The Art of Mantra Meditation: Understanding the Role of Effort, Discernment, and Surrender

Meditation is an art. It requires a keen awareness, combined with patience, about what’s going on in the mind. For many people, when they sit to meditate, their mind goes wild. However, the goal of most meditations is to quiet the mind, not stimulate it.

Meditation provides a clear reflective pond of awareness for us to be able to see ourselves. Without meditation, our mental patterns and negative narratives might continue to cause internal suffering while remaining unnoticed under the radar of our awareness.

If you can’t see it, you can’t change it. Awareness is the key.

The Tantric tradition of meditation derives from the Mantra Marga – path of mantra. It places the emphasis on consciousness as a vibration, the pulse of life, the Spanda (pulsation) from the universal to the individual and from the individual back out into the universal. Sound is vibration, and mantra is sound. So, when you chant a mantra, it vibrates all of your cells to resonate with the source of all that is.

There are three tools, or skills, of mantra meditation, that have really helped me over the years. Even after 45 years of meditation practice, I still review them before I sit – Effortlessness, Discernment, and Surrender. More than practice tools, to me, they are the sacred instruments of divine grace. For without them, my meditation practice wouldn’t be as deep or fulfilling as it is.

Effortlessness can be described as “effortless effort.” It is not void of effort. It is effort done without resistance in an easeful way. Consider that effortlessness leaves no wake. Thoughts are like disappearing clouds. To practice effortlessness, you have to pay attention to the space behind the generation of thought and discern the degree to which you are applying your own effort. Then let that go.

Sounds simple but it’s not easy since most of the time we are unaware of efforting. This is how stress and tension can build up in the body and mind creating pain in the awareness field. So many of us have a hard time letting go of our patterns of thinking. This requires creating space between our awareness and our conditioned thinking.

Discernment is such a beautiful concept as it requires us to release all that might get in the way of being present. Discernment cuts straight through to the essence of what is there. What could get in the way? Expectations. These come in two forms – positive and negative. Positive expectation is when you remember a past blissful meditation experience that you really want to repeat. As wonderful as this is, it’s still an obstacle to meditation. Negative expectations are similar except they focus on fear or dread with thoughts like, “Here we go again. Every time I meditate, I get stuck in my head. Meditation is so difficult.” Expectation is a thief because it steals our present moment away.

Discernment is the practice of seeing clearly, simply being present with what is without judging or adding anything to it. You touch the present moment purely without carrying anything from the past or future. Your hands are empty of expectation or future prediction.

Surrender is the crown jewel of the practice. When you get good at surrender, you recognize when your mind strays from the mantra. You see it, recognize it, and you’re able to let go. Think of surrender as “the acceptance of what is as it is.” Surrender is the attitude that the universe has your back. That if you let go, the “net of grace” will catch you when you fall. There’s comfort in the belief and knowing that you are ultimately safe. By letting go, your heart opens, and the mind settles down.

The opposite of surrender is holding on, perpetuating thoughts fueled by fear, anxiety, doubt, or shame. Surrender cuts through the fabric of conditioning and allows the soul to gently touch the ground of being like a leaf falling from a tree.

Surrender is hidden in the practice of effortlessness and discernment. In order to enter a state of effortlessness, you must let go of over-efforting, which requires surrender. To create an experience of discernment, you need to be able to surrender and let go of expectations and anything else that colors your awareness.

Finally, the art of meditation demands a razor’s edge of awareness – the ability to shift from the mental concept of effortlessness and surrender to the experience of it.

This marks the transformational shift from head to heart, from surface to core, from understanding to knowing, and from intellect to wisdom, which unfolds the experience of Svatantrya, supreme freedom.

I invite you to check out the Ashaya Membership and begin your practice of Tantric mantra meditation with me. It’s a profound practice of awareness that brings more calm, inner peace, clear seeing, and flow into your life and into the world.

Now, especially now, is the time to join the membership because it will give you a way, a method, an uplifting and positive philosophy, and a supportive community to grow deeper roots into being yourself, living on purpose, and following your heart.

With Love,

Todd

P.S. Initiation into Neelakantha Meditation, where you’ll receive a personalized mantra and teachings, is coming Nov. 22-23 online! Learn more.