The Guru Gita – Song of the Guru

The Guru Gita – Song of the Guru

[01:33] The Process of Illumination

Jai Guru Deva. Thank you for listening to my podcast, The Vedic Worldview. I’m Thom Knoles. 

I’d like to make some comments about the Guru Gita, Guru G-U-R-U, new word Gita, G-I-T-A, Guru Gita. In Sanskrit the word Gita means a song, and Guru means a darkness remover. Gu in Sanskrit is darkness, Ru is remover.

So the means whereby a Guru removes darkness is through the process of illumination. And of course, we’re addressing this as ever, not on the literal and denotative, but expressed in the connotative, in the consciousness play. Obviously, you’re not going to gain a heightened consciousness state by somebody shining a flashlight, as Americans call it, or a torch, as Commonwealth speakers call it, on you.

The darkness refers to areas of knowledge that you need to be better informed. So the remover of not being fully informed happens by virtue of becoming better informed, and let’s start on that today. I’d like to make you better informed about a particular thing.

First of all, I want to back up all the way to Source, and Source is our own consciousness. Our own consciousness. What does that mean? We know we have a brain, we know we have thoughts; obviously we have thoughts, here we are discussing things and exchanging ideas from one mind to another. So consciousness exists.

In the Vedic worldview as it is in quantum physics, consciousness is a fundamental property of the Unified Field itself. The Unified Field of consciousness is that field out of which all forms, all phenomena and all awarenesses issue forth. And from that one indivisible, whole Absolute field, we have the whole of relativity, the ever-changing world, coming into being and into manifestation.

[04:14] Grades of Manifestation

And then there are grades of manifestation. The most expressed means the most rapidly changing, that which is, if you like, the outer crust of relativity. As we go deeper into relativity, then time epochs begin to become larger. When we start approaching the unmanifest, the absolute zero, if you want to think of it that way, of the consciousness field, we enter into a zone known as Ritam Bhara Pragyan.

Ritam, R-I-T-A-M, Bhara, B-H-A-R-A, Pragyan, P-R-A-G-Y-A-N, Ritam Bhara Pragyan is the state where we still have some individuality, but we’re about to transcend, go beyond, step beyond, into The Absolute consciousness field where all individuality is forgotten for a moment, for however long one is in that transcendent field, and one is experiencing capital T, capital A, The Absolute.

And then coming out of that state, one comes back into the thinking mind, and typically the way that we approach this is through Vedic Meditation. We practice a specific technique whereby we sit quietly, effortlessly, upright, comfortably, and allow the mind, using a medium of experience, a particular class of mantra, to draw the awareness inward to the subtlest level, transcending which we experience The Absolute consciousness field, the Unified Field of consciousness in its absolute and unmanifest state.

So in the Vedic worldview, all items of knowledge, indeed all things, emerge from The Absolute. And then, there is a beautiful phrase about this in the Vedic literature. One of the branches of Vedic literature is referred to as Rig Veda. Rig Veda is the encyclopedic Veda. 

[06:54] Elements of the Self

Rig Veda, in the first mandala, states:

Richo Akshare Parame Vyoman
Yasmin Deva Adhe Vishve Nishedu
Yastana Veda Kim Richya Karishiyathi
Ya It Tad Vidus Ta Ime Samasate.

What does all that mean? Beautiful sounding words. Sanskrit provides us with very beautiful sounds when we’re expressing thought. Richo Akshare Parame Vyoman. Richa means particular items of knowledge. Richo Akshare Parame Vyoman, are embedded in the transcendental consciousness field.

That is to say, deep within your consciousness, deep within anyone’s consciousness, are embedded specific items of knowledge. Yasmin Deva Adhe Vishve Nishedu. And by the way, this is also the residing place of all those personifications of creative intelligence, which we refer to as Devas. D-E-V-A, Deva. In Sanskrit it means a shining one.

What are these? Well, they are elements of the Self, as indeed are all items of knowledge. Our sense of what’s “out there” in the world is actually a model of our own consciousness field, what has emerged in our consciousness, by virtue of the degree to which we have become aware.

And so then, what is it that exists for you? Well, only that of which you can be aware. 

If there is a lizard strolling through your living room, that lizard can see primarily in infrared light, a level of light that no human being ever has experienced. From the lizard’s perspective, your living room, maybe it has a nice Persian carpet, maybe it has a flea-bitten old bit of straw on the floor, whatever it may have, none of that matters one whit to the lizard.

