The Gāyatrī Mantra

“Of purifiers, none is higher than the Gāyatrī.” Swami carries that line of the Smṛti, gāyatryās tu paraṃ nāsti śodhanam, into his Dharma Vāhinī.¹ In the Gītā the Lord names Himself in her: “among metres I am Gāyatrī”.² Swami said it in his own way to boys in 2000: “There is no need to chant any other mantra if you chant the Gayatri mantra.” In the same talk he took up a pandit’s words and made them his: “As Sastri Garu pointed out, Gayatri mantra contains the essence of all the mantras.”³

In the Dharma Vāhinī, the book he wrote on right living, he gives the Gāyatrī a whole chapter, and at its centre he asks the question that holds his whole teaching on it: “What is more sacred than meditating upon that divine radiance which awakens the intellect of a human being?”¹

To a gathering of newly initiated boys at Brindavan in 1977 he gave a charge they could carry for life: “Never give up the Gaayathri; you may give up or ignore any other manthra but you should recite the Gaayathri at least a few times a day.”⁴

This is the verse the sage Viśvāmitra saw, in the third book of the Ṛgveda.

It is chanted with the sacred syllable and the three words before it, Om bhūr bhuvaḥ suvaḥ. Swami called it “the Universal prayer enshrined in the Vedhas (Divine Knowledge), the most ancient scriptures of man”, and named the One it calls upon: “It is addressed to the Immanent and Transcendent Divine which has been given the name 'Savitha,' meaning 'that from which all this is born.'”⁴

Two are present in the mantra, and it helps to see them apart. Gāyatrī is the name of the mantra itself, of the metre of twenty-four syllables in which it is sung, and of the Mother whom the tradition reveres in it; which is why she is spoken of here as she. What the mantra calls upon is the radiance of Savitṛ, bhargo devasya, the light of the god it praises. The prayer's word for it is yaḥ, “who”, in the masculine, because it points to Savitṛ and to the radiance that is his; the Maitrī reads the line so: “Savitṛ is the god, and it is what is called his splendour that I should think upon”.⁵ The verse opens on that radiance with tat, That, and so its last line is rendered may That awaken. Swami held the two together in a single breath: “The Gayatri mantra is the Mother of Vedas”, and its last line “is the prayer addressed to the Sun in the Gayatri mantra.”⁶

He opened its meaning again and again over the decades, and each time it came new: “I have told you the meaning of Gayatri Mantra many times. But every time I tell it, there is a new meaning of this mantra.”⁷

The mantra came to the world through a king who became a sage. In the Sathya Sai Vāhinī Swami tells how Kauśika, born a warrior and full of rajas, turned by the merit of many lives toward truth and purified his own life. “The very mantra he uttered was the Gāyatrī Mantra”, Swami writes, and that man is Viśvāmitra, whose name says what he became: “he became a friend to the whole universe.” Born a warrior and made a brāhmaṇa by what he did, he gave the Gāyatrī that every brāhmaṇa now receives as his sacred gift.⁸

The name and the mantra belong together. “It was the Gaayathri that entitled him to earn that name”, Swami said at Dasara.⁹ And to the students at Brindavan in the summer of 2000: “As his name implies, he was a friend to the whole world. How did he achieve this status? By giving humanity the priceless gift of the Gayatri Mantra.”¹⁰

In the Dharma Vāhinī he writes: “It was this sacred mantra alone that turned the royal ṛṣis, beginning with Viśvāmitra, into brahmarṣis.”¹ And in the Sathya Sai Vāhinī he speaks of its power with wonder: “Viśvāmitra discovered the Gāyatrī mantra. This is connected to the power of the sun. It is exceedingly powerful; it is a great mantra. There is an utterly wondrous power in it.”¹¹

