How to Perform the Rites of Invocation (Purushcharana )
In this book, I have shared two methods of invocation: Comprehensive and Brief. Comprehensive is for seekers who are able to devote more time to sadhana. I recommend the comprehensive method but someone invoking with the right sentiment will benefit just as much from the brief invocation as well. By right sentiment I mean that while chanting they are mindful, devotional and hopeful.
Essentials Steps in Gayatri Sadhana
The comprehensive invocation has 36 steps while the brief method has only 7 steps.
To perform so many steps in chanting the mantra might seem a little daunting in the beginning, but don’t worry, first, we’ll cover all the steps, so you know how to do each step, and then we can see which ones we can do without. Some things in many of the steps below may sound like rituals. Well, that’s because they are. As I said earlier, first let me tell you everything, and then you can always cut out what you don’t like. Besides, in case you don’t want to go the immersive way, you can adopt the shorter route of just seven steps described at the end of this chapter.
Please note that the mantras used in this chapter are for your reference only. Their correct Sanskrit transliteration (for better phonetic accuracy) is given in the appendix. The pictures for various mudras too are in the appendix. (The description and meanings given in the appendix have been quoted verbatim from my book The Ancient Science of Mantras ). The purpose of this chapter is to help you get familiar with all the steps but when you decide to do the actual sadhana, it is the information in the appendix you’ll use directly.
The Comprehensive Method
Step One
The first step is bathing. Remember your mother used to tell you when you were growing up, “Take a shower, take a shower”? And you would say, “No, I don’t feel like it today,” and you would not listen (just kidding). I am telling you the exact same thing. I read this book, All I Really Need to Know I Learnt in Kindergarten. This is so true. All the basic human values have already been taught to us by the time we are just five-or-six-years old. You know: share your stuff, say grace, don’t tell lies, go to bed on time and wake up early, and so on.
The first thing is bathing in the morning and it begins by showing two mudras. Fill a bucket of water if you take bath using a bucket or simply display the two mudras below under the shower (if you bathe by stepping into the shower).
Kalasha Mudra
Kalasha means a vessel, a pot, a ghat . This has come from my lineage of siddhas. Form a fist with your left hand and hold it with your right hand (wrap your left hand with your right).
Some people begin their day, not with kalasha mudra but kalesha mudra . Kalesha is the Sanskrit word for mental afflictions. They start their day thinking what is not right in their life. Stay with kalasha .
Form a fist with your left hand and cover it with your right hand. This is the most simple kalasha mudra . On that, we form a matsya mudra , which is called the forming of a fish. This is with the left hand at the bottom and right hand on top. This is the fish – don’t eat it. Now you have filled the bucket with water, performed the kalasha mudra and the matsya mudra .
Matsya Mudra
Matysa means fish. Stretch your left hand, palm facing downwards and thumb pointing out. Put your right hand on top, once again, palm facing downwards and thumb pointing out. Just twiddle your thumbs a bit and the matsya mudra is complete. (Matsya mudra is shown in the appendix).
One of Vishnu’s first incarnations was a matsya . The idea is that by showing these two mudras, we get in touch with our primordial source.
Now chant the following mantra:
Ganga cha yamune caiva godavari sarasvati,
Narmade sindhu kaveri jalesmina samnidhima kuru.
When we chant this with devotional sentiment, we are inviting the energy of all the holy rivers into our water – that while I am unable to bathe in the rivers stated in our scriptures, where our sages once bathed, I am invoking the energy of these rivers in the bath I am now going to take.
It is essential to invoke that sentiment inside you. A lot boils down to your sentiment and faith in mantras. Yesterday, a gentleman raised a beautiful question about faith: Is faith really necessary in mantras? Yes, it is. Because invoking the energy of a mantra is not about brute chanting of it, but connecting your consciousness with a higher source. Faith makes it easier. Faith is love. It is hope.
I once read a quote: “Across the gateway of my heart I wrote: ‘No Thoroughfare’, But love came laughing by, and cried, ‘I enter everywhere.’” Faith is similar. It doesn’t matter how much you resist, once you purify yourself and lead a life of purpose, faith just makes its way into your heart. It’s like your favourite pet dog who wants to sit next to you – it just barges in and leans against you.
Step Two
The second step is to put on fresh clothes. Some people keep a separate set of clothes for their daily puja, and they don’t wear them anywhere else, which is quite good, but I have also seen some lazy ones who would wear their clothes for a puja and hang them on a hook and then the next day take them off and wear them again. They will say, “These are my puja clothes,” but they might not wash them for 30, 40 or 50 days. Believe me, I know such people. Don’t do that. Put on fresh clothes.
There is a story I wrote on my blog some time ago. Once Buddha was in solitude, walking, he asked for alms from a man. The man refused and started shouting at him, calling him names. Buddha did not say anything, and went on his way quietly.
Another man, who was observing this, went to the man and said, “You just insulted Buddha.”
The man said, “That beggar couldn’t possibly be Buddha.”
The observer said, “No, he was!”
“But Buddha is always surrounded by people.”
“Well, he’s in his stint of solitude.”
Repenting his actions, the man went looking for Buddha, but couldn’t trace him. The next day, however, he found him, and fell at his feet.
“O Lord!” he said remorsefully, “I am sorry I insulted you and called you names.”
“Oh, when was that?” Buddha said calmly.
“Just yesterday!”
“Tathagata does not know yesterday,” Buddha said. “I only know today, this moment.”
Besides hygiene, the idea of bathing and putting on fresh clothes is so you allow yourself to have a fresh start for the day. It is a golden opportunity, a divine blessing that you have one more day to live, one more moment to breathe. I read somewhere that if we were to live every day as if it is our last day, one day, we are most certainly going to be right. So put on fresh clothes.
Step Three
Now you enter the puja griha , the sanctum sanctorum, or stand before the altar. If you have a separate puja room or just a little space, how do you approach it? You are entering your sacred space. Like your washroom is where you perform physical cleansing, your altar is for your spiritual cleansing. There is a mantra that you can chant. It’s Om Hrim Astraya Phat . When you say phat , you are supposed to stamp the floor with your heel. In earlier times, they used to do this because floors were sealed with cow dung and the like. Thus, there would be some microorganisms on the floor of your sanctum sanctorum, and by stamping your heel on the floor, you would shake the surface so they could move; so you don’t step on them.