Mantra has become well known in the West. We normally associate it, rather superficially, with some meaningless sound we repeat mechanically until we are put in some kind of trance. Actually, mantra is quite different than this.

All learning involves the energisation of the mind. It is by the power of attention, the concentration of the mind, that we come to know anything. As long as we are distracted or our minds are wandering, we cannot come to really see anything. Hence, the real object of learning is not to learn anything in particular but to gain the mastery of the mind through the power of attention. Then we can find truth in all things.

This energisation of the mind is the true purpose and meaning of mantra. Whenever we have a deep insight or profound realisation in life, that thought has a special power. The empowered thought is mantra. Hence, the more deeply we can think and inquire into things, the more our thoughts become mantra; the greater our power of observation, the more mantric force enters into our minds.

Just as the practice of Yoga requires a special power or Yoga Shakti to facilitate it, so does the practice of mantra require a special Mantra Shakti for it to be effective. This is a conscious and creative energisation of sound and meaning. It is something like the difference between poetry and ordinary speech. For mantra to work it must have at least as much creative empowerment as a good poem. To bring about this empowerment requires a special concentration of the mind. It may be aided by the grace of a teacher, by the power of initiation. It may come within by the power of our own insight, aspiration and connection with the inner guide. But without this creative vision behind the mantra, mantra may be no more than a form of self-hypnosis.

When this energisation of speech occurs, we begin to find profound meanings in a few simple sounds. Sound becomes meaning, and we do not need an idea to interpret the sounds of the mind. Such primary sounds as Om give rise to whole fields or spectrums of meaning. They break down the barrier of language and take us into the universal state of communication which is silence and peace.

The main mantras of Hinduism and Buddhism all derive from Sanskrit. While mantras need not be in Sanskrit, it lends itself more easily to the mantric approach than other languages because it originates from mantra. Other languages require overcoming their inertia, their less conscious structure, to facilitate the energy of the mantra.

Mantras are of two types: longer chants and shorter seed-syllables. Most known are shorter seed or bija-mantras like Om. These consist of various root sounds like Om, Hum or Shrim. It is from these root sounds that the entire Sanskrit language is evolved and into which it can be reduced. These roots develop into both nouns and verbs. For axample, from the root ‘ta’, meaning to extend, there develops nouns like ‘tala’, the palm of the hand, or verbs like ‘tanoli’, he extends.

Longer mantras are chants, like the Vedic verses, of which the Gayatri is most important. They are more like prayers and show language in its developed form.

The shorter root mantras have a more universal meaning. We can use them according to their energetics even if we do not understand the language that develops from them.

The longer chants depend more upon our sense of their meaning and intentions. They can be more easily translated into ordinary language as such prayers for universal peace, as “may all beings be happy.”

Quoted from "From the River of Heaven" by David Frawley