“Lead me from darkness to light”

Darkness to light

In the Integral Yoga style of yoga that I practice and teach, we conclude each yoga class by chanting this shanti mantra (peace chant):

ॐ असतो मा सद्गमय ।
तमसो मा ज्योतिर्गमय ।
मृत्योर्मा अमृतं गमय ॥

OM, Asato ma sadgamaya
Tamaso ma jyotirgamaya
Mrityorma amritam gamaya
Om shanti, shanti, shanti!

“OM, Lead me from unreal to the real, lead me from darkness to light and lead me from the fear of death to the knowledge of immortality”

This is a verse that appears in one of the Upanishads called Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. 

Usually these prayers are addressed to either the Guru, the teacher who is known to be a realized soul, or to God.

Most verses in the Hindu tradition start with the recitation of OM, the symbol that represents Ishwara (God). Thus, before we recite the mantra, we bring our awareness to the ultimate consciousness called Ishwara.

Let us try to get an in-depth understanding of this shanti mantra.

Line 1. “asato ma sadgamaya”

The word “sat” means truth, reality and pure existence. On the other hand “asat” just means the opposite – untruth, unreality and non-existence. The student here is seeking the ultimate truth in life. He has come to understand the limitations of the present life that he is leading. He now realizes that all his “possessions” – wealth, health, food, housing, means of transportation, success and fame etc. – are all transitory in nature. They come and go. They are not a source of permanent happiness or joy. Anything that can be considered true or real must exist in all three stages of time – past, present and the future. Everything in this ephemeral universe is constantly undergoing change. Our human bodies go through constant change. Our mind and intellect are constantly changing. Thus, none of these can be labeled as a source of eternal joy.

The student, in the first line of this verse, is thus seeking the ultimate truth and reality in life which never undergoes any change.

Line 2. “tamaso ma jyotirgamaya”

The word “tamas” means darkness and “jyoti” means light. In all the ancient scriptures, the Vedas and the Upanishads etc., tamas refers to the darkness of ignorance and jyoti refers to the light of wisdom or true knowledge.

The Sanskrit word for ignorance is “avidya”. In the yoga sutras, Patanjali states that avidya is the root cause of all suffering. He defines ignorance as, “Ignorance is regarding the impermanent as permanent, the impure as pure, the painful as pleasant, and the non-Self as Self.” (sutra 2.5). This definition seems to echo the state of our mind most of the time when we are in a state of confusion.

The only remedy for darkness is light. In the Vedanta tradition, the most commonly quoted example is the “snake in a rope”. A man is walking in the street late in the evening when the light is very dim. He sees something lying curled up on the ground and runs away fearing that it is a snake. A passerby who has a flashlight is able to throw light on the object and show to this man that it was only a piece of rope there. In the darkness of ignorance the man suffered the emotions of fear and anxiety. Our life, for the most part, is built around similar instances of ignorance where we take unreal for real and go through suffering.

Through the process of mental purification we can begin to remove the ignorance and get the light of true wisdom and understanding. This process will ultimately lead to self-realization.

Line 3. “mrityorma amritam gamaya”

The word “mrityu” means dealth and “amritam” means immortality. Since we do not know our true nature as being pure consciousness, we identify ourselves with this mind, body, ego complex. This puts us in this interminable cycle of birth, death and rebirth. The Sanskrit term for this cycle is “samsara”. The term immortality here means that we want to get out of this cycle of “samsara” by attaining self-realization. We recognize that our true identity is nothing but pure consciousness which undergoes no change. Thus we can terminate this cycle of birth, death and rebirth. In the yoga philosophy we understand that it is just the physical body which disintegrates back into the five elements at the time of death. It is the soul (atman) which is tied up with the subtle body (mind, intellect etc.) that undergoes this cycle of samsara. Once the soul recognizes its true nature, it is no more tied up with the mind, body, ego complex and is thus free forever.

In this third line, the student is seeking an understanding of the true nature of Self so that there is no more a fear of death in the mind.