Chapter 11: A Practical Word
This chapter is different from the ones that came before. It is shorter. It is plainer. It has no stories and very little theology. It is meant to be the chapter you return to when you are ready to sit down and actually do the thing.
If you have never chanted before, this is all you need.
Choose a Name
First, you need a word. A single word, or a short phrase, that you will repeat.
If you have a connection to Ram, say Ram. If Krishna is your door, say Krishna. If Christ is the name that opens something in you, say "Lord Jesus" or simply "Jesus." If you are Muslim and the Names of Allah are your inheritance, say "Allah" or "La ilaha illallah." If you have received a mantra from a teacher, use that. If you are Sikh, say "Waheguru."
If you have nothing, if you belong to no tradition and have received no mantra and feel no particular pull toward any name, then choose the syllable that feels most like prayer to you. It may be "God." It may be "Love." The anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing suggested exactly this: "Take but a little word of one syllable. Choose whichever you prefer, as long as it is of one syllable."
Do not agonize over the choice. The Name you choose today is not a lifelong contract. But once you have chosen, stay with it for a while. Sivananda taught: "It is better to stick to one Mantra only." Consistency deepens the groove. Switching from one Name to another every few days prevents the repetition from gathering momentum.
Find a Place
You do not need a meditation room. You do not need a temple or a riverbank or a spot under a sacred tree. A chair in your kitchen will do. A corner of your bedroom. The edge of your bed before you get up in the morning. Any place where you can sit for a few minutes without being interrupted.
If you can face east or north, some traditions recommend it. If you cannot, face whatever direction your chair happens to point. Do not let the absence of ideal conditions become a reason not to begin.
Sit Down
Sit in a way that is comfortable but alert. You are not trying to relax into sleep. You are trying to be present.
A straight back helps. If you can sit cross-legged on the floor, that is fine. If a chair is better for your body, use a chair. Place your feet flat on the ground. Let your hands rest in your lap or on your knees.
If you have a mala, hold it in one hand. Let the beads hang naturally. You will use your thumb and middle finger (or whatever grip feels comfortable) to slide one bead forward with each repetition.
Close your eyes if that helps. Or leave them softly open, gaze resting on the floor a few feet ahead. Neither squinting nor staring.
Say the Name
Now say it. Aloud. Not loudly. Not in a whisper. Just audibly. Loud enough so that you can hear it with your own ears. The Shadhiliyya Sufi tradition puts it perfectly: "Start by saying the Name softly, yet loud enough so that you can hear it."
Let the sound fill your mouth and leave it. Listen to it. Feel the shape of the syllable on your tongue. Feel the breath that carries it forward.
Say it again.
And again.
If you have a mala, slide one bead with each repetition. Let the rhythm of the fingers match the rhythm of the voice. If you have no mala, simply repeat. You do not need to count.
When the Mind Wanders
It will wander. Within seconds, probably. You will be saying Ram, and then you will be thinking about what you need to buy at the store, or replaying something your colleague said, or noticing that your knee hurts. This is not failure. This is the mind doing what the mind does. It has been doing it for your entire life. It will not stop just because you sat down and closed your eyes.
When you notice the mind has wandered, do not scold it. Do not berate yourself. Do not conclude that you are doing it wrong. Simply bring your attention back to the sound. Say the Name again. The wandering and the returning are both part of the practice.
Sivananda offered practical counsel for this: "When the mind wanders, do the Japa aloud, or whisper the Mantra for some time and come back to mental Japa again as soon as possible." If you have been chanting softly and the mind keeps slipping, chant a little louder. Let the volume anchor you. Sivananda noted that "the loud Japa shuts out all worldly sounds." Sometimes the simplest remedy for distraction is to make the Name louder than the distraction.
Sivananda also warned, with gentle humor, against turning the practice into a race: "Do not do the Japa in a hurried manner, like a contractor who tries to finish his work in a short time." There is no finish line. There is no quota to meet. You are not getting something done. You are being present to a Name. Let the pace be easy, like the pace of breathing.
How Long
At the beginning, five minutes is enough. Ten minutes is generous. If you can do one full round of a mala, 108 repetitions, that takes roughly ten to fifteen minutes at a gentle pace.
If five minutes feels like an eternity, do three. If three feels like an eternity, do one. The duration is less important than the regularity. Better one minute every day than thirty minutes once a week.
If you find, over time, that you want to sit longer, sit longer. Anandamayi Ma taught: "Within the twenty-four hours of the day, some time must be definitely dedicated to God. Resolve, if possible, to engage regularly in japa of a particular Name or mantra while sitting in a special posture, and gradually add to the time or the number of repetitions. Fix the rate and the interval at which you will increase, say fortnightly or weekly."
