Mantras are words or phrases that have psychological and spiritual power and are chanted out loud or internally as objects of meditation. Often these mantras are associated with particular Buddhist figures, whose qualities can be cultivated by the repetition of the relevant mantra.
Mantra refers to the mental awareness by which one feels ones identity with the highest reality enshrined in a mantra, thus saving oneself from a sense of separateness and difference characteristic of the world. The aspirant’s mind is so closely identified with the deity of the mantra that it becomes that mantra itself. Mantras contain certain syllables. Murmuring of the syllables automatically is of no use. The aspirant must identify himself with the deity from mantra. When an aspirant perceives reality as something not within the range of utterance and acquires samavesa, then that samavesa is known as sakta.
Types of mantras differ depending on the school and philosophy of Hinduism and of Buddhism. Mantras play an important and central role in the tantric school of Hinduism. In this school, mantras are considered equivalent to deities and are thought to be effective only after initiation.
Mantras are meters that are usually melodic, mathematically structured, and resonant with numinous qualities. In its simplest forms, the word (Aum, Om) relates to a mantra. In more sophisticated forms, they are melodic phrases and have with spiritual expositions such as human appeal for truth, reality, action, love, immortality, knowledge, peace and light.