Ritual

Yantra with mantra.
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guru selects an auspicious day and hour, and in certain instances the
horoscope of the prospective aspirant is matched with that of the
guru to determine precisely the time when the mantra should be
imparted. The guru also ascertains the aspirant's 'ishta-devata', the
chosen deity or the divine aspect which is in consonance with his
personality, so that by concentrating on it the aspirant will be in
rhythm with that deity while attaining unity. The guru normally
sits facing the east and the disciple sits in the lotus posture close to
him. In order to purify the process of initiation the guru first recites
his basic mantra and invokes his own 'chosen deity' and then three
times whispers the diksha-mantra into the disciple's right ear. The
mantra must be kept secret and it should not be divulged; indeed, it
is considered that even a written mantra loses its impact. Once the
mantra has been given, the basic stage of mantra initiation ends.
INSTRUMENTS OF TRANSFORMATION
Mantra
The oldest and perhaps most widely used concentrative technique
is the mantric sound. Mantra is primarily a concentrated 'thought
form' composed of nuclear syllables based on the esoteric
properties believed to be inherent in sound vibrations. Tantra has
developed a system of sound equations which may vary from
simple to complex, exerting its power not so much through
expressing meaning as we normally understand it but more
deeply, through its emphasis on a 'phonic element'. For example:
the vocables Hrim, Srim, Krim, Phat, which are found throughout
the tantric texts, may seem meaningless, unintelligible and
irrelevant to the non-initiate, but to the initiate they have positive
symbolic connotations. Whether recited audibly or inaudibly they
run through most of the rituals like an uninterrupted symphony.
The recitation of the mantra without understanding its proper
meaning or the mantra technique is an exercise, and it is said to be
inert.
According to Saradatilaka, mantras may be divided into male,
female and neuter; masculine mantras end in 'hum' and 'phat', the
female in 'svaha', and neuter mantras end with 'namah'. The
power of a particular mantra lies in a set of inter-connected factors:
its pattern of sound waves and the mode of its proper intoning.
Generally, it is considered that the mantra is efficacious only when
it is 'received' from the mouth of the guru by his disciple. A mantra
thus 'awakened' activates vibration channels and produces certain
superconscious feeling states which aid the disciple in his sadhana.