~~OM~~

Q: When chanting 1000 names or 108 names, how is that different from merely repeating the same name again and again?

A: It's very very different, Neelima, because when you repeat the same name again and again and again, you start to drift off into reverie. You start daydreaming and start thinking about all the things you are supposed to do and you forget about the name.

So, in order to train us to sit still, to focus, to breathe, to understand, then we chant many names or many texts. And the text makes us focus and brings us deeper and deeper inside so we can stay longer and longer with one name. And ultimately we dissolve into the one name.

So that's why we use the many texts of 1000 names or the text of the Devi Gita or the text of any scripture that will guide our awareness into the presence of the one name and keep it there longer and longer and longer!

It's the training ground.