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© Om Swami
THE HIDDEN POWER OF GAYATRI MANTRA
ISBN 978-93-88423-24-3
First Jaico Impression: 2019
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in
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Contents
Why This Book
Why Gayatri Mantra
The First Practitioner
The Power of Gayatri Mantra
The Four Stages of Sound
Three Forms of Mantra Sadhana
Performing the Gayatri Sadhana
The Specifics of Gayatri Sadhana
How Long Does It Take
When Can You Start This Sadhana
Who Can Do This Sadhana
Diet
Lamp
Direction
Clothing
Beads Bag (Gomukha )
Seat
Posture
Things You will Need for Gayatri Sadhana
The Mantra
Before You Begin
How to Perform the Rites of Invocation (Purushcharana )
Essentials Steps in Gayatri Sadhana
The Comprehensive Method
The Brief Invocation
The Story of Kalavati
Appendix
Sadhana Steps – The Comprehensive Method
The Arrangement of Pots (Patrasadana )
How to Make Fire Offerings (Yajna )
Firepit Without Boundary
Firepit With Boundary
Why This Book
I once read a beautiful story that really touched my heart.* A master and his disciple were seeking alms and they stopped by a small house. Whether the tiny size of the house was more worthy of one’s notice or its dilapidated condition was anyone’s guess.
“Praise the Lord!” the master hollered and knocked on the door. “We’ve come for alms.” There was no response from anyone who might be inside that one-room house. “Bheeksham dehi ,” he said in a loud voice again and waited for another minute. No one came out. In line with their tradition, he made a third and final call. Soon, a little girl came running out.
“Sorry, master,” she said, “but we have nothing to give you.”
The monk looked at her lovingly and said, “Don’t say no, my daughter. Can you give me a handful of dust from the ground?”
“Dust?” she said, surprised.
“Yes, a handful will do.”
Obliging the master, the girl bent down, took a bit of mud from the ground and put it in the master’s bowl. He blessed her and walked away with his disciple. The disciple was both intrigued and upset. Intrigued because he thought his master’s action was absurd, and upset for their tradition permitted alms from one house only on any given day. Who eats dust? Will have to do with water today. My master’s lost his mind or what?
“Why, master?” he said, unable to control his curiosity. “What are we going to do with dust? We could have just visited the next house and gotten proper alms.”
“My son,” the master said, “by remaining hungry, today we have transformed one life.”
The disciple couldn’t make sense of this statement while the master continued speaking, “I introduced her to the joy and merit of charity. Aaj dhool di hai, kal phool bhi degi.” (Today she learned to give a handful of earth, one day, she’ll give a flower too.)
So it is with sadhana, the path of elevating your life and others’ by continuously purifying yourself. Today if you undertake a basic spiritual practice, overcome a small hurdle, tomorrow you’ll be able to take on a more advanced one, handle bigger challenges. Since my last book on mantras, I have met over 1500 people in one-on-one meetings and more than 3000 in groups. A common issue, even complaint, is that what I wrote in that book is daunting, to say the least. Some of the steps were not clear, they said. That, it’s very hard to muster the courage to undertake intense sadhana. That, if I could recommend just one sadhana, which one would it be. And finally, if I could give them a simpler method, something that appears more within reach, it would motivate them.
It made me think and like the monk in our story, I thought if I could introduce you to a simpler (read easier) way of sadhana today, then who knows, tomorrow you may feel confident and motivated to take on something more intense. After all, when you go to learn music from a teacher, not every student spends his time learning ragas, some just want to be able to sing or play simple songs and find joy in that.
I’ve written this book with the view that at least I should introduce you to the power, rewards and joy of sadhana. For instance, once you know how to play/sing a few songs, you may feel inclined to go deeper. In doing so, I am still expounding on the thirty-six core steps of sadhana as well as giving you the much shorter method of using only seven key steps. You can undertake whichever you like more based on your temperament, schedule and goals. Both ways are almost equally rewarding, one being more immersive than the other.
Thank you for trusting me; it is the basis of my inspiration and writings. As always, in this book too, I share with you the truth as I know it. Even for a moment I don’t forget that my utmost duty is not to fascinate you with tall claims of something out there, something supernatural, but to share with you the miracle of what’s inside us naturally. This discovery is just as beautiful, empowering and liberating.
Let’s take a walk.
* I have paraphrased this story a bit but I first read it in Kadve Pravachan by Muni Tarun Sagar, the famous Jain monk.
Why Gayatri Mantra
Where should I begin? Although I have chosen the path of meditation in my own life, much of what I know, if not all of it, is attributable to the grace of Divine Mother. In this day and age, when we are conditioned with Western thought, it is natural to question the efficacy or the relevance of mantras.
I can tell you from my firsthand experience that the power of mantras is one, immense; two, real; and three, accessible. When we listen to music, we can hear the harmony within it – and we know that certain chords, melodies, rhythms and scales can evoke certain emotions in us. This is regardless of whether we know how to sing, play an instrument or read music notation, etc.
As a listener, listening to music can make you cry, it can make you laugh and so on. Similarly – and it’s not just a metaphor: it is very real – whether or not you know it, the sound of mantras can bring alive long-forgotten memories in you. Tendencies, feelings, emotions, knowledge, wisdom, powers and siddhis 1 you have been carrying within yourself over lifetimes can be evoked and invoked with the power of a mantra.
The abiding dilemma in Sanatana Dharma is, what is that one supreme energy one should tap into? People ask me this all the time that there are so many gods or forms of God, to whom should we pray? Most fascinatingly, even in a religion as diverse as Sanatana Dharma, with as many sects as stars in the sky (okay, maybe not as many), there’s one Vedic mantra that has been widely recognized as the quintessential mantra of our dharma.