What is the significance of Gayatri Mantra? What result does one get by chanting this mantra?

From Anant Vallabha Pr

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
prabhu what is the meaning and the significance of the gayatri mantra and of the initiation in which we get the gayatri mantra answer this is an important question and as it is often not well understood i have a ppt and this will be a slightly long answer which will talk about a lot of concepts so first and foremost in the broad vedic tradition as it has been presented to us by ishwara prabhupada in the gaudiya vaishnava sampradaya there are two kinds of initiation one is the vedic diksha that is called in traditional language upanayana and then there is the pancha ratrika diksha which is used by the vaishnavas and that is what we have so now in the traditional vedic diksha upanayana at that time the brahma gayatri mantra is given and in the vaishnava pancha ratrika diksha there are six more mantras which are given that the three pancha ratrika mantras and the three pancha ratrika gayatris so let’s look at what these mean now the gayatri mantra is meant to be chanted primarily by brahmanas that’s why ishwara prabhupada did not encourage devotees to quote it publicly for everyone because brahmanas is not by birth but by qualities but ishwara prabhupada uses the translation of the gayatri mantra as let us meditate on that worshipful effulgence of the divine sun who enthuses our meditation so it is described that actually the sun has on his planet in the 12th canto it’s described that the sun has on his planet surya narayana in the acharyas commentaries it is described that actually when the sun is worshipped it is on the sun planet is his worshipable deity in the surya narayana it is he who is worshipped through the worship of the gayatri mantra so it’s not a meditation on the sun but just the sun gives us light the supreme lord illuminates us and it is a meditation on the supreme lord who is the son of the sun who is the illuminator of the illuminator of the whole world the word gayatri itself has no explicit reference to the sun what gaya means to sing gayana and tra is to deliver that which delivers by singing gayatri so gayatri so the gayatri delivers one from material existence and that’s why that which delivers us from material existence is called as that is called as gayatri so now the mantra which is called as the gayatri mantra now is the brahma gayatri mantra and it has four main parts now the gayatri mantra comes in several places in the Rig Veda it comes with out the mahaviratis i’ll explain what that is in the shukla yajurveda the yajurveda has two parts the white and the black shukla is the white yajurveda so in the white yajurveda it comes with the mahaviratis and in the chandogya upanishad the significance of the mahaviratis is described so the four parts of the gayatri are first it starts with om and that is considered to be the beach the primal sound and then the bhuv and this actually refer to the three planes of existence so the bhur loka, the bhur loka and the svarga loka that’s what they refer to and these are invoked that these are three realms of existence and all three are manifested ultimately from the supreme lord who is being meditated over here through his invocation of these mantras and it is described and bhur refers to the gross body the bhur refers to the mind and the svarga refers to the intellect intelligence so in this way the various coverings in the soul are also referred to by these so these are the three great aspects of material existence so that’s why they call them mahaviratis and then there is the gayatri mantra itself which is central part and then dhimahi is something which comes regularly within the vedic mantras and the word dhimahi simply means meditation so dhimahi is a characteristic of gayatri mantras let us meditate on that absolute truth and the word dhimahi comes even in the even in the first verse of the shimad bhagavatam and that indicates the similarity or with gayatri of the first verse of the shimad bhagavatam the same mood of meditation and the supreme lord is there then after that this is the structure of the brahma gayatri mantra this is standard gayatri mantra which people refer to by the name gayatri but and the same structure is slightly is adopted and slightly adapted in the pancharatrik mantras so the pancharatrik mantras have a bija instead of or along with or instead of oma depending on the situation there is aima or klim so klim krishnaya like that there are mantras so various namatmaka that means that is just like there is the main gayatri mantra so like that here in the pancharatrika there is the holy names that are mentioned namatmaka and then there is swaha or namaha which indicates obeisances and lastly there is dhimahi there is meditation as there is in gayatri mantras now we may wonder that if the gayatri mantra is already