gaayatrI

words in italics are the Sanskrit words. These words can be read in the Sanskrit English dictionary by Sir Monier Williams, available in Internet at <http://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/monier/> The Sanskrit words in italics are in Itrans version.) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Language Sanskrit is known as deva (Divine) bhaaShaa (Language). Every word in Sanskrit has its origin in a root or elemental word. From that elemental word it is possible to know the divinity of the object or the divine personality which that particular word represents. The same word may also have different roots and etymological meanings. Words are expressions or defined forms of consciousness. The process by which we articulate a word is inline with the process by which the Universe is created by the Gods word or by the Universal Consciousness. The word, go in Sanskrit means cow and also sense. The word, go in English means to move. The Sanskrit word go can be related to the Sanskrit root word gam. gam means to go or to move. Since we move or work by our organs, so by the Sanskrit word go, organs or indriya have been mentioned in the texts. Thus whenever the texts / Vedas have mentioned go (cow), it means the sensory and other organs, like the eyes, ears etc., by which we go or move around, through which we get the nourishing milk, milk of life to live.
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Externally also, these aspects are very prominent in an animal called cow, whose organs like eyes. ears, nostrils, tongue, genitals are all very prominently featured on the body. Cow produces the nourishing milk. The Seers know how the words of the God have created the Universe and how the words are exhibiting themselves in the form of universe and otherwise (in unexpressed form, called avyakta in Sanskrit). So they have named the creatures and objects accordingly. Seers can see which divine words or which deity is prominent in which creature or object and accordingly they have done the nomenclature of everything. This is the specialty of the language of Sanskrit. gayatrI has been explained as the goddess who rescues the organs or the indriya from the mortality. There is an Upanishad(a pat of the Vedas) called Brihadaranyak Upanishad, where the seer has explained the goddess gayatrI as gayanam (organs) tatrey(rescues)----the goddess who rescues the organs or senses or who transcends the decaying mortal senses beyond the mortality. There are five principal sensory organs (ears-hearing, lips/skin-touch, eyes-vision, tongue-taste, nose-smell). These are centers of consciousness. The other organs are part of these. (Organs are also called a~Nga besides the word indriya in Sanskrit.). There two kinds of motion which we undergo with each activity. One is outward and the other is inward. We are actually swinging. We are always swinging in a cradle, like a mother who swings the child. Like, you are reading these lines. You are outwardly

active, determined to read this, oriented yourself to this reading and thus you are reading. At the same time, whatever you are reading it is getting merged with you, it is going in you, you are feeling good or bad about it, it remains in your memory and it stirs your emotions. This is the inward activity. Thus with every thing you are swinging. When you look to see a flower, you move outward, you see the flower and then you may feel it like how beautiful!, this is inward. This is why Hindus have a god called govinda= go (organs)+vinda(vind; who knows), thus meaning the Consciousness who is knowing in the organs or whose knowing is the organs, or the flow of senses. Hindus worship this god in the form of a deity swinging on a cradle. Upanishads have described how Principal praaNa (mukhya praaNa), the Universal Life God (who is throbbing as life and activities in you, with whom you stay in the body and with whom you depart from the body), takes the eye, the ear, touch etc. beyond the death or mortality. While describing, Upanishads have termed the visions (eyes), smell (nose), hearing (ears) etc. as the praaNa(streams of life) which are part of the mukhyo (Principal) praaNa(Life). praaNa means active Consciousness. When or where this activity also becomes inactive in absolute oneness, there we call Him/Her as Soul/aatman. We are talking about the same consciousness. We are talking about the real We. Any activity can happen when there is a duality. In absolute oneness there cannot be any activity. Thus activity starts

from the creation of duality. aatman, soul becomes praaNa when HE/SHE creates duality or splits HIM/HER in the form of creation. The moment this duality is created, the time starts flowing. The flow of praaNa is called time (termed kala in Sanskrit). praaNa is termed as ashva(meaning horse) in the Vedas. The Sanskrit word ashva is related to the Sanskrit word shva meaning time and also dog.( It means dog because inherently they are obedient, they follow their masters, the ruler, i.e. the time that prevails on them.) The Sanskrit word shvas meaning to breathe also is a related word because we breathe by the praaNa, by the Time. The term ashva(horse) means the flowing or running time or time in action. Upanishads have described that Principal praaNa carried the eyes, ears etc. beyond death by singing whose Vedic term is udgan. It is for this reason another interpretation of gaayatrI is that she is the goddess who rescues us or the organs (indriya) beyond the death, mortality by singing. gayatra-ng (by singing) trayasey (transforms, rescues). The root word gai means to sing. The word gai also means to be called. The vedic word udgaana means ud (up) + gaana(song). The Principal praaNa, gaayatrI, sings us up, calls us up, up the death, up the limitations, up the darkness, up the mortality. Such a singer is called udgatRi In our process of evolution through the myriads of life and death cycles we are evolving. This is also udgaana! The Principal praaNa is lifting us beyond these compulsory cycles of life and death. We slowly becomes inquisitive of