Gradually. That is the word. Do not try to leap from five minutes to an hour. The increase should be natural, the way an appetite grows. You do not force yourself to eat more. You simply notice that you are hungrier than you were.
When to Practice
The traditional recommendation across many traditions is early morning, the period just before dawn. The Hindu tradition calls it Brahmamuhurta, the hour of Brahma. Sivananda called it the time of "spiritual influence and mysterious silence." The mind is quieter at dawn. The world has not yet begun its noise. There is a natural receptivity in the early hours that the bustle of midday makes difficult.
If you can practice at dawn, do. If you cannot, if your life does not permit it, if you have small children or an early commute or a night shift, practice when you can. Dusk is also recommended. Before sleep is also recommended. The Sikh tradition weaves the Name into the daily structure: dawn, dusk, before meals, before bed.
The honest truth is that the best time to practice is the time you will actually do it. A dawn practice that you skip every other day is less useful than a lunchtime practice you keep consistently. Find the slot in your day where five minutes of quiet are possible, and claim it. Guard it. Let it become a habit, as automatic as brushing your teeth.
What Happens Next
Ananta is clear about what the practice does, even at this most basic, physical level:
"You may say 'Ram, Ram, Ram, Ram.' It will still have an effect. It will not go to waste. Even said casually, even said while distracted, the Name touches layers of your being that your conscious mind cannot reach."
And: "The Ram starts clearing up the inner instrument. It just starts cleaning, emptying it."
You do not need to see the cleaning happen. You do not need to feel it. You do not need to understand the mechanism. The medicine works whether or not the patient can describe the biochemistry. Your job is to take the medicine. Regularly. Without expectation. Without demand.
Over days and weeks and months, something will shift. You may not be able to name it. Your family may notice before you do. A certain agitation may quiet. A certain gentleness may appear. The Name, repeated thousands of times in the privacy of your morning practice, will begin to do what the Name has always done: clear the inner instrument, one repetition at a time.
Sivananda described the attitude to hold while practicing: "When you repeat the Mantra, have the feeling or mental attitude that the Lord is seated in your heart, that purity or Sattva is flowing from the Lord into your mind, that the Mantra is purifying your heart, destroying desires, cravings and evil thoughts."
If you can hold that feeling, hold it. If you cannot, if it feels forced or artificial, then hold nothing at all. Just say the Name. The Name does not require your imagination. It requires only your voice and a few minutes of your day.
A Summary for the Reluctant
If even this chapter feels like too much, here is the practice in its barest form:
Sit down. Say a Name. Say it again. Keep going for a few minutes. When your mind wanders, bring it back. Do this every day.
That is all. That is the whole of the first movement. The lips move. The Name sounds. And somewhere, deeper than you can see, the fire has been lit.
You do not need to see the fire. You do not need to feel its warmth. You only need to keep striking the match.
Begin.
What follows, in Part III, is the story of what happens when the Name leaves the lips and enters the mind. It is a different landscape, harder in some ways, subtler in others. The voice falls silent. The sound withdraws from the air. And the real work begins. But that is a chapter for later. For now, there is only this: a Name, your voice, and the willingness to say it one more time.
From Ananta's Satsangs
"God's name is the simplest anchor you can have. If you can't do anything else, can we take God's name once? Everybody can. Can we take it once more? Everybody can. From just being able to take it once to it becoming the breath is a possibility for all of us. If my mind is anchored in God's name, it cannot create the trouble that it creates without an anchor."
"Those with great devotion have said that if with sincerity we take God's name once, we are through this cycle of transmigration. So there's great power in it. But enjoy the food that you've cooked also. Give a chance for God to respond to your call. We have chanted 'Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, Krishna,' then maybe Krishna wants to reveal something to us. The highest expression of our will may be to remember His name. But then for Him to express His will upon us as well, for that we have to be silent."
-- The Choice Is Left to Us: God or Maya - 10th December 2025
"So the cooking and the eating has to happen. What happens when you sit quietly in God's presence? All our dirt is washed away. All our mind tendencies, things which maybe deep conditions, vasanas, start to get washed over. Also we grow in our faith, we grow in our humility, we grow in our repentance. So this cleanup happens, which is very beautiful."
"If you are restarting now, it's fine. Just keep taking the favorite name of God. Stay with God in the way that resonates with you in the most beautiful way. Start with the one that resonates most beautifully because soon it will be very irritating anyway, right? Because the mind will rebel. It doesn't want to come under control, so it will resist anyway."