there why do we need the pancharatrika mantras and what exactly are the pancharatrika mantras so to understand this we need to know that as the vedic literature explains the skanda purana explains kalau shudra sambhava so actually everybody in kaliyuga is a shudra and gayatri the upanayana is to be done primarily by the for the brahmanas so in that sense nobody is directly qualified for upanayana that’s why the vaishnavacharyas have described that the pancharatra system has been especially recommended for this kaliyuga now the pancharatra is referred to in the mahabharata and this verse is quoted in the paramatma sandarbha anuchaya 18 by jiva goswami who describes pancharatra krishnasya bhaktatu bhagavan svayam so pancharatra krishnasya means certainly this is the speaker of this is certainly the supreme personality of god krishnasya is completely certainly so the whole of pancharatra is certainly spoken by the supreme lord bhaktatu bhagavan svayam so it has the same authority as the normal pancharatra mantras as the vedic as the other vedic revelations because they all come from the supreme lord and now pancharatra has the same authority now what exactly does the word pancharatra mean that is also explained very clearly the pancha refers obviously to five and ratra refers to just like we might think of ratra as referring to night but ratra actually here means knowledge like we have so ratra means to be absorbed so ratra is absorbed in knowledge so now what are the five limbs of the knowledge that is vedic yogic maik mukti and bhakti so this is pancharatra five aspects of pancharatra explained in narada pancharatra that is by one given by narada muni so the pancharatra literature they often begin with just like the there are many pancharatra literature narada pancharatra is one of them just as the brahma sutras begin with athato brahma jijnasa the shandile sutras and bhakti they begin with athato bhakti jijnasa so these are especially focused on bhakti now within pancharatra to actually acquire these five kinds of knowledge it is important to have the pancha samskara so bhaktivinoda thakur has explained how this pancha samskara is adopted within the vaishnava tradition and especially the gaudiya vaishnava tradition and then we will see how this has been further adopted within the krishna consciousness movement within a scorn by shloka prabhupada so this is a verse that comes traditional in traditions about the pancha samskara within pancharatra so tapah pundram tatha nama mantra yogascha panchamaha amehecha pancha samskara paramaikantika hetavaha so there is a five parts of tapah pundra nama mantra and yaja and what happens by this paramaikantika hetavaha they are meant for the ultimate benefit of everyone paramaikantika so what is the five parts tapah refers to the performance of austerities so in our context those austerities can refer to following the four principles and essentially recognizing that we are not the enjoyers we are the servants of krishna that is tapah and pundra is basically urdhva pundra is the tilak that we apply so applying tilak on the body we apply it primarily on the forehead but also on 12 parts of the body which indicates that the body is the temple of lord krishna and then nama refers to the receiving the holy name from the guru mantra refers to receiving the various gayatri mantras so we generally refer to nama and mantra as the same like hare krishna mahamantra so hari nama mantra so we may confuse the two but within pancha samskara nama and mantra are different so nama refers to the nama diksha the getting the holy name from the spiritual master and mantra refers to getting the getting the second initiation where one gets the gayatri mantra and once one gets the gayatri mantra one becomes second initiated and then one can do yajna yajna means duty worship specifically over here so in a sense if you look within the scone context tapah is something which we start understanding and practicing when we understand the basic philosophy that we are the servants of krishna and then we adopt the practice of wearing tilak which is pundra and at the time of first initiation we get nama and then at the time of second initiation we get mantra and then we start doing yajna so basically the whole process of initiation is distributed over various phases now coming specifically forward these are the two system in pancha ratra system and there is the vedic system and they have their different emphasis so in the vedic system the primary emphasis was on doing yajna and for that yajna one has to chant various some kind of mantras and do fire rituals in the pancha ratra system the focus is more on duty worship and within the krishna consciousness movement the primary focus is neither on upanayana not the vedic system nor pancha ratra the primary focus is bhagavata dharma so that is sri chaitanya mahaprabhu exemplified it by chanting and hearing and inspiring