ourselves, we automatically start thinking who are we, what for is the life, how to surpass death, what is there beyond..This is how slowly we are getting transformed. As the eye, the vision, is taken beyond the death, beyond the mortality, your vision, your eyes get merged with the universal centre of vision and time. Such centers are called Sun in the planetary systems. It is for these reasons the Vedas identify the eyes and the sun in several hymns. Thus your vision never decays. As the Principal praaNa lifts the ears beyond the death, beyond the mortality, the hearing, the ears become the directions. Directions are the vectors, the inclinations of the praaNa which determine the formation of space. What is known as direction in the physical world are the inclinations, trends in you. Directions also maintain an equilibrium to keep you stable. You have a stable trend. You may know that the physical ear has a part that decides your sense of balance. If you hear something, what you hear, it immediately sets your trends or directions or inclination about what you have heard. Basically hearing (shruti in Sanskrit) means feelings. Every knowledge in you, every aspect of consciousness in you, is a word which you listen or hear. The way you have listened about some one or some thing decides your inclination toward that subject of which you have heard. Thus your hearing, all those which are words in you, becomes unending, beyond all time and space. Your ears never decay. Every word you hear remains embedded in directions, embedded in the set of vectors those constitute

that word or the object. Thus you become omniscient of everything. Thus your listened word, your knowledge of a particular thing surpasses a specific meaning and idea and becomes the seed of infinite meaning and expressions, thus your knowledge no longer remains bound by space, they surpass the space and gravity and remain in directions (dik/dish in Sanskrit) which can produce an object (or a word) in different ways in different space. Your ears are having locations in the directions in the outer space. What we see as thesky, there all the directions, vectors are in equilibrium. So beyond the death, beyond the mortality, the words will be in the sky, in the space. The components of space are the words. Thus your sense of touch becomes unending, beyond all time and space. You remain contacted, communicated, connected automatically with every one, beyond the limitation of time and space. Your skin, your touch becomes that universal thread, network, by which every one is strung. Your touch is the universal air. You touch every one! Your touch never decays. Thus your sense of taste becomes unending, beyond all time and space. Your taste never decays, you never loose your sense of taste. You assimilate everyone, every thing you assimilate in the taste of self assimilation, assimilating every one in the juice of one-ness! Dissolving all dualities in the universal taste of one-ness. Your taste goes beyond mortality, remains in the universal spirit of one-ness, remains in all the juices those keep the creatures animated, remains in all the water that sprinkles life. Your semen

exists in the universal water, seed of all the creatures, for re-creations! . Thus your smell becomes unending, beyond all time and space. Your sense of smell never decays. The air, the life you breathe in and out through the nose through the olfactory organs, is holding you and your body together. You never breathe when you are in the mothers womb. You get your body, you get caught by the earth when you breathe for the first time after you are released from the womb. In Sanskrit, the words body and the word earth are synonyms. It is this air circulating through your nose implements the gravity in you, your body is held in you, you get earthed. Thus beyond the death you smell remains in the earth, it remains in the universal embodiment. The sense of embodiment and the smell is the same. As the Prinicipal praaNa (mukhya praaNa) lifts the words beyond the death, beyond mortality, the words become the fire. They become unending, beyond all time and space. The word that you speak comes from deep inside of you, from the core of your consciousness. The first spark, the first expression of consciousness is the fundamental word. You dont know what you will talk when, what will happen to you when, in what form the time will reveal as series of events in you and what are all those events! In every expression that happens in you, in every shot of feeling that you get, in the every moment which you get as your life, there is this fundamental word (called vaak or goddess vaak in Sanskrit) in the beginning of every event. This is fire, called agni in Sanskrit. agni means agram (in

front) nayati(leads). agni, means who is always in front, who leads everyone else, who is always before every thing, who reveals every thing. agni, praaNa exists before everything, every entity. This is fire, the mother of all expressions. As the vaak flows, She condenses, condenses to formation and thats emotion in you. As the cloud becomes dense in the sky before the shower so is it in your inner sky. Then it takes more definitive form, and reveals as determination in your mind where you are physically active. This is happening in electrifying speed. First it is expressive, contains the seed of the entire event, called vaak /teja /Fire/Electricity, then it starts condensing, called jala /Water/praaNa/ hRidaya/ Heart, then it becomes formed, which is called mind, where you determine whether to do something or not to do, where you feel the shapes and dimensions. Mind is immediate to the physicality, or physicality is the extreme boundary of the mind. The three dimensions of time remains in one dimension in vaak. Vedas have called mind as anna whose one meaning is food, i.e. which nourishes or supports the physical world. So these are teja/jala/anna, the trinity. Goddess vaak, the fundamental word, agni, is the element of everything. There are several hymns, statements in the Vedas which have identified vaak with agni. This is how we are connected with the macro (called viraaTa or adhidaiva) in the texts.

