Mantra meditation

[liquid]

I've done meditation for several years now. I tried mantra meditation last week, just a mantra repeating over and over. It could easier focus and the meditation came to a new level. What do you think of an aid like this? Is it "better" to not use any external tools, if so, why? Thanks 

Edited January 22, 2020 by liquid
Weird sentence

[Consilience]

It depends on your goals. If you’re trying to sharpen and refine your attention, it’s a great tool. If you’re trying to become conscious of existential truths, mantra meditation won’t get you very far. If you’re trying to cultivate awareness of the body and it’s energetic components, probably not the best. If you’re trying to activate kundalini, probably not. If you’re trying to process emotions, maybe?¿

The first year I started a 1 hour per day meditation practice I used mantra as one of my techniques. The word was “sunflower.” As of today, Ive changed my point of focus to be either the breath sensations at the nostrils or breath sensations through the entire body at once. My main goal with meditation is to get my attention span at super human levels of stability to help with contemplation and psychedelic work. Interestingly, psychedelics can sometimes stabilize attention to these super human levels, almost like circumventing my meditation entirely haha, but I still find it helpful to process and later integrate heavier moments during tripping. 

[cetus]

@liquid If you feel you are deriving benefit from using a mantra by all means continue. A repetitive mantra can induce a transcendent state of consciousness by bringing full awareness to a point of singularity.