"Twelfth Spiritual Instruction" by Swami Chidananda

Japa Mala (Rosary)

Have Japa Mala (rosary) round your neck or in your pocket or underneath your pillow at night.

Have a japa mala, a rosary around your neck or in your pocket or beneath the pillow at night so that even if you wake up immediately you do not lose the opportunity of doing a little japa.

The japa mala is used for the purpose of repetition of the Name of the Lord. It generally contains 108 beads. A man breathes 21,600 times daily. If one does 200 malas of japa it comes to 21,600; thereby one does one japa for every breath.

If one does 200 malas of japa every day it is tantamount to remembrance of the Lord throughout the day. Malas contain beads which form divisions of 108. The meru (the central bead in the mala) denotes that you have done the repetition 108 times. This also denotes that every time you come to the meru bead you have gone one step further on the spiritual path and crossed over one obstacle. A portion of your ignorance is removed.

Gurudev says in His book on Sadhana that using a mala helps alertness and acts as an incentive to carry on the japa continuously. Resolve to finish a certain number of malas before leaving the seat. The mind will deceive you if you do japa without a mala. You will imagine that you have done japa for a long time and that you have done more than the required number.

[TWENTY IMPORTANT SPIRITUAL INSTRUCTIONS, A Series of talks on Swami Sivananda's Twenty Important Spiritual Instructions.]