Guru Purnima Blessing from Swami Veda Bharati (2011)
Guru Purnima Blessing from Swami Veda Bharati (2011)
Swami Veda reciting:
Brahamanandam parama sukadam, kevalam janamurtam dantwa, yedam gagana sa drisham, tatvamas tikamyam, mekam nityam vmala achalam, sarvadi sakshit bhutam bhava dtitam, triguna rahitam, sat Guru tam, namamea.
Swami Veda commentary:
She/he who is One with the bliss of Brahman who grants us the highest delight, the one absolute alone, the very embodiment of knowledge beyond the conflicts of dualities, pure like the vacuity of the sky and space, one who is the goal to be achieved by the knowledge of the Vedantic mahavakyas, the great sentences, such as That Thou Art, tat tvam asi.
The one alone perennial immaculate, immobile, the witness of all thoughts and intuitions beyond the states of being, free of the effects of the three gunas, sattva, rajas and tamas, to that pure true Guru and his lineage unto that, I prostrate, I surrender.
As I was contemplating this occasion of Guru Purnima, my thoughts went back to what I have shared with you in the past of the first creation: the mind creation. The bodiless mind beings, they whose bodies are minds, the first sages, the first carriers of the knowledge that is infused into these unencumbered minds, these beings whose consciousness is only the consciousness of infinity not divided like ours in spaces, times, causations, conflicts, events, situations. Such beings are the ones from whom all the Guru lineages begin, whose mantric knowledge all the lineages inherit, and in their compassionate generosity that knowledge is infused into us by way of initiation.
As I was contemplating this, the knowledge-beings sent forth some mantras. Four of them I’ll recite and then I’ll read out the approximate, very rough, inaccurate paraphrase of what has been passed on in the form of these passages.
- Madhoodakam tRShitaaya chetase
Sanaa jaagran me tanvas tmano vashee
bhraajad-rashmih paavakah shuchih
somo gurur bhadra-geer aasheer-daa bhoot.
Om eem amrtaaya tejase shreem viraaD-gurave namah
- hRdaa su-peeto vaacho agne rasah
svarvaan satya rtasyaamitaujasah
praanasyormir aaviSh-kRNvan mayRtam
rashmeer vi-kiran dhRtir indriyasya
Om a’eem saarasvataaya shreem pRthivyaa gurave namah
- viShNoh karmaaNi tri-padasyoshmasi
dhaatur dhaatraaNi dheeShu dhareemasi
somasyaapaam shikhaah pra pibaamasi
syasya naamnaam dhaamni ni vishaamasi
Om hreem vaiShNavaaya
shreem aantarikShyaaya gurave namah
- poorNenduh kalasho yatra soma aa-plutah
yatraaraa rashmeenaam vi-dhRtaa sahasram
tatraa guruh sinchati soonRtaanaam
kaavyaa ushanaa na amRtaa su-jeevaa
Om eem, a’eem, hreem, kleem, streem,shreem gurave namah
These syllables Om eem, a’eem, hreem, kleem, streem, shreem that are repeated in these mantras are known as bija mantras, powers of shakti, the supreme infinite energy, the Divine Mother. I ask you to keep copies of the paraphrases I read out and spend a year reading them over and contemplating to understand the mystery of the Guru.
- “Honeyed water for a mind athirst
His speech a blessing conferred from eternity
Eternally wakeful He is Master of my body and soul.
My eyes are affixed upon the visible and invisible
Rays emanating from the feet of that moonlike Deity.
Om Eem, unto that immortal Light,
Shreem, unto the universe-Expanse Guru
My prostrations, my homage, my surrender, my ‘not mine’ is offered in love.”
- “Who is the essence, flavour, savour, juice of fire that is speech, the word
Drunk in the heart in abandon, the heavenly truth
– of the Perennial Law filled with immeasurable luminous power;
Wave of prana revealing in me that perennial law,
Radiating rays that are the sustaining power
– of all that is in the lord of heaven
Om a’eem, unto the incarnate form of Saraswati, the Divine Mother of Wisdom.
Shreem, to the guru of Earth my prostrations
My homage, my surrender, my ‘not mine’ is offered in worshipful love.”
- “We who sees only with the eyes of senses,
– We the cattle of the Lord of beasts,
– The One Whom we see thus with Whose own eye
He Who Himself dwelling in our own eyes
Sees His self and Whose Self sees our self
Om kleem, unto the very form of the Lord of the beasts
Shreem, unto the guru who is the Master of luminous heaven
My prostrations, my homage, my surrender, is offered in love.”
- “Who made me a haven of shree-glories
Warded-off death’s glances with heavenly light
Made to flow unto me in all varieties
– the waves from a thousand udders of the cosmic sound-oceans
Om streem, unto the thousand-rayed,
Shreem, unto the guru, the Lord of brahma-egg universes
My prostrations, my homage, my surrender, my ‘not mine’ is offered in worshipful love.”
“Sacred goblet is the full moon where into soma is flooding,
the one where the arrays of thousand rays are held variously
– forming sahasraara—
There the guru sprinkles the epics of inspired sweet streams
of poetic speech.
These streams are indeed beyond the pale of death;
These are the beautiful beings of very Life.
To that Guru, my prostrations, my homage, my surrender, my ‘not mine’ is offered in love.”
The words may not make immediate sense. Each word has many layers. So it is with the layers of the mantras that are granted to us by the lineage, by the Guru parampara that constantly infuses into our minds the sparkling rays of intuitive wisdom, knowledge, awakening.
It is said in the scriptures that there are three things, three states most difficult to obtain in this universe. Blessed and fortunate are those who having been: 1. born human are filled with, 2. the state of longing, aspiring for freedom, spiritual liberation, moksha; and among them, blessed and fortunate, 3. who have found a luminous guide, a guru, under whom they have chosen to shelter, under whose guidance they may be guided to walk on the path of that liberation that they are longing for.
Have you cultivated that aspiration? Are your acts inspired by, motivated and guided by this intense longing to reach the personal knowledge of infinity. To live in the awareness that all spaces of the universe and beyond are immaculately filled with luminous waves of infinity and that ocean of infinity is sending its waves through you day and night so that these bondages, these limitations, of spaces, times, causations, conditions no longer bind you.
Are you moved by that longing in your life? Only when you are moved by that longing will the hand of the divine Guru, whatever form that hand has taken, our own Gurudev his lineage, any other such lineage, will that hand rest on your head and will pass on the rays of infinity into your very being. And then you would know who you truly are.
The one who, dwelling in your own eyes, looks at you; the one who is the in-dweller, that graceful one, gracious one, who will grant the grace of supreme knowledge, and honeyed water of inspired speech. That is “guru”, that will flow through you.
This is the teaching passed on by countless generations. We do not know how many generations. For thousands and thousands of years – the Gurus to disciples, the Gurus to prepared disciples, passing on the experience. This is being passed on to you also, and some of you are blessed who are passing on the knowledge to others.
I’m inviting many of you who feel that something of a more immortal nature should be done with this life to seek deeper and greater knowledge, to pass it on to others and serve the lineage because the more you serve the lineage the more blessings the lineage confers upon you.
Everything has been passed on. Work on it, learn from the next generation of teachers. And I want to tell you that when a teacher goes into silence, his teaching becomes much deeper. You search for that silence, mauna, the path of the contemplative mystic.
In this silence follow the methods of meditation you have learned. Keep repeating the divine name, same name, again-and-again, always.
Hari Om, Om, Om shreem gurave namah.