Presently, to perform achamana , you will need an achamana pot and vessel. They are very inexpensive but if you can’t source them for any reason, just use any small pot and a little spoon. There’s no hard and fast rule for this.
Take the spoon in your left hand, scoop up some water with it and pour that water in the palm of your right hand. Now say, “Om Keshavaya Namah” and then drink the water from your right palm. Do it once more saying “Om Madhavaya Namah ” and repeat it while chanting “Om Narayanaya Namah ”.
So, three times all up. Once done, put some water again in your right palm, put the spoon in your left hand back in the pot, say, “Om Pundarikakshaya Namah ”, then wash your hands on the left side.
I hope you won’t feel overwhelmed with all these mantras just because you don’t know them. You see, nobody is born with knowledge. If you practice a few times, they will come to you. But if you say, “I don’t want to chant any mantras at this point,” that’s okay too, it’s not a deal breaker. You can still do your thing, without chanting a mantra here. For all I care, you could chant the Gayatri mantra itself for all these steps, if you really want to simplify it to the extreme. My personal recommendation, however, is that you go through these steps, make your own notes and follow them. Things will then flow effortlessly.
Step Six
Light a lamp now. You can light the lamp just as you would light a cigarette, that is, without any mantra and with the same eagerness. Or, you could take it a step further and chant a mantra and do it with devotion.
Om Agni Varchau Jyotir Varchau Svaha
Om Agni Jyotir Jyotir Agnih Svaha
Suryo Jyoti Jyotir Suryah Svaha
Agnir Varcho Jyotir Varchah Svaha
Suryo Varcho Jyotir Varchah Svaha
Jyoti Suryah Suryo Jyotih Svaha
Step Seven
Now, we invoke Ganesha. All Vedic, mantric, tantric and puranic pujas must begin with Ganapati. This is a scriptural injunction and there is a simple mantra, if you want to do a short one: Om Ganeshaya Namah. That should do; that will make Ganesha happy – he is easily pleased. If you want to do a longer one, then you can do:
Vakratunda mahakaya suryakoti samaprabha
nirvighnam kurume dev sarvakaryesu sarvada ||
If you want an even longer one, which is the one I personally used during all of my sadhanas – I always did the longer Ganapati mantra along with the shorter ones – it would be:
Sumukhashch aikadantashcha kapilo gajkaranak
lambodarashch vikato vighnanaasho vinaayak
dhoomraketur ganaadhyaksho bhaalchandro gajaanan
Dvadashaitani namani yeh patheccharnuyadapi.
viddhya rambhe vivadhe cha praveshe nirgame tathaa
sangraame sankate chaive vighnastasya na jaayate.
There is more in the mantra, but it ends here for our purposes. It’s really up to you whether to do the long or short mantra. You could simply say, Om Ganeshaya Namah: Thank you Ganesha, I can’t say more than this, please be with me.
Once there were two people, and one of them was an ardent devotee. The whole day, he prayed to God. And the other was his neighbour, who prayed just twice a day: Just like “Om Ganeshaya Namah , thank you Ganesha, hope you are doing fine. I am well, thank you.” In the morning and evening, that was his routine. When they died, the devotee who was chanting the glories of God all the time went to hell, and his neighbour went to heaven. The devotee said, “There has to be some mistake. I was the one who was chanting all the time, calling out to God. How did he get to heaven, and I end up in hell?”
God said, “He didn’t bother me all the time.”
So feel free to do a short mantra. The crucial thing is to have the correct sentiment in your heart when you chant it.
Step Eight
This is done by showing three mudras – handlocks – of Ganesha. I should briefly touch upon the role of mudras. If you are some distance away and I call out to you, you may or may not hear my voice. But if I wave my hand, you will see and say to yourself, “Oh, somebody is waving his hand – somebody is trying to call out to me.” Mudras are something like that. They are called handlocks: gestures which are based on your lineage of siddhas ; the adepts before you have championed them and the energies around you recognize that. If you want to view this more scientifically, then the flow of energies in the body is directed by way of mudras.
Step Nine
And then we do what we call, swasti vachana . Swasti means kalyan , auspiciousness, goodness, and vachana means talking or chanting. It would take you at least 10 to 15 minutes to chant a whole swasti vachana . But, I have taken the most important aspect of swasti vachana and shortened it for you. (The meaning and transliteration is given in the appendix).
Harihi Om Bhadram Karnebhih Shrnuyama devah |
Bhadram pasyemaksabhiryajatrah
Sthirairangaistustuvagamstanubhih
Vyasema devahitam yadayuh
Svasti na indro vrddhasravah
Svasti nah pusa visvavedah
Svasti nastaksaryo aristanemih
Svasti no bruhaspatirdadhatu |
Om Shantih Shantih Shantih
If you can’t chant this, just read the translation. But even if you practice these mantras a little, you’ll find the Vedic sound has a potent energy, because Sanskrit makes extensive use of two particular sounds: One is the ‘m’ sound, the other is the ‘n’ nasal sound. You can drag these sounds on for however long you wish. It’s just ‘hmm’. You can sing anything in Sanskrit.
You can sing all Sanskrit scriptures, barring perhaps a couple of Upanishads that were written prosaically unlike all the rest that read poetically.
Step Ten
Now, it’s time to meditate on your guru – to perform guru dhyana , or guru meditation. Usually, you meditate on your guru on your crown chakra, at the top of your head. My guru, Naga Baba, told me that when you meditate in the morning, you should imagine a very pleasing, smiling face of your guru. I had trouble doing that, because I rarely saw Baba smiling. In the images that I had in the photo album of my mind, Baba was mostly stern or angry, which one should I pick? Which one would do justice to him? I smiled a little to myself when Baba told me this, but I found some way of meditating on his smiling form.
The guru meditation is usually the first thing a good disciple does in the morning, even before he jumps out of bed and checks his phone messages. If you don’t have a guru in human form, you can just visualize light or the deity of your mantra in the crown chakra. If you don’t want to do that either because you have an affinity for a particular form or god, just visualize that god there – it doesn’t matter which religion. The idea is to start your day with something good; to start your day with a soft, warm feeling in your heart.
Step Eleven
Now chant your guru mantra. The guru mantra is usually different from your sadhana mantra. Sometimes it can be the same if you are doing a sadhana of the guru mantra itself. If you don’t have a guru and you don’t have a guru mantra, you can simply chant the Gayatri mantra.