The name itself is a promise. The Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad gives it in a few words: “She protected the gayas; the breaths are the gayas, and so she protected the breaths. And because she protected the gayas, she is named Gāyatrī.”¹² Swami gives the same teaching in the Dharma Vāhinī, where the gayas are the vital breaths, the senses beginning with speech. Then he adds the old verse, gāyantaṃ trāyate yasmād gāyatrī tena kathyate, and opens it out: “because she protects him who sings her (that is, one who remembers her, recites her, chants her devotionally, prays to her, and meditates upon her), she is therefore called Gāyatrī.”¹

To boys at their initiation in 1965 he put it in one line: “Gaayathri means 'that which saves, when repeated'!”¹³ And in 1983 he said it is a mantra “which protects or fosters the ‘Gayaas’ or jeevis (individual beings).”¹⁴

The Chāndogya Upaniṣad widens the circle until nothing is left outside it: “The Gāyatrī is all this, whatever exists here. Speech is the Gāyatrī, and speech sings of and protects all this that exists.”¹⁵ Swami opens his chapter on the Gāyatrī with that very teaching, and carries it inward with the Upaniṣad, from the earth to the body to the heart where the breaths rest: “All the beings that appear before us shine forth as Gāyatrī.”¹

She is called the mother of the Vedas. “It is said, Gayatri Chhandasam Matha, meaning Gayatri is the mother of the Vedas”, Swami said, and he called her the embodiment of all the gods and of all the mantras.³

He showed how the four Vedas meet in her. Each Veda holds one great declaration at its heart, and he named them: “Thath thwam asi (That thou art), Prajnaanam Brahma (Consciousness is Brahma), Ayam Aathma Brahma (This Self is Brahma) and Aham Brahmaasmi (I am Brahmam). When all these are synthesised, the Gaayathri emerges.” In the same talk: “The Gaayathri manthra has in it the validity of the Vedhas. It contains the essence of Vedhic teachings.”¹⁶

He went back further still, to the first sound. Om is the sound of the first stirring of creation, and “The Gaayathri is the elaboration of that Pranava and so, it is now held so venerable that initiation into spiritual life is achieved by its contemplation.”¹⁷ To boys he had just initiated in 1965 he gave it as a picture: “Dear boys, you have today got the Gaayathri, the milk from the four teats called four Vedhas of the udder of the Cow that is Godhead; it has in it the sustenance that will make you shine with spiritual health.”¹³

The Rāmāyaṇa carries her too. Swami opened his Rāma Navamī discourse of 2001 with an old verse: “Just as Veda Purusha (Virat Purusha) was born as Dasaratha’s earthly son, the Vedas were born from Prachetas in the form of The Ramayana.” And he said plainly: “Do not think that Ramayana is different from the Vedas. In fact, it is the very essence of the Vedas.” He saw the four Vedas in the four sons of Daśaratha, Rāma the Ṛg Veda and Lakṣmaṇa the Yajur Veda, whose mantras belong to the sacrifice; that, he said, is why Viśvāmitra, the seer of the Gāyatrī, took the two brothers with him to guard his sacrifice.¹⁸

The poem says the same of itself. Vālmīki, it records, “spoke twenty-four thousand verses”, as many thousands as the Gāyatrī has syllables,¹⁹ and at its close it names what it is: “that unsurpassable Rāmāyaṇa is none other than the living embodiment of the Gāyatrī mantra.”²⁰

Reciters have long read the two together. Their tradition sows the twenty-four syllables through the poem, one at the head of each thousand verses. The first thousand opens on ta, in the poem's first word, tapaḥ, as Vālmīki questions Nārada, ever given to austerity and sacred study; the last opens on yā, in the verse of the night Sītā gave birth to her twin sons. Those twenty-four verses are gathered into a hymn of their own, the Gāyatrī Rāmāyaṇam, and its closing verse says what they hold: idaṃ rāmāyaṇaṃ kṛtsnaṃ gāyatrībījasaṃyutam, this whole Rāmāyaṇa is joined to the seed of the Gāyatrī, and whoever reads it every day at the three junctions of the day is freed from every sin.²¹

