Why should we meditate by the name of GOD?

Discourse of Swami Krishnananda

There are certain medicines which have their own effect on the system; they act on the system in the manner required, whether or not we know what medicine we have taken, notwithstanding the fact that a knowledge of the contents of the medicine may help us in creating the necessary psychological atmosphere in ourselves so that the action may be accelerated. Knowingly or unknowingly, God's Name can be taken, whether we know the meaning of the Name, whether we can appreciate the implication of the Name, or not.
The Name of God is compared to fire that burns. Knowingly or unknowingly we may touch fire; it shall burn, it shall have its own effect. Likewise, this potency of the Name of God has its action upon our entire system, physically as well as psychologically, so that it purifies us. The process of purification is that action which takes place in ourselves, which transforms the baser metal of crude thinking engendered by rajas and tamas into that form of expression known as sattvaguna. The recitation of a mantra, therefore, accelerates the process of the revelation of the sattva in us, transforming the rajas and the tamas in our nature. It is not so much a destruction of rajas and tamas as a complete transfiguration of the constituents that we know as rajas and tamas. Inertia, distraction and equilibrium are termed tamas, rajas and sattva.

In fact, these three qualities, or properties, known as sattva, rajas and tamas, are not extraneous toxic matter that have entered into our system like a thorn that has struck our feet, but they are forms of our mind itself. The gunas of prakriti, known as sattva, rajas and tamas, are not outside the mind, like dirt or dust that covers a mirror on its surface. While the dust on the mirror is different from the mirror and we can wipe the surface of the mirror and the dust can be eliminated, not so is the case of the transformation of rajas and tamas into sattva. The mind itself is the substance out of which these gunas of prakriti manifest themselves. What is the relation between the mind and the three gunas, viz., sattva, rajas and tamas? The quality of a substance is generally distinguished from the substance. The redness of a rose is generally regarded to be different from the rose itself. We do not say that redness itself is the rose. The rose is the substance in which the character or the quality of redness inheres. Not so is the case with the mind in its relationship to the gunas. The gunas of prakriti, the qualities of sattva, rajas and tamas, in relation to the mind, are related to the mind as the three strands of a rope are related to the rope. You know what are strands of a rope: three thinner ropes make a thicker rope. The three thinner ropes are not outside the thick rope. They themselves form the thick rope.
The threads themselves form the cloth. There is no cloth outside the threads. Though we use two different epithets - threads and cloth - we will find it is only a way of naming two different circumstances of one and the same substance. The threads are the cloth, and the cloth is the threads, though when we purchase a piece of cloth we do not say that we purchase threads. It is a way of expression, but, actually, substantially, they mean one and the same thing. Likewise, the mind is the gunas, and the gunas themselves constitute the mind-stuff. So, in the transformation that takes place from the condition of rajas and tamas to the state of sattva, what happens is an inner reconstitution of the elements of the mind into an inner setup of circumstances known as sattva. It is something like the transformation of the constituents of milk when it becomes another substance known as curd, though the analogy is not wholly appropriate here. I cite this instance only to tell you that the constitution is inwardly reshaped and an external element does not introduce itself. We ourselves become another thing in this process of transformation.

The principle of God is not wholly outside our nature. The Supreme Being, whom we are invoking through mantra japa, is not entirely disconnected with our inner constitution, or makeup. We are not importing God from outside, like an external element unconnected with our nature. God is not brought into our nature from outside, from the seventh heaven. The element of God, the principle of Reality, is manifest from within. This fact could be clear to us when we contemplate on the fact of the Immanence of God, as the scriptures proclaim. God is not merely transcendent to our nature, though He is also that, for He is at the same time immanent in us, which means to say that the nature of God is not only superior to the baser nature of rajas and tamas in us, which is the meaning of transcendence, but also that the principle of God is hiddenly present, secretly permeating our own personality, our own mind, intellect - our very Atman itself. In fact, the Atman in us is the Brahman of the cosmos. This is what the ancients have declared. The Self is the Absolute. The internal is at once the Universal-All.