So, there are four stages of chanting a mantra.

• In the first stage it is repeated aloud, so others can hear it. At this stage you are not alert enough to repeat it without making a sound and if you only repeat it inside without your lips moving, you may not be able to be aware. The mantra has to be chanted loudly.

• When you have learned to repeat the mantra loudly, then repeat it with your mouth closed, your lips not moving at all. Just repeat it within yourself. It will be in your throat and the sound will become a bit more subtle.

• Now, go a bit deeper. Don't repeat the mantra consciously, let it happen. When you have worked on the sound for long, it repeats itself subconsciously, automatically. When a person has been working for years on a sound then there is no need to repeat, he simply sits silently and the sound comes up; it repeats itself. Now you are just a listener, a watcher.

• At the final stage the sound disappears completely. There is no repetition, only the watcher is left. This is the deepest form of meditation.