So the story of Rāma is the Gāyatrī told as a life. The mantra asks for the light that awakens the intellect; the poem shows that light lived, step by step, in a man who keeps dharma in himself, in his family and in society. “The Ramayana manifested to elaborate the human values”, Swami said, and he brought it home to the one who listens: “Rama is present in every heart in the form of the Atma. That is why, He is known as Atma Rama.”¹⁸

The mantra moves in three steps, and Swami traced them. “First the Divine is praised, then It is meditated upon in reverence and finally an appeal is made to the Divine to awaken and strengthen the intellect, the discriminating faculty of man.”⁴ The first nine words, from Om to devasya, praise the Divine; dhīmahi is the meditation; dhiyo yo naḥ pracodayāt is the prayer. “The manthra is thus a prayer to God to confer all powers and talents.”²²

Bhūr, bhuvaḥ, suvaḥ

The three words are usually taken as three worlds stacked one above another. Swami turned them inward. Bhūr bhuvaḥ suvaḥ, he said, “does not refer to three worlds outside man. All the three are in him.”²³ Bhūr is the body, made of the same elements as the earth; bhuvaḥ is the life-force that moves it; suvaḥ is the awareness that gives the life-force its power.²⁴ In his later years he gave them three words of his own: “Bhur, Bhuvah and Suvah in the Gayatri mantra refer to body (materialization), life-force (vibration) and soul (radiation).” And he drew the lesson: “I tell you often, you are not one, but three—the one you think you are (physical body), the one others think you are (mental body) and the one you really are (Atma).”³

Tat savitur vareṇyam

Tat, That; savitur, of Savitṛ, the source from which all this is born. Vareṇyam comes from the root vṛ, to choose. It is the one most worthy to be chosen. The Maitrī Upaniṣad reads it as choosing: “that sun yonder is Savitṛ, and he is thus to be chosen by one who desires the Self”.⁵ What the heart chooses above all else is what it loves above all else; so the radiance the Gāyatrī praises is the one most loved, the one most longed for, and the mantra carries prema at its heart.

On the day he initiated a group of boys into the Gāyatrī in 1995, Swami spoke above all of love. Love turned toward the passing world is attachment; “When it is directed towards God it is true love.” “Truth issues from Prema. In this world there is nothing greater than prema. The more you love, the more blissful you become. Divinity is the embodiment of love.” And he joined the two charges in one breath: “Develop love and sanctify your life with that Prema principle. Chant the Gaayathri morning, noon and evening.”²⁵

Bhargo devasya dhīmahi

Bhargo devasya is the radiance of the god, the light that drives away darkness: “‘Bhargo devasya’ signifies that the Sun is the dispeller of darkness.” The old seers saw that life on earth cannot go on without the sun and found subtle secrets in it: “Hence, they adored the Sun as the principal deity in the Gayatri mantra.”⁶ The Maitrī Upaniṣad hears the whole of that light in the word’s own sounds: “bha, because it lights up these worlds; ra, because it gladdens these beings; ga, because these creatures go into it and come from it.”⁵ Dhīmahi: on that light we meditate.²²

Dhiyo yo naḥ pracodayāt

The last line is the prayer, and it asks for one thing. Dhiyaḥ are the intellects, the understandings, as the Maitrī itself explains it: “the thoughts are the understandings”.⁵ Pracodayāt is may That awaken: may That illumine the intellect. Swami gave it as a prayer to the sun: “May the Sun illumine our intellects in the same way he sheds his effulgence”.⁶

What is missing from the prayer is as telling as what is in it. “It does not ask for mercy or pardon”; it asks for a clear intellect, “so that the Truth may be reflected therein correctly, without any disfigurement.”¹⁷ In 1972 he put the prayer in a seeker’s own mouth: “Illumine me, prompt my intelligence, so that I may walk aright.”²⁶ To the summer students of 1977 he gave it as “Blossom my intelligence, give importance to my intelligence”, a plea that the darkness of ignorance be lifted and true wisdom flower within.²⁷ And in 1983 he showed where an awakened intellect looks: the mind is busy with differences, the buddhi seeks the oneness beneath them, and “The Gaayathree manthra (Vedhic prayer to illuminate the intelligence) is a sacred manthra which demonstrates the unity that underlies manifoldness in creation.”¹⁴

