Imagine what it would feel like, taste like, and smell like to believe you don't have to prove who you are by your accomplishments and labor...The culture we live under does not point you toward this deep truth. It instead has told you and reinforced the idea that you came into the world to be a machine, to accomplish, to labor, and to do. Nothing can be further from the truth and when you slowly begin to believe and understand your inherent worth, rest becomes possible in many ways.
Some time ago, I was at a concert and listening to the orchestra beginning to tune up. It was the most discordant sound I've ever heard. Each instrument was playing in its own way, in total disharmony. Then the oboe, a quiet little instrument, began to play and all the other instruments turned in on its note. And gradually, all the disharmony began to calm down. Then there was silence, and the concert began. It seems to me that the mantra is very much like that little oboe. In meditation, the mantra brings all the parts of our being, one by one, bit by bit, into harmony. And when we are in harmony, we are the music of God.