Sree Gayathri Mantra!

Just last week, we celebrated Avani Avittam & Gayathri Japam.
The "grapevine" is that it is Ram`s Upanayanam in Dec.2001.
Hope,by reading this message, he knows, how lucky he will be
to get initiated into this Mantra as Brahmachari.

Gayathri is impossible to explain in a short letter.Nevertheless, I shall try.

The VEDAS are cent per cent knowledge, the root ``vid`` itself means
knowledge, hence the vedas as we know them are books of knowledge.
They are manuals for human affairs in totality and outlive time, both in
the past and future.Being knowledge, they coexisted with time and are
anterior to creation and even GOD.The vedas say how creation proceeded,
how the cosmos was created, how man, animals, plants, mountains, rivers,
in fact all that we see and hear about including the sky, voice etc. were created.
God and nature have to follow implicitly the dictates of the vedas in their activities
including creation. All the physical laws known to man, all mathematics, the physical
sciences,history et all is mentioned there.Pity is that man is not able to understand
these fully, because the interpretators are now not there.The vedas by their vaery
nature do not belong to the hindus or to any other specified group of people.
They are empirical, they are accessible to all mankind and transcend boundaries
of all types.

The vedas are now chanted in the same way and with the same intonation
as they were when first heard by the RISHIS(sears)in the distant past.
No one claims authorship of the vedas, because the rishis only heard them
or saw them, they did not compose them.Nor can any one add or take away
their contents.

Gayathri Mantra is the PENDANT(central piece)of the veda chain and
occurs in all the 4 branches of the vedas, the RIG,the YAJUS,the SAMA
and the ATHARVA.

It is the QUINTESSANCE of the knowledge of the vedas.It means that
all that you conceive, say or perceive is OM, the perenniel and all-pervasive
BRAHMAN.That Brahman is to be experienced,realised.It cannot be explained by
one to another.It cannot be communicated,it is like eating ice-cream or getting
an electric shock.I cannot convey adequately how it feels to experience Brahman.
Each one has to experience it himself/herself in order to understand it fully.
But, the vedas say,and the Gayathri repeats it for us,that the Brahman resides
in the SUN, whose presence is empirical,verifiable by every man everywhere and
at all times.It is the sun which is the cause of all life,living and all knowledge.
In the absence of the sun there can be no universe,no knowledge.Everything will
be darkness personified,no one can exist or progress.Therefore the sun represents
the Brahman,for enabling us to understand its dimensions.Therefore by concentrating
on the sun, we are attempting a first step to concentrate on the Brahman,who
pervades all space and time.

Gayathri is a prayer to the sun God, who is effulgent, the efficient cause of life,
who being knowledge brightens our intellect, to continue to brighten our intellects.
Note that it is not a prayer to brighten my intellect alone but the intellects of
everyone in the creation, because if I am alone knowledgeable and others are
ignorant,I still cannot be happy.So, it is a universal prayer for the welfare of
all creations everywhere.It is auto-suggestive,and concentration on it will lead one-
so the rishis say-to delve into the vedas and into the knowledge of the unknown.
In this way man can liberate himself into eternal bliss. It can be chanted by anyone,
so long as it is sincerely done and with human welfare for an objective.