Goddess gaayatrI is also called saavitrI in the Vedas. The word savana means the periods, the intervals, phases of a day or phases of the life. saavitrI is the goddess who is predominating on your life and who makes you to flow through the savaana Like a day is divided so the life is divided and stated as (1) praata savana----praata means the morning; (2) madhyaahna savana----madhyaahna means the middle of the noon or noon; (3) sayam savana----- sayam means the dusk. savana also means the act of pressing out the soma juice, i.e. pressing out the juice of the life. gaayatrI or saavitrI has three aspects corresponding to these three phases of the life. These three phases are also corresponding to the three Vedas, Rik, yajur and saama. gaayatrI has been always described as residing inside the solar(surya) sphere(maNDala). The word soma as stated earlier also means the moon. The creeper soma which used to grow in the Hindu-kush mountains of Afghanistan, would shade its leaves during the waning phase of moon and will have the new leaves growing during the waxing phase of the moon. soma or the moon signifies the filtered sun light.(Also, during the Vedic rituals the Seers would be filtering the soma juice.) A portion of the light is absorbed by the moon, and a part is reflected to us. Through this lunar sphere it is decided how much every individual gets, how much is his or her proportion or fraction. The destined things come to you

through this aspect of consciousness called moon or the lunar sphere. The juice, the life that flows in the plantation of the earth is controlled by moon. Similarly whatever we get, achieved is controlled through moon It comes from the Solar sphere, gets regulated in moon, and realized or earthed in us. The divine fire, which is called vidyut (meaning electricity) is refractive in the Sun, is reflective in moon, and when earthed becomes the earthly glow or earthly fire, known commonly as fire. These are the three Principal radiance, luminescence of the Consciousness. (Note that the electricity if earthed catches fire.). These three centers of Consciousness is known as surya maNDala (Solar sphere), soma maNDala (Lunar sphere) and vahni (or agni) maNDala (Terrestrial sphere). We also return to the earth through the lunar sphere. In this center it is decided where we will be born, how will be our life etc. Similarly after the death we return to the lunar center and from there we go to the other planes(loka). These three centers are also known as bhu, bhuva, and sva. All physicality, all shapes and dimensions in all space and time is held in bhu (terrestrial sphere, agni or vanhi maNDal). bhu is the radiance or expression of gaayatrI. If you can close your eyes and feel the world (which you see externally) inside your mind without being particular of the shapes and dimensions, you will get a feeling of the Lunar sphere (soma maNDala), bhuba. Here everything is

there as in the external earth, but without the shapes and dimensions. This is the Lunar sphere as described above. bhuva is a radiance or expression of gaayatrI. The word sva precisely means the assertion less self in you. When you assert, you say I am so an so.. You keep on varying every moment, now you are happy, next moment you are anxious, next moment you are absorbed in a thought and so on. This can happen in you or in the consciousness because there is a plane of neutrality in you where you remain unchanged or neutral in-spite of your changes all the time. Otherwise once you enter into laughter, next time you could not be sad, you would keep on laughing! Because of the plane of neutrality you keep on changing. (in the texts, this aspect is termed as asa~Nga meaning not involved, untouched. You have two poles, at one end you always change with time, you cry, you laugh, you fear, you work..At the other end (pole) you remain unchanged, untainted, immaculate! There the time does not act on you or from there the time, regulation or praaNa originates. This is immutable, immortal you. This sva in you is sva in me, sva in everyone. It is with Ones self, we all have our selves. Here you are self luminescent. Here you find that everything you know is from you, your forms. This is self-luminescent gaayatrI, consciousness in you! This radiance in macro is called sva loka. loka means a plane, a territory. Here every thing you get in you, you dont have to work and struggle. gaayatrI is radiating HER radiance, thats how we are all alive, every one, every where. By HER radiance the time is flowing, the universe is ever active. The seed of the work,

activities, motion, is formed in sva. Every moment / event which you are going to see is first formed here. Then it comes to the middle or lunar plane in you, which is bhuva. This is your emotional plane, where you feel sorrow, joy, where you desire. Then in the next step, you get ready, you determine to work, you get active, this is bhu. You determine and become physically active. This is how the radiance of gaayatrI (called bharga) is coming in us all the time. Whether you meditate or not, the radiance is always coming to you to keep you alive to elevate you beyond death. First vaak gets initiated Herself. Then an entire event which you are going to see is created, but in a seed. This is teja (radiance). This is the elemental time, where the entire event is held or known in an instant! Here time which we feel in sequence is held together (i.e. future, present, past are together.).Then time, vaak, unfolds in sequences. Then you get desirous in the middle plane, heart, lunar plane, plane of reflections. The desires crystallize,(i.e. the directions, vectors starts transforming into space or shape), you gets determined and activated mentally and physically. This is happening everywhere, universally. There is a hymn in the Vedas: asato ma sadgamaya | tamaso ma jyotirgamaya | mrrityorma amritam gamaya pavamana soma punihi punihi mam {(take us) from the unreality to the reality from the darkness to the light from the mortality to the eternity; oh! flowing soma, purify us, purify us!}

References: 1. Chandogya Upanishad 2. Brihadranyaka Upanishad 3. Monier Williams Online Dictionary {This is written from the teachings received from the seers Shri. Bijoykrishna Chattopadhaya (1875-1945), and his principle disciple Shri Tridibnath Bandopadhaya(19231994). --Debkumar Lahiri} (you may write to the author at dkldk@rediffmail.com or debkumar.lahiri@gmail.com for any comments or query)