The lizard’s brain is looking to see to what extent it might be in a target-rich environment for different kinds of bits of lunch that it might be able to zap with its retractable tongue. Are you in the same living room? Evidently you are, but lizard consciousness and your consciousness are so utterly different that it may as well be an utterly different world.

So, knowledge is different in different consciousness states.

[09:41] Expanded Awareness

As we repeatedly, with Vedic Meditation, it’s typically practiced twice a day for about 20 minutes, as we repeatedly allow our individual awareness to merge with the unbounded underlying Unified Field of consciousness, the transcendental consciousness state, our consciousness begins to become more and more expansive and more and more inclusive.

That means to say that we’re able to experience within the realm of relativity a greater amount of detail, and not just in specific, as in exclusive focus, but as in all-inclusive awareness, that is to say, multi-phasic thinking, multi-phasic sensory appreciation.

Someone who has had that experience, and stabilized it, of that extreme degree of super acuity of sensory perception and who has the ability to have expanded the periphery of that of which they can become aware, we call this expanded awareness. 

Expanded awareness is both the periphery of that of which you can become conscious, and also the degree of subtlety within that periphery of which you can become conscious.

[11:17] Sensing the Cascades of Cause and Effect

And as we have more and more within the range of that of which we can be conscious, then we have an advantage. We can sense the cascades of cause and effect with greater and greater accuracy. Sensing those cascades of cause and effect with greater and greater accuracy puts us in the position of being a “seer.”

A seer is someone who sees, not just seeing, but tasting and touching and smelling and hearing, all the details of a large periphery of consciousness, all inclusively, with great subtlety and acuity of the finest layers of stimuli. In Sanskrit, we refer to this kind of person as a Rishi, R-I-S-H-I. Rishi, a seer.

One of those great seers of our tradition, going back historically somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 years in India, was a master by the name of Vyasa, V-Y-A-S-A, Vyasa. Vyasa, the great master who is attributed with having committed into writing, having cognized what is referred to as the 18 Puranas.

A Purana is a body of knowledge. A body of knowledge with reference to a specific aegis, a specific presiding of an element of creative intelligence. These may sometimes be referred to as devas or gods, but we have to remember Yasmin Deva Adhe Vishve Nishedu, right at the beginning of this talk I said… the realm of those devas is not just out in the outside world, something independent of the Knower, they issue forth from the Knower. That is to say, they are elements of one’s own consciousness. The elements of one’s own consciousness.

[13:42] Skanda Purana

One of these Puranas is entitled Skanda. S-K-A-N-D-A Skanda. 

Skanda is mythologically, and when we say mythologically we don’t mean fallaciously, we mean in the legendary consciousness play. Skanda is one of the names of a being who has other names. In the south of India he’s called Murugan. M-U-R-U-G-A-N, Murugan. In the north of India, Skanda also is known as Kartikeya, K-A-R-T-I-K-E-Y-A, Kartikeya.

Kartikeya, Skanda, Murugan, all names for the same impulse of creative intelligence, is a child of the offspring of the confluence of supreme masculinity known as Shiva and supreme femininity known as Parvati. Parvati and Shiva.

Parvati and Shiva are both elements of our own consciousness. They are consciousness events. So I’m going to pains to remind us that, we’re not talking about a theology or a deiology, that is something that is claimed to be independent of the Knower.

These are products of one’s own consciousness. These are elements and archetypes that can be found within the range of any human awareness. And so let’s keep that in mind.

Shiva and Parvati, supreme masculine traits and supreme feminine traits unified together in a union. They are supposed to be espousal, they are supposed to be consorts of each other.

To use the common parlance, we would say husband and wife, but that’s probably getting a little bit too much on the human level.

And they produced several offspring, consciousness events, that come out of that union. One of those is Skanda.

[16:10] The Song of the Guru

When we read the Skanda Purana, that collection of knowledge that’s attributed to Vyasa, one of 18 major texts that is attributed to Vyasa, we come across a subheading, a subchapter called Guru Gita.