The whole line, then, is one movement: we meditate on that most adorable radiance of Savitṛ, the light chosen above all; may That awaken our intellects, so that the truth is reflected in them as it is.²⁸

Swami saw the whole of a person held in the mantra. He described the Gāyatrī as having five faces: Om; bhūr bhuvaḥ suvaḥ; tat savitur vareṇyam; bhargo devasya dhīmahi; and dhiyo yo naḥ pracodayāt. In them she holds the five life-breaths: “Gaayathree represents in these five faces the five Praanas (life forces). Gaayathree is the protector of the five Praanas in man.”¹⁴ Understood in this way, “it will be realised that all the five aspects of Gaayathri are within each of us.”²²

She has three names, Gāyatrī, Sāvitrī and Sarasvatī, and each guards something in us: “When one's intelligence and intuition are developed by the recitation of the manthra, the activating deity is Gaayathree. When the life-forces are protected, the guardian deity is called Saavithree. When one's speech is protected, the deity is called Saraswathee.”¹⁴ Sāvitrī is the wife of the old story who brought Satyavān back from death, and she protects those who live by truth.¹⁴ From this he drew a charge for every day: “You have to unify your senses, life principle, and your speech and offer yourself to God.”²⁹ And in 1981, naming the three as fostering what is metaphysical, physical and psychical in us: “These three karanas or instruments have to be cleansed and sublimated so that man can realise the goal of life.”¹⁶

The Gāyatrī belongs to no one group, because it is addressed to no single name or form. In 1964 Swami called it “a universal prayer that can be used by men of all climes and creeds, for, it calls upon the Glorious Power that pervades the Sun and the three worlds to arouse, awaken and strengthen the Intelligence, so that it may lead to intense Saadhana and Saadhana may lead to success.”¹⁷ At Dasara the next year: “It is a prayer that can well be spoken with yearning by men and women of all creeds and climes in all centuries.”³⁰ Its prayer is made to the Intelligence that pervades the whole universe, “not to any particular Name or Form of that Intelligence; and so, all can use it and be saved by it.”³¹

For the same reason it leaves no room for quarrels: “There can be no fanaticism, no hatred, no rivalry, if the Gaayathri is adhered to; its japa (pious repetition) will clarify the passions and promote Love.”³¹ When delegates in 2001 asked whether it should be chanted in the Sathya Sai schools of the West, he answered first, “You can do as per the dictates of your heart. If you feel its chanting bestows upon you benefits, you can do it”, and then: “Gayatri is not a woman nor does this Mantra belong to any particular religion or country.”³²

Nor would he let birth decide who is a brāhmaṇa. The word means one who has realised Brahman, he writes in the Dharma Vāhinī, and “Caste and creed should not be attached to this word.”¹ To boys at their initiation in 1995 he said it outright: “One becomes a Braahmana by action and not by birth.”²⁵

For Swami the thread ceremony is a birth. “Man has four births. His first birth takes place from his mother’s womb. He gets a second life when he is initiated into the Gayatri mantra.” Study of the Vedas is the third birth, and the fourth comes with the knowledge of Brahman. “For this, chanting of Gayatri Mantra is very essential.”³

He told the newly initiated what they had been given: “So the Gaayathri manthra has been given to you as a third eye to reveal to you that inner vision by which you may realise Brahman.”⁴ He wanted it given early, because the intellect blossoms after initiation into the Gāyatrī: “That is why it is essential that Upanayanam be done at the age of eight.”³ And he had seen it work: “Boys, who have been indolent or dull before getting the Brahmopadhesam have been able to develop their intelligence and be more diligent in their studies after they have received the Gaayathree manthra. This is a matter of proven experience.”¹⁴

