Japa or mantra chantin

Meditation is understood and defined differently by different people. Meditation is used
by many as a relaxation technique. Strictly speaking meditation, or dhyana in Sanskrit,
is  much  more  than  relaxation.  It  is  defined  as  Saguna  Brahma  Vishaya  Mânasa
Vyaparaha.  The  meaning  of  it  is  that  it  is  a mental  activity  related  to  the  Saguna
Brahma. But  before coming to this stage  one  needs to  have a  deep  relaxation in  both
body and mind and mantra is found to be one which helps a great deal in this regard. In
1970s  physiologist  R.Keith  Wallace  proved  that  mantra  meditation  (Transcendental
Meditation),  which  is  a  very  deep  relaxation  technique,  had profound  effects  on  the
body. He proved that mantra meditation helped one to enter “Restful Alertness” which
Wallace called as “Hypometabolic Wakefulness” to indicate that the metabolism of the
subject had decreased  while  he  retained  wakeful  consciousness.  Sleep  is  a
hypometabolic  state  in  which  oxygen  consumption  decreases,  heartbeat  slows,  and
consciousness  blanks  out.  The  waking  state,  on  the  other  hand,  is  marked by  higher
oxygen  consumption,  a  faster  heartbeat  and  an  alert  mind.  Wallace  found  that these
opposites  were  united  in  mantra  meditation.  He says  that  blood pressure,  near-pointvision  and hearing-threshold,  which  typically  decline  as  people  grow  old,  in  fact
improve  in  long-term  practice  of  meditation.  Dr.Deepak  Chopra  in his  book  titled
‘Ageless  body, timeless  mind’, mentions that  overall  health  improves  considerably  as
one practices mantra meditation. When one chants mantra and starts relaxing, one starts
staying  in his  own  original  state  of  quietness,  which  is  the  basis  of  all  the creation,
which the modern physics call Quantum Space. There is silence in between two mantra
chants and when looked into the process a mantra can be looked upon as the one, which
rises in silence and goes back into silence. Silence is there throughout and a chant rises
in  it  and goes  back  into it.  Silence  is the  basis  of  all the  sounds.  Silence contains  all
sounds. This  silence is  not the  relative  silence, which again comes and goes. Relative
silence is  replaced by  relative  sound. But the absolute  silence is the  one, which is the
basis of all sounds and even the relative silence. Absolute silence cannot be observed as
an  object  of  experience  like  any  other  object.  Absolute  silence can  even  be  called
absolute sound because both relative sound and relative silence derive their existence in
the absolute. The Mandukya Upanishad talks about this and  further discussion on this
topic is carried out under the title nirguna Brahma upasana. Thus it is to be observed
that  in  mantra  japa,  mantra chanting  is  the  primary  focus  and  in  mantra  meditation,
relaxation becomes the main focus and the mantra is taken as a helping aid to just glide
into a state of deep relaxation