Guru Gita; The Song of the Guru. And in this, we have a storyline. Parvati, one of the apparitions of Mother Divine, communes with Shiva. And so we would say, talks to Shiva, but really, again, this is coming back into the very human level of relative experience. She communes with Shiva with a particular inquiry; that is to say there’s a question mark, and it’s a thematic question mark that has in it Parvati’s inquiry about how the highest states of enlightenment can be gained.

In response to which, issues forth from Shiva a series of sounds, and those sounds, if chanted, if approximated by the human tongue and approximated by the human voice, if chanted, and if you are in the least-excited consciousness state, will end up being a set of revelations about the joys of being in contact with a Guru, having someone who is a master who can bring illumination to your need to be better informed.

And this Guru Gita then has survived for thousands of years. So Guru Gita, the song in praise of one’s great good fortune at having a remover of darkness. 

Guru Gita has been commented on by all of the students who descended from Vyasa. His own son Shukadeva, Shukadeva’s student who then became a great master, Gaudapadacharya. His student who then became a great master, Govindacharya, and his student, Shankara, probably wrote the best known of the commentaries on Guru Gita.

[18:56] Sweet Surrender

And what is it really? It’s basically saying that thing that we’ve always expressed in Sanskrit: Shishya Prajnava Bodasya Karanam Guru Vakyatam. Vakyatam. It means it is the state of consciousness of a student that wroughts into wisdom, wroughts, W-R-O-U-G-H-T-S, wroughts into wisdom, the speech of the Guru.

A Guru is only a Guru to the extent that there’s somebody sensible enough to actually get what it is they’re talking about, and that quality of vineeta in a student— vineeta, sometimes translated as humility or obedience, but actually it means the perfect mixture of humility and pride those two things together in perfect balance— allowing the sweet surrender of someone who is willing to do the research proposed by a Guru.

“Close your eyes, pick up a mantra that I’ve given you.” Mantra, a beautiful sound, a mellifluous sound, that is used silently in meditation, which has no intended meaning, which every practitioner of Vedic Meditation learns from their qualified teacher of Vedic Meditation, mantra. Different mantras work best for different people.

“Now, think the mantra absolutely effortlessly. Let it repeat silently in the mind. A faint idea is good enough, and if you feel you’re beginning to forget to repeat it, then do not try to persist in repeating it. Don’t try to keep on remembering it. Let it go.”

And right there is the first act of the surrender, the sweet surrender, of a student who has vineeta, the willingness to actually allow a teacher to guide you, to allow yourself to forget to think.

Imagine it. “I’m going to allow myself to forget to think. Is this some kind of a party trick? Can I stay conscious and allow myself to forget to think?” Staying conscious and allowing yourself to forget to think, it’s a magnificent piece of research, but it does require a lot of surrender on the part of the student.

[21:58] Stop Trying to Control Everything with Thinking

Having taught more than 40,000 people to meditate in this way in my career, which seems to me like a long time ago now, if I think about the very beginning days of it, it was many, many decades ago that I started teaching this.

And I remember the look of slight astonishment on the face of many meditators, new meditators, who, when I said to them, “It’s very important to have a mantra. It’s very important to have the right mantra, the mantra that has resonance, sympathetic vibration with you, the thinker of it. Very important. Now, here’s that mantra. And now, let’s see how quickly you can forget to repeat it.”

The student very often would look and say, “You’ve told me how important this mantra is and now you want me to just allow it to disappear?”

“Yes. No more talking. Let’s get on with it now.”

And those who are able, with that humility, that pride, that willingness, that sweet surrender, ease, to allow the Guru to demonstrate to them how to transcend, how to step beyond the regular everyday experience of trying to control everything with thinking.

And that’s what we’re doing in Vedic Meditation, we’re learning how to stop trying to control everything with thinking.

[23:42] Guru-Disciple Relationship

And the way that we learn that most pointedly is to learn how to forget to think, how to learn to stop thinking. But to allow that to happen, one has to let go of something to which we’re very, very attached.

The very first act of implicit devotion of a student is to follow the instruction of the Guru. And it is this relationship which Vyasa probes deeply in his examination of the relationship between a student and a teacher in the Guru Gita.

Guru Gita underscores that quality, that you’re fortunate if you come into contact with a Guru, but Shishya Pragniva Bodhasya Karanam Guru Vakyata, it is the state of consciousness of the student that’s about to make into wisdom the speech of the master.

It’s the student’s willingness to, in this interaction, a successful interaction between a Guru and a student, is the willingness of the student to actually allow guidance from the state of consciousness of the Guru.

