The mist was heavy over the Ganga that evening in Varanasi, the kind of damp cold that settles into your bones while the river hums a low, constant note against the stone ghats. I sat cross-legged near the water’s edge, the smell of incense and burning ghee drifting from a nearby shrine. My Guru sat perfectly still, eyes reflecting the flickering flames of a distant dhuni.
I: “Guruji, I have been thinking about what you said. You tell us never to speak the mantra aloud, never to write it where eyes can see it. But if I walk two minutes to the stalls near the temple, I can find a hundred books. They print every mantra imaginable—Ugra mantras, Beeja mantras—everything is there for five rupees. If the world already knows them, why must we hide them?”
Guru: (He remains silent for a long moment, watching a leaf swirl in an eddy of the river.) “Do you believe everything written in those books is the exact key?”
I : “I… I don’t know. But even if they are, what is the purpose of this secrecy? It feels like we are gatekeeping. Doesn’t everyone have the right to worship?”
Guru: (A small, sharp smile touches his lips.) “I never told you to stop anyone from worshiping. Worship is like the sun—it shines on everyone. But Sadhana… Sadhana is different. You are asking about the Ugra paths, the fierce energies. Tell me, if you find a prescription for a powerful medicine lying on the street, do you swallow the pills just because you can read the name?”
I : “No, of course not. But a mantra is a prayer.”
Guru: “A prayer is a request. A mantra is a vibration. An Ugra mantra is a lightning bolt. When these things are printed in books and sold in markets, they lose their ‘Chaitanya’—their consciousness. They become mere words. People play with them like children playing with high-voltage wires they don’t believe are live.”
I : “But why the secrecy with me? If I know it, why can’t I share the beauty of it?”
Guru: “Because a mantra is Gupt—secret—not to hide it from the world, but to protect its power within you. When you speak your mantra to the public, the energy leaks. It’s like a pot of steam; if you keep lifting the lid to show everyone what’s cooking, the pressure drops and the rice never softens. The secrecy is the pressure. It forces the vibration to go downward, into your blood, into your soul, rather than out into the air.”
I: “So the books… they are just shells?”
Guru: “Mostly. And thank the Gods for that. If the true ‘viniyoga’ and the exact ‘swara’ of a fierce Ugra mantra were common knowledge, the world would be in even more chaos. These sounds are sacred because they are dangerous. They are tools for the disciplined, not ornaments for the social. Keep it in your heart, let it burn there. Let the world see the light of your character, but never the match you used to light the fire.”