Method of mantra chantin

As it is already discussed above that mantra chanting or japa is carried out to ward off
or to overcome all unknown and unseen causes of disturbance while mantra meditation
is taken up to quieten the mind and thus the results are more seen in the present. In fact
the  scripture  says that the  physical  puja with  all  worship  material  bestows  results  by
removing  all  unseen  obstacles.  Whereas  purely  mental  worship  bestows  immediate
results of a quiet mind by removing the immediately seen obstacles. Japa, which is both
a  mental  and  a  vocal  prayer,  has  the  effects  of  both  these  things  and  thus  it   attracts
adrishata (or  unseen  results)  and  also  drishta (seen  results).  Keeping  these  things  in
mind the japa or mantra chanting is taken up.
Some  of the  methods  and  rules  of  mantra chanting  are  given  in the “Japa or Mantra
chanting section”. There is one more very important procedure in japa which is called
“purascharana”.  Purascharana means  chanting of  the  mantra as many  hundred
thousand times as the number of letters in the mantra. For example the Gayatri Mantra
consists of 24 letters. Hence  for Gayatri Purascharana one needs to do a minimum of
2400,000 chantings of Gayatri Mantra. In fact in addition to this, as given in the japa or
mantra chanting  section  point  no.7  havan or  fire  ritual,  tarpana or  water  oblations,
marjana or water sprinkling, brahmana bhojana or giving  food to holy men and extra
japa for the care takers  ---- all this consists of a Purascharana. A constant number of
japa is done daily in the same place and same time.
There is another type of Purascharana, called  by name Chandrayana.  In this method,
mantra japa is taken up according to the cycles of the moon. On the new moon day the
worship is taken up and on the first day after new moon day a japa of 1000 is done and
daily 1000 japa is increased and thus one will be doing 15000 mantra chantings on the
full moon day and again it will be reduced by 1000 daily to do 1000 on the day before
new  moon  day.  A  count  is  kept  for the total  japa  done.  This  is  also  performed  along
with restrictions on food both quality and quantity.
All  these are  taken up,  as  we  had  already  seen, mainly  to take care  of  the  obstacles
arising  out  of  unseen  factors  but  it  also  helps  in obtaining  seen  result  of  a  quiet  and
tranquil mind helping one to contemplate on the ultimate truth