Yesterday I received this message on Gayatri Mantra and its Scientific Implications. I never realized why Gayatri Mantra was so important till I read this mail and learnt its true meaning. This also made me realize how rich our ancient Vedas and Puranas are. Gayatri mantra has been bestowed the greatest importance in Vedic Dharma. This mantra has also been termed as Savitri and Veda-Mata, the mother of the Vedas. Transliteration: Om bhur bhuvah swah Tat savitur varenyam | Bhargo devasya dheemahi Dhiyo yo nah prachodayat || Translation: O God! You are Omnipresent, Omnipotent and Almighty, You are all Light. You are all Knowledge and Bliss. You are the Destroyer of fear, You are Creator of this Universe, You are the Greatest of all. We bow and meditate upon Your light. You guide our intellect in the right direction. The mantra, however, has a great scientific importance too, which somehow got lost in the literary tradition. Line by line in depth meaning OM BHUR BHUVAH SWAH Bhur the earth, Bhuvah the planets (solar family), Swah the Galaxy. We observe that when an ordinary fan with a speed of 900 RPM (rotations Per minute) moves, it makes noise. Then, one can imagine, what great noise would be created when the galaxies move with a speed of 20,000 miles per second. This is what this portion of the mantra explains that the sound produced due to the fast-moving earth, planets and galaxies in space is Om. The sound was heard during meditation by Rishi Vishvamitra, who mentioned it to other Rishis. All of them, then unanimously decided to call this sound Om the name of God, because this sound is available in all the three periods of time, hence it is set (permanent). Therefore, it was the first ever revolutionary idea to identify formless God with a specific title (form) called Upadhi. Until that time, everybody recognized God as formless and nobody was prepared to accept this new idea. In the Gita also, it is said, "Omiti ekaksharam brahma", meaning that the name of the Supreme is Om which contains only one syllable (8/12). This sound Om heard during Samadhi was called by all the seers nada-brahma, but not a noise that is normally heard beyond a specific amplitude and limits of decibels suited to human hearing. Hence the rishis called this sound Udgith musical sound of the above, i.e., heaven. Also notice that the infinite mass of galaxies moving with a velocity of 20,000 miles/second was generating a kinetic energy = 1/2 MV2 and this was balancing the total energy consumption of the cosmos. They named it Pranavah, which means the body (Vapu) or storehouse of energy (Prana). TAT SAVITUR VARENYAM: Tat that (God), Savitur the sun (star), Varenyam worthy of bowing or respect. Once the form of a person along with the name is known to us, we may locate the specific person. Hence the two titles (Upadhi) provide the solid ground to identify the formless God, Vishvamitra suggested. He told us that we could know the unknowable formless God through the known factors, viz., sound Om and light of suns (stars). BHARGO DEVASYA DHEEMAHI: Bhargo the light, Devasya of the deity, Dheemahi we should meditate. The rishi instructs us to meditate upon the available form (light of suns) to discover the formless Creator. Also he wants us to do Japa of the word Om (this is understood in the Mantra). This is how the sage wants us to proceed, but there is a great problem to realize it, as the human mind is so shaky and restless that without the grace of the Supreme (Brahma) it cannot be controlled. Hence Vishvamitra suggests the way to pray Him as under: DHIYO YO NAH PRACHODAYAT Dhiyo (intellect), Yo (who), Nah (we all), Prachodayat (guide to right Direction). O God! Deploy our intellect on the right path. Observe that ancient India knew what modern astrophysics knows now! This was much before us humans ‘creatively’ making models of the universe with elephants and tortoises in it! In fact this is so old that, Copernicus, Ptolemy and friends and enemies should be called modern themselves. The modern astrophysics and astronomy tell us that our Galaxy called Milky Way or Akash-Ganga contains approximately 100,000 million of stars. Each star is like our sun having its own planetary system. We know that the moon moves round the earth and the earth moves round the sun along with the moon. Each of the above bodies revolves round on its own axis as well. Our sun along with its family takes one round of the galactic center in 22.5 Crore years. All galaxies including ours are moving away at a terrific velocity of 20,000 miles per second. This knowledge and exact figures are attained only after years of calculations observations and theories by various men of science. But when you get to know the meaning of the mantra which is so old that it’s time of origin is unknown, find words to appreciate it! We were sure that it is the sun that is the center of our system. We knew there were planets around it. We had no telescopes, no observatories, no supercomputers back then. We had a better all-in-one kind of a tool – Mind. We still have it; we only don’t know how to use it! All this information was literally ‘seen’ by our saints and seers during penance…Also you might have observed that our saints saw no two things such as science and philosophy. For they both were the same. In fact they never saw them as two different entities which need to be unified at all. If they say that the planets move around the sun with tremendous speeds and named it Pranavah, just imagine their understanding levels of his universe. They also say that they make a sound of Om when they move; we say it’s wrong because there is no sound as the universe is in vacuum…I should say we are wrong because we are aware of only the audible sound and other detectable frequencies. They knew of the sounds of a different frequency and amplitude which we are still unable to be sure of with modern equipment and devices. If the device doesn’t detect it, it doesn’t exist is the normal conclusion. If somebody asks us “Who propounded the heliocentric theory?” We automatically say – Copernicus! How pitifully less we are aware of our culture. Incredible India (both actually and sarcastically!)…
Posted on: Tue, 11 Jun 2013 08:15:10 +0000
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