And that willingness, the praises of that willingness, are sung by Vyasa, and all of his commentators in generations who came after him in the beautiful text the Guru Gita.

[25:39] How to Make Use of the Guru Gita

Guru Gita is something, how do we make use of it? The first thing is to get a translation of it in English. We don’t have to be too worried about what translation we get because the precision of the translation is not very difficult.

Now, the words, they don’t possess that degree of subtlety that translating, say, for example, the Veda possesses. It’s a very straightforward document.

Then, the next way to get benefit from Guru Gita is to find a recording of it, and we’ll see if we can do that to post for you to listen to it and listen to it in its original Sanskrit. And how do you listen?

I’ve spoken about this in my podcast on the subject of Kirtan. We practice the Vedic technique of Anukirtana.

Anukirtana. Anu, A-N-U. Kirtana, K-I-R-T-A-N-A. And there’s actually an M on the end of it. It’s in the evocative tense.

Anukirtanam. Anukirtanam.

And what does that mean? Anu, Anu is the quantum field, the least-excited consciousness state, the simplest form of awareness. Being established in that and listening quietly and then having someone who is an expert pronouncer, in pure Sanskrit, preferably not someone who learned it in a warehouse in downtown Los Angeles or something, but someone who was actually raised with those vowels and consonantal sounds rolling around in their mouth since childhood.

And almost always, this is going to be someone who is of Indian origin, who has become a Sanskrit classicist, a pronouncer of Vedic sounds. Because in Vedic sound, the precision of the sound will deliver the impact of it.

[28:06] Nama Rupa Sahitam Bhavati Eva

Nama Rupa Sahitam Bhavati Eva. Nama means name, the name of a thing. This is not to be confused with the word Namah, N-A-M-A-H, which is a separate word.

Nama is N-A-M-A, Rupa is the form. Nama Rupa Sahitam. Sahitam, together, infinitely correlated. Bhavati, the Sanskrit word to be, or the state of Being, Is, Are, Am.

Nama Rupa Sahitam Bhavati Eva. Eva, indeed, emphatically. The name and form are emphatically, infinitely correlated. That means name and form are one.

In Sanskrit, if we don’t get the sound right, then we could be conjuring up something, a form that we don’t particularly want. And a little learning is a dangerous thing. Famous old saying that we are guided by; knowledge should be complete in order to get the full effect of Sanskrit.

So, when we’re listening to Guru Gita, it’s best not to have our friend who bought the book and is reading it with a Swedish accent, or a Kansas accent, or a San Francisco accent, or a Kiwi accent, or whatever other accents are out there. We want the pure Sanskritic, no accent sound.

And then we get into that simplest form of awareness and just quietly listen to it.

[30:09] Well-deserved, Self-created Good Fortune

Now, as ever with Vedic knowledge, the specific intellectual properties of the words and their cascade can be learned from, and one can operate on that level. But properly speaking, as with all Vedic knowledge, the sounds of it being chanted in the proper meter while you, the Knower, are in your least-excited state after a meditation, is where the most fruitful interaction takes place.

One is able, fruitfully, to interact with the sounds in a way that awakens their true value within your consciousness. And then, I’ll take it a step further and say, awakens not just within your consciousness, but your consciousness then causes interneuronal connections to become enlivened, and neurochemical interactions to occur, that change the way your brain functions from less effective, lower repertoire, to more effective, more expansive, more successful interactions with the world around you, broader repertoire.

So Guru Gita extols the virtues of the fortune and it states unequivocally this is not on the basis of luck that one has a Guru, that one has a teacher who can bring light into ignorance, light into darkness, but this is on the basis of “well-deserved, self-created good fortune. Well-deserved, self-created good fortune.

In the Vedic worldview, we do not subscribe to the idea of randomicity or “luck.” There’s no luck involved. We live in a universe that is a product of expectation. That which is the world in which you live is malleable. It is not set, your surroundings are not designed to,be unyielding and simply to make you miserable.

You can use your consciousness state to change the context of the surroundings in which you find yourself and you can be the master of your surroundings and the master of how you interact with them

So this is the Vedic worldview on the subject of Guru Gita, the much-vaunted discourse between Mother Divine in the form of Parvati, and her masculine counterpart, her consort, Shiva.

Jai Guru Deva.