I was performing the shraddha (after death of a person ceremony) the priest was chanting mantras for the peace of the departed soul...in the middle he probably took my name in a place where he should put my fathers name...I am anxious about it, i am afraid if something might happen to me
—Arijit Bhattacharjee, India
Dear Arijit,
Please have no concern on account of the priest’s inadvertent use of your name instead of your deceased father’s in the ceremony. Only by the conscious intention to harm and by a psychic power far greater than the ordinary priest would possess could that harm you. Unlike inadvertently causing an automobile accident, the power of a mantra depends upon both the mantra and the psychic power of the one employing it. That psychic power begins with the conscious intention and extends with the will power and concentration of its user.
The very fact that the priest mistakenly said your name already suggests a slip of memory or attentiveness to reciting the mantra and to its purpose. There is a belief in humanity that recited mantras have a power external to the consciousness of one who uses it. In this belief one could play a recording of a mantra instead of reciting it. Whatever power such an act might have is close to nothing. Mantras are born of high consciousness and mental power, and their efficacy comes from the use by people who can unlock that power by their attunement (intention and resonance) to the mantra’s specific vibration: the closer to the consciousness of the mantra itself the more its use will be effective.
Therefore an inadvertent use of the mantra will be powerless to harm you, more so lacking intention and more so lacking the mental power from which the mantra was manifested.
I would rather you think that this slight error is in fact a minor blessing that included a prayer for both the soul of your father but also for you that you also find peace and comfort from divine grace. Its effect can only be beneficial for that, more than anything else, was the intention behind its use and the very vibration of the mantra itself. Okay?
Blessings!
Nayaswami Hriman
