WHAT IS THE MEANING OF "SAMMA-ARAHAM", AND WHY REPEAT IT
?
Samma-Araham is a compound term
derived from ancient Indian philosophy. Samma
is a prefix which means the righteous one. In ancient Indian
philosophy, there was the belief that all human beings, regardless of
nationality or faith, have their own goal of highest achievement. This
goal they called the arahant and
the one who achieves it they called arahanta.
The compounded term Samma-Araham
means the righteous absolute of attainment of a human being. Samma-Araham needs to be repeated
because we use the term as a mantra to prevent the mind from wandering
from one idea to another during meditation. Using the mantra, the mind
can be trained to rest at the centre of the body, because the sound of
the words produces a slight vibration in the mind which helps the
awareness to move in the direction of happiness and peace. You can use
other words instead but any word which is chosen to be used should have
positive associations and should not lead to passion, hatred or
delusion. It should be repeated until the mind is calm and peaceful.
After this stage, the sound of the mantra will fade away by itself,
leaving just the crystal ball shining and still at the centre of our
body. Our reason for using the mantra is just a technique for training
the mind to rest at the centre of the body, inside the crystal ball.