The science behind mantra recitation

What is the science behind mantras in spirituality? Just as physical objects are cleansed with water, you cleanse psychic or mental objects with sound. The highest cleansing power is the sound of God's name.

That which covers us and keeps us from realizing our real selves, is our mundane mind. The mind consists of thoughts, feelings, willpower, discrimination (intelligence) and false ego. Those are like smoke-screens that cover the pure consciousness of the self.

We are all eternal souls - minute particles of Kṛṣṇa's consciousness. Kṛṣṇa's consciousness consists of eternity, knowledge, and bliss, so we are minute particles of eternity, knowledge and bliss, But these minute particles of pure consciousness are at the moment covered by physical and mental layers in the form of the body and mind.

All souls, regardless of what kind of body they inhabit - plants, insects, fish, reptiles, birds, animals, or humans - are minute particles of eternity, knowledge, and bliss. That's why all living entities always gravitate towards these three conditions - eternity, knowledge, and bliss. All living entities are pleasure seeking, they try to develop knowledge, and they don't want to die, they possess the survival instinct.

The sound of Kṛṣṇa's name will purify the filter of the mind, so that we can connect to our real selves. That means that by chanting Kṛṣṇa's name we will experience higher forms of knowledge and bliss. That is a testable prediction that can be investigated scientifically.

This is not some belief. If it is a scientific process as asserted by Kṛṣṇa in the Bhagavad-gītā, it will work whatever is our belief.

It doesn't matter whether you are an Atheist, Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, Mohammedan, Republican or whatever, if you chant the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra on a regular basis, you will connect to your real self beyond your thoughts, feelings and false ego, and when you contact your real self, it will be experienced as knowledge and bliss.

The wonderful thing about this religion, the Vaiṣṇava religion, is that you do not have to become a Hare Kṛṣṇa and shave your head, dress in sheets, and go out on the streets dancing and singing. You can sit right in your own living room and test it.

Just try to chant the following mantra -

Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare
Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare

... say, 10 minutes a day for a week and see where it takes you.

That's BRAINWASHING, I hear someone yell :)

That's right. Our mind is unclean, materially contaminated. Our mind has been polluted by impure impressions accumulated throughout so many lives. It needs to be washed and cleaned. And you wash the mind by the spiritual sound of God's name.

Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare
Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare

The above mantra consisting of 16 words and 32 syllables, is the only means by which to protect against the evil influence of this Kali-yuga age. By researching all the Vedas, one will find no more sublime process of religion than to recite the Hare-Kṛṣṇa-mantra. (Kali-Saṇṭāraṇa Upaniṣad)

So the “science” behind mantra recitation is to focus your mind on something transcendent - to allow the mundane thoughts to arise and dissipate and to gradually train yourself in mind-control - this is useful for meditation (dhyāna) which is the core and ultimate spiritual practice.

In meditation we start with watching the breath and reciting the mantra in harmony with the inspiration and expiration - we then introduce the iconographical image of the deity and keep our thoughts focused (dhāraṇa) on that while breathing with the mantra. » more here The Hare-Kṛṣṇa-maha-mantra