One way to ensure that you remember this step is to make notes (one of my personal practices: I always make notes.) I don’t rely entirely on my memory. I have a small list where I write down step one, step two, step three, etcetera. And I always have that list sitting beside me during my sadhana. If you do your japa correctly, you may enter a different state of consciousness, and you may forget a step or two. Under those circumstances, it is important to have the steps of your japa written down.
Once you have devoted your japa to your deity, you can then pray for everybody’s welfare. There is a little shloka , a little mantra, which is, “Sarve bhavantu sukhina, sarve santu niramaya, sarve Bhadrani paschyanti, maa kaschida dukha bhaga bhavet .” In case you can’t remember this, just pray, with your hands folded, “May everybody be at peace in this beautiful world.”
Step Twenty-Nine
Now, it’s time to free all the energies you may have invoked during your japa . I have simplified the Gayatri sadhana so we are not invoking so many energies. In advanced mantra sadhanas, you invite many different kinds of energies to be there while you are doing your japa , because you are inviting Devi, and you would not want to invite Her on Her own. Freeing all the energies is called visarjana , so we gratefully and gracefully see them off, and they can go where they wish. You can simply fold your hands and say, “Thank you very much, whoever came here, please be with me next time,” or you can chant this simple shloka :
Gaccha gaccha param sthanam svasthanam paramesvari,
pujaradhanakale ca punaragamanaya ca.
May you all return to your abode, I humbly request you to please be here when I call upon you once again to offer my prayers to you.
Tistha Tistha Parasthane Svasthane Paramesvari,
Yatra brahmadayo devah sarve tisthanti me hrdi ||
Let everybody go to your abode and be settled there.
May all the positive energies, all the goodness, forever remain in my heart. Let those I need not go from here.
There are energies that simply help you fulfill your material goals, but then there are energies that are part of your purification that should remain with you to help you progress on the spiritual path. Let those positive energies stay inside me, in my heart – that’s what this verse means.
Step Thirty
Step number 30 is to say sorry for any mistakes you might have made while chanting, whether that’s yawning, losing focus, feeling angry or negative or even thinking ill of people, and so on. These are all errors of commission – you know they have been committed. Seeking forgiveness is imperative, so we do a little kshama prarthana , a request for pardon and once again, you can either read the translation on page 157 or you can just say sorry in any language and words that you feel comfortable with. Here’s the stotra again with meaning for your ready reference:
Aparadhasahastrani kriyantesharnisam maya,
Dasosyamiti mam matva ksamasva paramesrvari.
Avahanam na janami na janami visarjanam,
Pujam caiva na janami ksamyatam paramesrvari.
Mantrahinam kriyahinam bhaktihinam suresrvari,
Yatpujitam maya devi paripurna tadastu me.
This means, I have made countless mistakes, please look upon me as Your humble servant and forgive me. I don’t know the mantras, I don’t know the correct pronunciation, I am an ignorant person, and yet I have the audacity to pray to You because You are ever merciful, You still fulfill my wishes.
Step Thirty-One
Now it’s time to perform yajna , the fire offerings. The ten-percent principle (dashansh ) applies here. Which means, if you have chanted 3000 times, you will make 300 fire offerings. Once again, I’ve given a chapter on fire offerings in the appendix.
There are many ways to do elaborate yajnas , but perhaps perform the simplest one. There is not much to be done. If you cannot do fire offerings, simply double the number of chants. For example, if you chanted 1000 times that day, this means you would make 100 oblations to the fire. If you cannot do a yajna , simply chant an additional 200 times, over and above your 1000 mantra chanting, to compensate for not doing the yajna .
One essential point on fire offerings: Whenever you offer anything to the fire of the yagna , make sure you end it with the words ‘Om svaha ’.
For example, to make a fire offering with Gayatri mantra, you will say,
“Om Bhurbhuvah Svaha Tatsaviturvarenyama Bhargo
SDevasya, Dhimahi, Dhiyo Yo Nah Pracodayata, Om Svaha.”
Step Thirty-Two
After the yajna , we do tarpan or libations. There are many kinds of tarpan – Brahma tarpan , pitra tarpan , deva tarpan and so on. The tarpan we are doing here is deva tarpan , that we are offering to the deity. When you offer somebody food, you offer her some water as well, because water completes the meal. I am telling you the simplest method of tarpan .
It can be done with water mixed with sesame seeds and so on, but this simple tarpan is done with just water. You can use that little pot that you used to do achamana , and complete the libation in any of these two ways: You can take some water from the pot with a little spoon and as you chant your mantra, “Om bhurbhuvah svah tatsaviturvarenayama bhargo devasya dhimahi dhiyo yo nah pracodayata, Om tarpayami .”
Like we append “Om svaha ” in a fire offering, we add, “Om tarpyami ” while performing libations.
This is the recommended method. If you don’t have a spoon, you can join your ring finger and thumb and dip them in the pot. The number of libations is always ten percent of your fire offerings. So, if you did 1000 times chanting, you’ll make 100 fire offerings and 10 libations.
Step Thirty-Three
At this point comes marjanam or abhishekam , which is like a coronation. The idea is that now that you have performed the mantra and the associated ceremonies, when you walk out into the real world, you don’t want to operate like a normal human being – you want to be divine; you want to be like your object of worship. Coronation or marjanam is done in the belief that you are a devata now. You have done nyasa earlier, you have placed the letters, you have done the mudras, you have done the chanting, you have invoked the energy, you are in Devi bhava – you have requested the energy to stay inside you, and now you are that energy.
With that feeling, you do marjanam , which is usually one-tenth of libations. So if you have done 1000 japa , you would do 100 fire offerings; tarpan would be done 10 times, and marjanam only once. Alternatively, you could base your sadhana on time, as I did. I would sit down for ten hours for my japa ; I would do yagna for one hour, tarpan for six minutes – and then another three minutes or so of marjanam , rather than one-tenth of six minutes, which would run into mere seconds. Note that the japa has to be the same factor every day, but the last count, for marjanam , can be in round figures.