Gayatri Mantra: The Celestial Song of Light

Gayatri Mantra: The Celestial Song of Light 

It is the support of every seeker after Truth who believes in its efficacy, power and glory, be he of any caste, creed, or sect. It is only one's faith and purity of heart that really count. Indeed, Gayatri is an impregnable spiritual armor, a veritable fortress, that guards and protects its votary, that transforms him into the divine, and blesses him with the brilliant light of the highest spiritual illumination. – Swami Sivananda

Meaning and Origin

To recite the Gayatri Mantra is to enter the stream of generations of spiritual seekers who have repeated the sacred incantation for thousands of years.  The Gayatri is considered “the essence of the Vedas.”  The four Vedas are the oldest and most revered of the Hindu sacred texts.  Veda means knowledge, and thus this mantra illuminates your intellect and lights your path.  The Gayatri is an appeal to the Divine to awaken and strengthen the powers of discernment and wisdom.  Chanting it fosters and sharpens the knowledge yielding faculty and bestows all that is beneficial to the chanter.  The Gayatri is highly revered in Hinduism, second only to the mantra AUM.  It is a prayer that asks for a clear intellect so that the Truth may be reflected therein without distortion.  It is universally relevant for any spiritual seeker for it is a revelatory song about Light: the Light that represents our True Nature as unchanging and undivided Pure Presence.  The Gayatri is an earnest exclamation that everything is an expression of Pure Presence. Understanding and purely loving the essence of the Gayatri Mantra is seen by many to be one of the most powerful ways to awaken mind and soul.  Just as we take bath to cleanse our bodies, so we chant the Gayatri Mantra to purify our mind and intellect.

Gayatri is the name for a Vedic poetical meter that contains three lines of eight syllables each. The word Gayatri is a combination of Sanskrit words: gaya (vital energies) and trayate (preserves, protects, grants liberation).  The word mantra means “instrument of thought, sacred text, or a prayer of praise.”  Together the words gayatri mantra can be translated as “a prayer of praise that awakens and protects the vital energies and gives liberation.”

There are, therefore, many gayatri mantras, but the one shown above is the oldest and most well known of all.  In Hinduism each God and Goddess is associated with a particular gayatri mantra.  There is a gayatri for Ganesha, Shiva, Vishnu, Lakshmi and so on.  Most people are unaware that when Hindus refer to the Gayatri Mantra they mean the one discussed below.

The deity associated with the Gayatri Mantra is the Sun, Savitri.  The more common name for the sun is surya as in surya namaskar (sun salutations).  Generally surya is the name for the sun while it is above the horizon and savitri is the sun as it is rising and setting just below the horizon.  There is a great metaphor in Hinduism that when understood explains a lot about the Hindu way of seeing the universe.  The metaphor is: “the sun equals light, which equals knowledge, which equals consciousness.”  This metaphor applies not only to the Gayatri Mantra but also to the design of temples and homes and to details such as the clockwise circumambulation involved in rituals and prayer.

Word-by-Word Translation

The first line: om bhur bhuvah svah is not technically a part of the Gayatri Mantra.  It is a special invocation that has been added to the beginning of this famous mantra.  This invocation is important and will be discussed after an explanation of the Gayatri Mantra itself.  The three lines of the Gayatri Mantra are: 1) tat-savitur varenyam 2) bhargo devasya dhimahi 3) dhiyo yo nah pracodayat.

The word tat is a neuter pronoun meaning “that.” It is a direct reference to Savitri.  According to the metaphor mentioned above, the Sun, as the source of illumination, heat, food and so many other precious things in our life, can be seen as a symbol of God. 

There are two verbs in the Gayatri Mantra: dhimahi and pracodayat.  Dimahi means, “let us meditate.”  So the second line of the mantra is “Let us meditate on the Light (bhargo) of the Sun which represents God.”

The verb pracodayat literally means, “it should push.”  It can be more poetically translated as, “let it inspire.”  Dhiyah is “thoughts” so the final line of the mantra is, “let our thoughts be inspired.”

The most literal meaning of the Gayatri Mantra is, “Let us meditate on the Light of the Sun which represents God, and may our thoughts be inspired by that divine light.”  My favorite translation is:

We recognize the glory of the Light that illuminates the three planes of experience: the physical, astral and celestial.

Let us meditate on the sacred Light of the effulgent source that shines within us.

 Let that inspire our thoughts and awaken the Self as the Light that pervades the entire Universe.

The Great Utterance

As mentioned above, the first line of the mantra, om bhur bhuvah svah, is not part of the Gayatri Mantra itself.  This special invocation is called the mahavyahriti or the “great utterance.”  AUM is the voice of the universe out of which everything emerges.  It is the great vibratory symbol for unitary Consciousness.  The three words, bhur, bhuvah and svah express a “call to creation.”  Taken collectively they honor and invoke the light of the Sun (or the Light of the Sun God, Savitri) that shines on Earth (physical plane), the sky (astral plane), and in space (celestial plane).  The implication here is, “let that light also shine on me.”

The technical explanation of mahavyahriti has to do with more esoteric yoga practices.  Simply put, the Earth is one of many planes of existence.  In fact, above Earth are six higher planes or heavens.  Including Earth, there are a total of seven higher planes (heavens) and seven lower planes, or hells, below this earth.  Earth is in the middle.  If you have ever heard the expression, “he is in seventh heaven,” this is a reference to the Hindu idea of heavens.  The seventh heaven is the highest heaven.  The first three of these planes starting with Earth are named bhur, bhuvah and svah.  The great utterance, therefore, refers to the first three subtle planes of existence that may be reached in meditation by a yogi.

When and How to Chant the Gayatri Mantra

The Gayatri should not be chanted casually.  Each word should be pronounced as clearly as possible, without haste.  The Gayatri Mantra is synonymous with Divinity and therefore must be approached with humility, reverence, faith and love towards.  Chanting with humility, reverence, faith and love is more important than mechanical repetition and pronunciation.  The more one chants the Mantra, the greater benefit to the chanter.  This mantra is ideally chanted three times a day – dawn, noon and dusk.  The mantra is not, however, bound by these three times of day can be chanted anywhere and at any time.  Chanting the mantra 108 times is said to result in the maximum benefit.  One may chant it for 3, 9, 18 or any division of 108 when pressed for time.

Japamala

A mala is a set of prayer beads used during chanting, meditation or pranayama (breath practice).  The word mala means “garland” or rosary in Sanskrit and is commonly made from a 108 beads.  A mala is used to focus one’s awareness and concentration while reciting, chanting, or mentally repeating a mantra.  This practice is known as japa in Sanskrit.  Japamala is the practice of using a mala to focus one’s awareness and concentration while reciting, chanting or mentally repeating a mantra.  Japamala has been used as a meditative aid by practitioners from many disciplines for thousands of years and is a form of Bhakti Yoga (Yoga of Devotion) in its own right.  The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali state that repeating a sacred syllable and pondering its meaning lead to its understanding (Sutra I.28).  It is said that through contemplative repetition of mantras, the effectiveness of yoga is improved, and through yoga the chanting of mantras is improved.  With the glory of such chanting and such yoga, the highest Self is revealed.  

References

Iyengar, BKS.  Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali (1993).

www.sathyasai.org

www.askganesha.com

www.eaglespace.com

www.sanskirt.org