Om Asato Ma Sad Gamaya

This Mantra is one of the most beautiful Mantras to me.

When I'm down, or something bad is happening, I keep repeating this Mantra and it always helps me.

It's from the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad, and is about 2500 years old.

These are the Words:

Om Asato Ma Sad Gamaya

Tamaso Ma Jyotir Gamaya

Mrityor Ma Amritam Gamaya

Om Shanti Shanti Shanti

The Meaning is:

Lead me Through the Illusion to the Real

Through the Darkness to the Light

Lead me through Death to Immortality

Om Peace.

A very common translation is

"Lead me from the Illusion to the Real

From the Darkness to the Light

Lead me from Death to Immortality."

I like to say "through" instead of "from" because I feel that many people want to get away "from" Illusion, Darkness or Death.

Many People think there is a Place free from Illusion, Darkness or Death.

But there is no getting away from any of these three.

The only way out is to go in.

If we manage to realize that we are caught up in Illusion, face the Darkness and Die the necessary Death, that's almost half the Journey.

It's ok to be in illusion, we all are. It's ok to be in the Darkness. And it's ok to die.

It's perfectly ok to be exactly where we are.

This is where we are supposed to be.

If we can be there, with all the Pain, we have the possibility to become more than that.

If we can be there, we find Truth in the Illusion. We find Light in the Darkness and we find Immortality in Death.

When we look close enough, we realize that they are not seperate from each other. They compliment each other.

There is this complete Darkness, and we think that that's it, but when we just keep going for a bit longer, we suddenly find bright Light.

We wouldn't find this Bright Light standing in the Sunshine. The Darkness is the Reason why we found it. It had been the Path.

So when we see it that way, we wouldn't want to get away from the Darkness, because it holds our greatest Treasures.

The Mantra is not about Illusion or Truth, Darkness or Light, Death or Immortality.

This Mantra is about the Journey we go THROUGH.

That's why I like to say "Lead me through Illusion to Death, through Darkness to the Light and Through Death to Immortality."

This is where we find Peace.

Om Shanti.

Beautiful Fotos taken by Barbara Süss