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NIRVANA SHATAKAM

The Sanskrit course that I am pursuing is unique in many ways. It reminds me of how Swami
Vivekananda defines education when he says, “Education is the manifestation of the
perfection already in man.” I perceive this course as it is meant to manifest my abilities. The
tasks and activities totally contradict the rote learning methods and inspire me to experience
the same with utmost concentration and come to a conclusion afterwards. One of the tasks
is what I am going to discuss in this article. The task is memorizing a Mantra by heart. The
students were given a list of mantras and they were asked to choose one.

About the exercise

I used to memorize such mantras in my childhood and was fond of doing them. This exercise
allowed me to relive those experiences, albeit differently. I was conscious about finding the
differences between such activities done earlier and the activity that I was doing at the
moment. The major differences are following-
1. Academic Purpose:​ Earlier, I used to memorize the mantras or the chaupais from
Ramcharitmanas because I was fond of that. I used to read them a lot of times out of
sheer devotion and gradually I could learn them by heart. This time, I had to do it for
the sake of marks. I initially thought to remove this idea from my mind, but it kept
coming. But the methodology that I followed was the same. Reading the mantra a lot
of times so that I can gradually memorize the same.
2. Liberty to choose:​ I got the liberty to choose one of the mantras. In earlier cases, I
did not have the liberty to look for so many mantras on the internet. I used to read
whatever I saw in religious books at home, or whatever I chanted in school prayers.
Though my school being a Ramakrishna Mission School helped me go through many
more mantras than the students in other schools, but never did I have my choice in
choosing what I would recite. It may be noted that learning by heart was never
mandatory.
3. Thorough Understanding of the meaning: ​It can be said that I could understand
the meaning of the mantras that I recited after a particular age. But still, this time I
feel that I am in a better situation to understand the philosophical meaning of
whatever I am doing or whatever I am reciting. Earlier situations can be regarded as
the imposition of meaning or a philosophical belief on my mind, but this time I could
detach myself from all religious perspectives that I had before, and then think about
the mantra that I was reciting.

Reasons for choosing Nirvana Shatakam

The reason I chose Nirvana Shatakam was its appeal to me. Ever since I started thinking
about the religion, philosophy and beliefs, I had a soft corner towards the Advaita Siddhanta.
The Nirvana Shatakam is the gist of Adwaita-vada and I thought that reciting this a number
of times would definitely give me some time to think and ponder about the philosophy.
Discussion about the meaning is out of the scope of this article, but the theme is
worth-discussing.
The Upanishads, the Vedanta Darshana and the Gita are grouped together and called the
Prasthana-traya. These have been looked upon as the basic scriptures of the religion that is
called Hinduism nowadays. I strongly feel that the word ‘dharma’ had altogether different
meaning in the era when the knowledge of the scriptures was passed on from one
generation to the other. It was all about the way life could be lived in the most fruitful way.
The seers perceived the Prasthana-traya in different ways, and came to different
conclusions about life, its purpose and the methodologies of reaching the supreme goal in
life. There were three different conclusions by different Indian Rishis- Advaita-vada
(monism), Vishishtadvaita-vada (Qualified monism) and Dvaita-vada (dualism). Nirvana
Shatakam inspired me to research more about different schools of thoughts in Indian
philosophy, their interpretations and the differences between them, my focus being monism.

There is one other reason for choosing this mantra. The mentions of different facets of life of
a person makes it interesting for research. I could know the difference between मानस, बु ध,
च and अहं कार as I researched about the first verse. I could not help but go through the
whole of the mantra to discover the subtle differences that our ancient sages had underlined
between similar facets of life. This mantra is actually about the illusions that human beings
have when they identify with their body, mind or other aspects of life and existence. It was
very enriching to know about all the aspects that I ought not to identify myself with. I could
know about five koshas, five Pranas, five Jnanedriyas, five Karmendriyas, Seven Dhatus,
etc. which extend logical explanations about the mind, body, behaviour, life and existence of
the Jiva.

Although I had the choice of memorizing some other difficult mantra for better marks, but I
chose this one because it appealed to me. Moreover, I had memorized part of
Mahishasurmardini Stotram during my school days, and I could recite the same this time to
avoid extra work. But this action would not have any impact over my learning from this
course.

Methodology for memorizing


The methodology for memorizing was simple. I ought to understand the meaning on the first
day and recite the mantra everyday thinking about the meaning of what I was reciting. The
understanding of the meaning led to research about several terms, about which I had not
given much thought when I encountered them earlier. Understanding the mantra made me
ponder about the same and made me realize that mere recitation should not be enough for
this mantra. The realization of detachment from everything can not be attributed to mere
recitation or simple understanding of the meaning. This realization has taken years of
austerity and meditation for the sages from time immemorial. Still, I started meditating for
some time to think and ponder about the mantra. Within 7-10 days, I was able to memorize
the Nirvana Shatakam.

Challenges faced during the process

Since I had learnt about the meaning of the terms in the mantra, I did not face any
mention-worthy challenge in memorizing the mantra. The early days, though, felt like I am
doing it for the sake of marks and this is itself an attachment which is contradicting the very
philosophy behind the mantra. But later, I used to be engrossed in the meaning of the
mantra. I did not make a conscious effort to memorize it in the initial days. Thus, I never
thought about the challenge in memorization. The mantra was memorized gradually through
practice.

Impact and learnings

I have discussed enough about the impact of this mantra on my understanding of philosophy
and affinity towards Indian culture and heritage. Here, I ought to discuss the experience of
recitation of the mantra. Correct pronunciations and following the sound that I was making
felt like experiencing perfect music to my ears (although I am too bad a singer). This music
was because of the rhythm in the mantra and its impact on my inner mind as well as the
outer body.

Conclusion

The fact that I stated that this exercise helped me manifest my abilities is strengthened by
the above discussion. I am pretty sure that my classmates, too, had similar experiences. I
am grateful to Prof Anuradha Choudry for guiding us through a course that teaches us from
our experiences, rather than from a book. I would rather try to give some time to each one of
the mantras sent by the Professor.

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