Choosing Your Own Mantra (Prayer Word, Sacred Name) According to the Cloud of Unknowing

Choosing Your Own Mantra (Prayer Word, Sacred Name) According to the Cloud of Unknowing 

In mystic traditions sacred names vary from group to group. The Sethians had five very special sacred names that are mentioned in several Gnostic Nag Hammadi texts. As for how those names were applied, or what contemplative practices were used in the various Gnostic schools of spirituality, were mostly kept secret between master and disciple, reserved for one's initiation into the mysteries of the Kingdom of God. Thus it's a matter of speculation what exactly were the methods of spiritual practice used in the authentic historic Valentinianism of the early centuries C.E., Sethianism, among the followers of Basilides, Marcion, etc... Those medieval Christian mystical movements one might say reinvented versions of Gnostic interior life for their time and also generated much literature. Consulting with those sources may help fill in some of the lacuna, the missing elements, with similar or parallel ideas about spiritual practice. The 14th century classic, The Cloud of Unknowing "is a spiritual guide on contemplative prayer." (Wikipedia entry for Cloud of Unknowing)  

"And if you desire to have this aim concentrated and expressed in one word in order that you may be better able to grasp it, take but one short word of a single syllable. This is better than two, for the shorter it is the better it accords with the work of the spirit. Such a word is the word GOD or the word LOVE. Choose whichever one you prefer, or, if you like, choose another that suits your taste, provided that it is of one syllable. And clasp this word tightly in your heart so that it never leaves it no matter what may happen." 

"And why does it pierce heaven, this little short prayer of one small syllable? Surely because it is prayed with a full spirit, in the height and in the depth, in the length and in the breadth of the spirit of him who prays it. It is in the height, for it is with all the power of the spirit. It is in the depth, for in this one little syllable all the knowledge of the spirit is contained."

-- The Cloud of Unknowing: A New Translation: