You can repeat a certain mantra continuously — it will hypnotise you, it is auto-hypnosis. You will fall into a peaceful sleep, that’s true, and if you are searching fora peaceful sleep a mantra can be used. I am not against it. It is a good non-medicinal tranquilliser but it is not meditation and not at all transcendental meditation, because transcendence simply means transcending the mind, and that can be done only by one thing and that is witnessing the mind; not by doing anything, not by repeating a mantra, chanting or anything. Any doing will be part of the mind.
There is only one secret which is not part of the mind, and that is witnessing, watching. Thoughts are passing, desires are moving, memories are coming and going like clouds in the sky and you are sitting silently simply watching, not doing anything. If you do anything immediately the mind starts functioning. What you do does not matter — doing is part of mind. A non-doing witnessing, just witnessing, as if a mirror goes on witnessing whatsoever passes by — that is awareness. And that awareness takes you beyond the mind. It is true meditation.
