Q: Guruji, in your meeting with the Upanayanam batch, you told us to learn the Brahmayagna - the four Mantras from the four Vedas. Could you please tell us the meaning of these Mantras?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: The vibrations of Mantras are more important than the meaning of the Mantras. These Mantras were downloaded by the Rishis. They sat in meditation and they got something and they downloaded it and passed it on to people. So it was received as a vibration, it was not done with an intellectual awareness of sitting and writing it down. These Mantras have come from an intuitive level, or from the pure consciousness.
See, if you sit and think and act and join a few words and give meaning to them, then that is a different thing. But something that comes from inside you, like poetry, like an intuition, can be expanded and explored for generations to come. And every time you explore it, some new meaning will come out of it and that is why they are called Mantras. Mananat trayate iti Mantrah – when you just dwell on it, it uplifts your energy. This is what is said.
Mantras do have some meaning, but the meaning is just the tip of the ice berg. The meaning is not so important. In Mantras, it is the vibrations that are important.