousness in a way that I now associate with the experience of the Calm Technique. While it would never be described as such in theological circles, the Rosary functions as a type of mantra.
Some of the more well-known mantras you may have heard of are 'Om' (or 'Aum' as it's often spelt), 'Hare Krishna', 'Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy upon me a sinner' (the mantra of early Christian monks), 'Kyrie Eleison' (Latin), 'Allah al akbar' (Arabic). There are millions of them being used very effectively every day.
The mantra type of meditation is widely used today. It is recognized in all schools as being one of the more effective methods available, and has certainly been the one which has enjoyed the most success in the Western world.
CALM EXPRESSIONS
Some medical experiments have shown that the physiological responsed of subjects who had used the 'spiritually superior' type og mantras were just as pronounced when the subjectd meditated with nonsensical words provided at random by scientists controlling the experiments. Of course this is no measure of the spiritual qualities of those mantras, nor is it for us to question the spiritual worth of disciplines which have evolved over thousands of years. However, as the Calm Technique is concerned mainly with the temporal (physical, mental and emotional) aspects, the origins of the mantra are less important. As far as the Calm Technique is concerned, the meaning of the mantra has about as much inherent significance to the meditator as the colour of the barbell does to the weightlifter.
-- This excerpt was taken from The Calm Technique by Paul Wilson
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