Gāyatrī
गायत्री
ॐ भूर्भुवः स्वः ।
तत्सवितुर्वरेण्यम् ।
भर्गो देवस्य धीमहि ।
धियो यो नः प्रचोदयात् ॥
A request for the mind to be set moving, made to the light that moves everything else.
Why this one
It is not a request for anything to be given. Read it closely and it asks for one thing only: that the understanding be set in motion. धियो यो नः प्रचोदयात्. May he set our thinking going.
That is an unusual thing to ask for, and it is exactly what a man in this training needs. Dependence does not take away a man's intelligence. It stops it moving. He can still see what is happening to him, often more clearly than anybody around him, and he cannot move from the seeing to the doing. The gap between the two is where the whole illness lives.
So of everything that could be asked for, this verse asks for movement in the one faculty that has seized. And it asks the sun, which has never once failed to move.
वाचिक: Said out loud, at the length of one out-breath. The syllables light as you say them. उपांशु: The lips move, the breath carries it, nobody across the room can hear it. The mantra stays on the screen and stops moving. मानस: Nothing is said and nothing is shown. Only the breath and the count. अन्तर्यात्रा: One mālā that goes inwards by itself. The first third aloud, the second in a whisper, the last in the mind. The voice leaves the room without you deciding when.
How many
One hundred and eight is the usual count, and there is no need to start there. Eleven is a real japa.
How to say it
The traditional order, and it is a withdrawal inwards rather than a set of levels. Nothing here is locked. Stand on whichever step you are on today.