everyone to hear and chant this is the bhagavata vidhi and the bhagavata vidhi focuses on sound vibration centered on krishna now within the bhagavata vidhi the pancha ratra and the upanayana they are adopted as aids for making our practice of bhagavata vidhi more diligent that means our primary focus and our essential purification will come by the bhagavata vidhi to assist us in the practice of bhagavata vidhi we have the system of initiation and we have the system of duty worship so we have to have our priorities clear our primary focus our primary priority is hearing and chanting and everything else is an aid for this. Sri Prabhupada would explain that the temple is there so that people can come to the temple and not just take darshan of the deities but can also hear about krishna and that’s how they will become their lives will become transformed otherwise they will just continue the everything as a ritual so it’s extremely important for people to get the opportunity to hear and chant and that is why this is the center but once people have started hearing and chanting as we as sadhakas have started practicing hearing and chanting to make ourselves more committed to this process we can also we should also take initiation and have all these other aspects like duty worship and chanting of the brahma gayatri so that we become more committed in the practice of hearing and chanting now the five the yajna pavitha the sacred thread is called the yajna pavitha and in the yajna pavitha there are often nine threads and these nine threads signify the nine processes of devotional service so our focus is on the process of devotional service shravanam kirtanam and the nine threads also signify the nine stages till one comes to prema so in this way the yajna pavitha the sacred thread is harmonized and integrated with the process of the practice of devotional service of centered around hearing and chanting now coming to the specific benefits of the gayatri mantra now traditionally speaking the gayatri mantra is said to have arisen at the start of creation now brahma samhita explains that the kama gayatri which is one of the gayatris which you would chant in the gaudiya vishnu sampradaya that is gayatri mantra when brahma ji heard the sound of krishna’s flute it was so sweet and that when he tried to speak it out repeat that sound through his speech that emerged as the brahma as the gayatri mantra that’s how this mantra has originated so now regarding the specific potency the brahma gayatri mantra can as you say gayatri is the gayatrayate so it can attain gives liberation now directly if we look at the content of the gayatri mantra itself uh there are no specific personal references within it so it is primarily meant to meditate on the effulgence of the sun which will lead one towards liberation so if we visualize two concentric circles as are shown in this ppt over here then the lower surface of the inner contrary concentric circle is goodness and the lower surface of the outer concentric circle is uh ignorance so the gayatri mantra can take one from ignorance up to uh liberation whereas the hare krishna mahamantra and the process of hearing and chanting centered in the hare krishna mahamantra can take one right from ignorance onwards to liberation not just and to liberation and beyond even to to prema which is beyond the attainment of brahman which is actually the attainment of bhagwan in the spiritual world so in this way the gayatri mantra actually takes us to liberation from goodness but the hare krishna mahamantra scope is far greater it takes us beyond from ignorance from wherever we are presently even if we are not on goodness all the way up to the spiritual world to prema that’s why our primary focus is on the chanting of the hare krishna mahamantra and as a aid to the chanting of the hare krishna mahamantra we also chant the gayatri mantra so the gayatri mantra is chanted at the sandhya times it is a it is as i said the gayatri mantra primarily comes from the vedic system which involves upanayana and in the vedic system the specific time place circumstance are extremely important and that’s why we have the specific time place circumstance as significant in the chanting of the gayatri mantra we chant it at particular times that is we chant it at three sandhyas morning afternoon evening and at around the noon and chanting it at those times the primary focus is again on the remembrance of krishna through the chanting of those mantras and to the extent we chant with the remembrance of krishna to the extent even the gayatri mantra assists and accelerates our advancement towards the love of the goal of love of god so in this way the gayatri mantra is a very important aspect but it is not all important it is it is an aid it is an assistant for us to practice the process of pure devotional service centered around hearing and chanting and especially centered around the chanting of