Chanting The Guru Gita To Sing God’s Glory
by Sarah Porter
Audio Version of This Blog Post
For many years, at the command of my Spiritual Leader, Kedarji, I have repeated two Sanskrit verses of the Guru Gita morning, afternoon and evening working my way through its 182 stanzas, again and again.
Swami Muktananda Paramahamsa says of the Guru Gita: “The Guru Gita is a supreme song of Shiva, of salvation. It is a veritable ocean of bliss in the world. It encompasses the science of the absolute, the yoga of the Self. It gives vitality to life” (The Nectar of Chanting, p. xiii). He goes on to say, “If a person who is devoted to the Guru sings this song, he easily attains all powers, realizations and knowledge, fulfilling the aim of yoga.” “It leads one to understand the necessity for devotion to the guru, the guru’s role, nature, and distinguishing characteristics.” (p. xiii).
I had learned that to properly chant the Guru Gita, one sits upright with feet on the floor. This provides a posture or asana that over time strengthens the body’s core and provides a posture that enhances the flow of Divine energy. To further enhance that flow of energy or Shakti within the body a mudra or hand position, is created by holding the chanting book upright in the right hand. The left hand is resting on one’s left knee. And then, there is a beautiful cadence to the verses, and one that I easily picked up.
Repeating the two verses of the Guru Gita was not my first encounter with [ remove ‘the’] it. Prior to Kedarji’s command, I chanted the Guru Gita about once a month for years.
However, in all that time, all I could manage was to struggle through the pronunciation of the complicated Sanskrit words. It was a source of anxiety to stumble through the chant because it looked like everyone else was articulating the words. I was entangled in doership, feeling worthless and comparing myself to others. I worried I was massacring the sacred Sanskrit language. There seemed to be no hope for me. I tried to learn the pronunciation of the words, yet the straightforward explanations of diphthong, diacritical mark and tilde mystified me. Even so, I continued to chant during programs. Despite my concerns, at the end of the chant my body was buzzing. I felt a lovely sense of peace. Later, my distress at stumbling over the words reemerged. I vowed to master the words. It didn’t happen. And so it went, for years, playing out the same drama over and over.
One of the first questions I asked Sadguru Kedarji, after I met him, was if the Guru Gita was to be taken literally. I was surprised when he said yes. This was followed by his imparting the understanding that like all scared texts it is most important to have a living Sadguru to provide the understandings that may be hidden in the verses. Obtuse and obscure sacred understandings were to protect the content from being misused. Kedarji provided an English translation of the Guru Gita further informed by Swami Muktananda to supplement the English translation found in the book, The Nectar of Chanting.
In the introduction to the Guru Gita in The Nectar of Chanting, Swami Muktananda writes: “The truth is that only those pure and noble beings who are themselves fully immersed in devotion to the Guru and who worship him by identifying themselves with him are competent to write on the theme of the Guru Gita” (p xiv). In addition, Kedarji had explained that it requires a living Self-realized being to shed light on the subtleties and nuances within its sacred verses. So, I want to be clear. I am not writing on the theme of the Guru Gita. I am writing of my experience of chanting the Guru Gita.
As I began to write, I allowed myself to fall prey to my poor mental conditioning: I think, what a drama queen I am around my so-called failings. I alone am on the stage lamenting my limiting ego idea. No one else must suffer these insults. Am I foolish to write of my experience of the Guru Gita? Others have written so eloquently. With an improved mental state, the second pillar of the Joy in Daily Living, I intended to be a conduit for Shiva to write this blog.
In the Guru Gita, Parvati, disciple and consort to Lord Shiva, asks a question, and it provides a potent opening to the Guru Gita; also, it was my very own question as well. The opening verse begins with her question. Parvati asks Lord Shiva: “Om. Salutations. O Lord of the gods who is higher than the highest, O Teacher of the Universe, O benevolent one, my great Lord, please initiate me into the knowledge of the Guru. O Lord, how can an embodied being like myself become one with the Supreme Principle, the Ultimate Reality? Please have compassion on me by bestowing this knowledge. I bow at your feet.” (from Kedarji’s augmented understanding of the Guru Gita). I am struck with the enormous humility, reverence, longing and love that exudes from those mantras she utters. It opens my heart every time I read it. Parvati’s attitude and question reinforces those importance attributes I need when approaching my Sadguru, my spiritual leader, Kedarji. On the one hand, during those fateful times when I failed to approach Kedarji with reverence and humility I felt I was hitting a brick wall. On the other hand, when I had inculcated humility, reverence and love I could feel myself merge into his deep well of Love, compassion and support.
