Mahāmṛtyuñjaya

Fear is the body bracing against being torn away from something. This mantra holds the one picture there is of a parting that tears nothing: the ripe fruit and its stem. That is why it is the japa for fear here, and because it ends on मा अमृतात्, not from the deathless.

The whole of this mantra turns on one picture. उर्वारुकमिव बन्धनात्. Like a cucumber from its stem.

Nobody pulls a ripe fruit off. It has been growing the whole time, and at the end the stem simply lets go, and the fruit was not damaged in the letting go because the release came from ripeness and not from force. That is the opposite of how a man is usually told to leave what holds him: cut it, fight it, tear yourself away, and be a wound afterwards.

And then the last two words, which are often left out when it is quoted. मा अमृतात्. Not from the deathless. Free me from death, and not from what does not die. It asks to be released toward something, not only away from something, which is the whole position this training takes.

This is the mantra to carry when the body is in withdrawal. It has long been said in illness and against the fear of death.

The complications it serves: The first days · Immunity · The heavy mind

वाचिक: Said out loud, at the length of one out-breath. The syllables light as you say them. उपांशु: The lips move, the breath carries it, nobody across the room can hear it. The light goes through each line in its colour, as it does aloud. मानस: Nothing is said. The words grow faint, the light still goes through them, and their sense stays, with the breath and the beads. अन्तर्यात्रा: One mālā that goes inwards by itself. The first third aloud, the second in a whisper, the last in the mind. The voice leaves the room without you deciding when.