The old rule is to chant the Gāyatrī at the three junctions of the day. In the Dharma Vāhinī Swami explains sandhyā as fixing the mind fully and well on God, and gives each junction its reason. The morning, fresh from sleep, belongs to sattva and is the time to meditate on God; at noon the food is offered to God before the meal, so that rajas does not rise; at dusk, when tamas gathers, prayer, wholesome recreation and good conduct guard a person from ruin.¹ He named the sattvic hours, four to eight in the morning and four to eight in the evening, and he would not accept the excuse of busyness: “The plea that one cannot find time for reciting the Gaayathree thrice a day is specious and untenable.” Chanted at the three times, it settles each day’s account the same day: “It is like buying goods for cash, instead of getting them on credit.”¹⁴

Yet he never let the clock become a cage. “But God being beyond time, it is a result of our limitations that we talk of dawn and dusk.” “It can be repeated always and everywhere, only one has to ensure that the mind is pure.” He gave the young simple moments to tie it to: “Make it a point to repeat it when you bathe as well as before every meal, when you wake from sleep and when you go to bed.” At the end, he asked, say śānti three times, for peace in body, mind and soul.⁴ And in 2000: “Chant this mantra perpetually. Why should you stipulate a particular time period for chanting His name who is beyond time?”³

He cared how it was sounded: “Westerners have investigated the vibrations produced by this manthra and have found that when it is recited with the correct accent as laid down in the Vedhas, the atmosphere around becomes visibly illumined.”⁴ And he cared, above all, that it be meant. He told of the young man whose father had him repeat the Gāyatrī a hundred and eight times, who said it once and then “ditto” a hundred and seven times: “You cannot save yourself by tricks; spiritual effort is a hard process.”³³ The one who chants, he writes, should regard himself, without difference, as that radiant primal Person, the Self.¹

Swami spoke of the Gāyatrī’s protection with complete confidence. “It will protect you from harm wherever you are”, he told the boys in 1977.⁴ “The Gaayathri manthra is enough to protect the person who chants it, because Gaayathri embodies all the Divine potencies.” He gave three of her old titles: “‘Sarva roga nivaarini Gaayathri’ (Gaayathri is the reliever of all diseases). ‘Sarva dhukha parivaarini Gaayathri’ (Gaayathri wards off all misery). ‘Sarva vaancha phalashri Gaayathri’ (Gaayathri is the fulfiller of all desires).”²² And in 2000: “If you chant the Gayatri mantra wholeheartedly, you will never face difficulties or hardships in life.”³

Its deepest protection works on the character. “This Gaayathri has the subtle power of removing evil tendencies and implanting virtuous habits”. Man is the Lord’s dwelling and yet feels weak and bound, because he imagines himself so, and only the power of God can lift that delusion: “The Gaayathri promotes the acquisition of Daivasakthi.”¹³ “What greater protection, what greater virtue is there than a prayer that guards the mind from straying into sinful acts?”¹

In the end the Gāyatrī is found inside the one who chants it. The Chāndogya follows her from the earth to the body to the heart, “for in it these breaths rest, and they do not go beyond this.”¹⁵ Swami heard her in the breath itself: “In our respiration process the sound of Gaayathri is embedded. That sound is a reminder of our true form.” The breath goes in with so and out with ham, so’ham, I am That; and the truth that holds in past, present and future, he said, “That truth is Gaayathri”, dwelling in the heart.²² In 1998 he read the same breath another way, as the Haṃsa Gāyatrī: with every breath we take God in and let the ego go, twenty-one thousand six hundred times a day.³⁴

He called her by the name of a mother. “Gaayathri is Annapoorna, the Mother, the sustaining Force that animates all life. So do not neglect it.”⁴ To the boys of 1965 he named three mothers who deserve devotion: the mother who bore the body, the Mother who sustains the universe, “and the Gaayathri-maatha (the Mother who saves you from bondage and ignorance)”.¹³

And he left the newly initiated with the picture of a morning: “Like sunrise after the night, the Gaayathree manthra dispels the darkness of ignorance”. Then: “The rays of the Gaayathree manthra illumine the mind and intelligence and promote knowledge, wisdom and discrimination.”¹⁴