[Advaita-l] Why holy mantras are chanted 108 times

[kuntimaddi sadananda]

PraNAms

Michael expressed that I am not typing the advaitaL address correctly, hence they are not showing up. I am sending this as a trial by pressing the reply button to see if that is the reason. If this does not show up then there may someother reason. One way is to reinitiate membership after cancelling it. Let us see how it works.
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About 108 - here is one perspective.

8 stand for lower prakRiti as Krishna describes in 7th chapter - BhuumiH aapaH .. bhinna prakRitiH ashTadhaa. This eight fold nature consisting of 5 bhutaas - manaH, bhddhi and ahankaara - total 8 constituting my lower prakRiti.

The Krishna says in the next sloka there is something higher that is providing support for these 8-fold prakRiti. That is my higher nature. and that is one advaita. Hence we have 1 followed by the eight. One has higher value hence in the higher digit. All the pluralities fall in between - all have of zero value thus we have 18, 108, 1008 etc.

The maalas are made of 108 beads with Brahma mudi where during japa yoga one counts the beads but do not cross Brahma knot.

Just an explanation.

Hari Om!
Sadananda

--- On Mon, 1/11/10, Michael Shepherd <michael at shepherd87.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:

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