As I continued to read and re-read the verses, I had a dawning awareness that here was a full description of God. That was another question I harbored for years: who or what is God. I was on a spiritual path and had yet to have even a notion of what or who is God. These phrases began to bore into me. Shiva ‘spills the beans’ immediately by responding: You are my very own Self; It takes me several years to take that in. It is huge. The ego-taint, that I am nothing, nobody, not worthy was so thick and ingrained in identify, that it really did take years before I could even consider that the phrase meant me. All the universe appears in various forms, but there is no difference in Him from anything. It is merely an illusion of cause and effect.
Chanting the Guru Gita and The Spiritual Power, the first of Kedarji’s Four Pillars of Joy In Daily Living go hand in hand. The Spiritual Power is That which gives power to everything. It is the substratum of everything explains Kedarji. “…there is no difference in Him from anything.” What better way to enhance Spiritual Power than to chant the Guru Gita. What better way to get over my ego-driven identify crisis that I am nothing, a nobody, than to chant the Guru Gita.
But was it Shiva or my ego that was illuminating my life? What was illuminating my life was a blazing ego as my restless mind sounded like a sports caster’s running commentary on everything from the traffic as I hurried to the airport to the contents of people’s shopping carts. Then I remember: All the universe appears in various forms, but there is no difference in Him from anything. It is merely an illusion of cause and effect.
Kedarji has been teaching about superimposition for years. Superimposition is not like a big imposition when someone really inconveniences you. In the past I understood superimposition to mean having my perceptions distorted by my past experiences that are stored in my subtle energy body, namely the sushumna nadi. This is true, but an incomplete understanding. I had learned about projection years ago as meaning reacting towards another as if they were a significant person from one’s childhood or reacting toward a thing or event as if it were something else, such as seeing a rope in the road as a snake. Therefore, for the past decade whenever Kedarji talked about superimposition and projection – in my arrogance, I assumed I knew all about it and did not listen as carefully as I should have.
However, as he was talking about superimposition during his programs in late June and early July 2024, I was also reading the verses 36-39 of the Guru Gita (from The Nectar of Chanting).
V 36. Salutations to Shri Guru, by whose Shakti power the world is real, by whose light it is illumined, and by whose Bliss people are Blissful.
V 37. Salutations to Shri Guru, by whose existence the world exists, who shines through the form of the sun, and by whose love all are dear to us.
V 38. Salutations to Shri Guru who illumines the world of forms but whom the mind cannot illumine, and by whose power the waking, dreaming and deep sleep states are also illumined.
V 39. Salutations to Shri Guru, whose only form is the only Truth, and by whose knowledge and blessing this world will no longer be perceived to be divided by differences.
I had read these verses so many times. Kedarji explained that seeing anything as other than God is a superimposition. In other words, everything I see in the mundane world is a superimposition unless I see everything as God. The light was dawning. It was an aha!! moment.
How does that perception of division happen? Kedarji laid out the sequence of events leading to superimposition. It begins with labeling. Everything has a name and a whole host of corresponding understandings. In addition, we form attachments to things that are named. The attachments might be attractions, or they might be aversions. If the label isn’t God for all things, then superimposition occurs, and the Truth is obscured. We don’t see it that way because we have concealed the Truth by the mundane labels we use.
Kedarji says of verse 9 of the Guru Gita: “The Guru is not different from the Supreme Principle, the inner Self. There is no doubt about this. This is the truth; this is the truth.
V 39. “Salutations to Shri Guru, whose only form is the only Truth, and by whose knowledge and blessing this world will no longer be perceived to be divided by differences.” Om Guru Om
Sarah Porter, PhD MS MPH RN CHTP/I is a certified healing touch instructor, teaching in Hawaii and Japan. She has over 15 years of Healing Touch practice and 30 years of practice as a psychiatric mental health nurse and clinical specialist with a holistic perspective. She is the co-author of the book, “Women’s Health and Human Wholeness”, emphasizing the necessity of bringing wholeness back into the health care system. She also serves on the Board of Directors for our school
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