WHAT IS THE MEANING OF "SAMMA-ARAHAM", AND WHY REPEAT IT ?
Samma-Araham is a compound term derived from ancient Indian philosophy. Samma is a prefix which means the righteous one. In ancient Indian philosophy, there was the belief that all human beings, regardless of nationality or faith, have their own goal of highest achievement. This goal they called the arahant and the one who achieves it they called arahanta. The compounded term Samma-Araham means the righteous absolute of attainment of a human being. Samma-Araham needs to be repeated because we use the term as a mantra to prevent the mind from wandering from one idea to another during meditation. Using the mantra, the mind can be trained to rest at the centre of the body, because the sound of the words produces a slight vibration in the mind which helps the awareness to move in the direction of happiness and peace. You can use other words instead but any word which is chosen to be used should have positive associations and should not lead to passion, hatred or delusion. It should be repeated until the mind is calm and peaceful. After this stage, the sound of the mantra will fade away by itself, leaving just the crystal ball shining and still at the centre of our body. Our reason for using the mantra is just a technique for training the mind to rest at the centre of the body, inside the crystal ball.