Likhita Japa is a written repetition. In this case it will be of your Sankalpa. Radha (1994) says, “Likhita can be done in any script, in any language… This repetitive writing brings peace, poise and strength within.”
It is also helpful to gain some clarity on the words, feelings, and details of your intention. Sankalpas need refining. Likhita Japa is a way to return to that sacred space of the heart and spend time listening as you write. This is especially true at the beginning of a new intention.
There are many different designs that you can use for this kind of japa. We will be using a labyrinth,as found within the birth yantra. This week’s video tutorial will show you how to draw the labyrinth, and apply Likhita Japa.
About six years ago, I asked one of my teachers, Pandit Rajmani Tigunait, about this yantra, since I didn’t have a lot of information on it. He told me that it represented the battle field of the Mahabharata, and that only Krishna and Arjuna (the protagonist of the Mahabharata) knew the secret to break this Chakra Vyuha (military wheel formation) or Padma Vyuha (lotus formation). Arjuna shared these secrets with his wife, Subhadra, who was at the time pregnant with Abhimanyu. Unfortunately, she fell asleep as Arjuna was explaining the exit strategy, so Abhimanyu never learned its secret.
Later on, when Abhimanyu fought in this epic war, he was able to enter the chakra, killing many at the heart of this formation, but he was unable to exit the spiral and was killed.
I really didn’t understand this story until many years later. It was the process of combining sankalpa work and this yantra that helped me understand that whenever we courageously fulfill our desire and enter the center of the chakra, a little part of us dies. We then move back into the world a new person — we must die to be reborn.
There is a part of us that must fight to get to the center of that labyrinth and be as heroic as Abhimanyu; the other part must be willing to metaphorically die. Likhita Japa reminds us of our goals, and it begins to show us a new way of being, in such a way that our hearts can hear the great lessons on how to find ourselves newly in this world, and walk our path back out.
Traditionally this yantra is painted in black and gold.
The password to watch the video is: icaniwillimust108