If God is nameless, how to continuously recite His name?

Acharya Prashant
5 min readOct 14, 2020

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Question: Pranaam Acharya Ji. Nitnem continuously says that the way to reach God is to continuously recite his name. But, as God is nameless and formless, is not Silence, what we need to practice? Please shed some light on the name of the Lord.

Can physical recitation of mantras like ‘Ek Onkar‘, or ‘Om Namah Shivaay‘, or ‘Raam‘, lead us to the Real God? If yes, how should it be practiced?

Thank you. Love and Gratitude.

Acharya Prashant (AP):

You need to continuously utter the ‘name’ of God, both in speech and in mind, because you are what you are. You are not the Silent one. Are you?

Had you been already Silent, no Sage would have advised you any jaapa, any recitation, any mantra.

Who are you?

You are the restless one, you are the loquacious one.

You are the talkative one.

Who are you? You are the one who just loves to ‘Yak, yak, yak’. You are the one who is always busy talking.

If there is no other person to talk to, then you indulge yourself in some internal dialogue. You start talking to yourself. Don’t you?

--

--