ॐ असतो मा सद्गमय।
तमसो मा ज्योतिर्गमय।
मृत्योर्मामृतं गमय।
ॐ शान्ति शान्ति शान्तिः ॥
asato ma sadgamaya
tamaso ma jyotirgamaya
mrutyorma amrutam gamaya
om shanti shanti shanti.
Meaning:
Lead me from Untruth to Truth;
Lead me from the Darkness to Light;
Lead me from Death to Immortality/ Life;
Om Peace, Peace, Peace.
Whether said or unsaid, this is the prayer of the whole humanity. We may or may not believe in God, but we all would like to have in our life more of Truth, Light and Life/ Immortality instead of Untruth, Darkness and Death. We intuitively feel that more of Truth, Light and Life would make us happy, complete and fulfilled.
Perhaps we would be able to relate only with this sentence in the prayer, “lead me from Darkness to Light.” We easily understand that symbolically Darkness represents all evil and Light represents all good. We also understand Peace because we would like to get rid of the stress and tension in our life.
However, the other two sentences about Truth and Death would not make much sense to us. We are not aware of any Untruth in our life. So, we do not know what Untruth should be removed from our life and what Truth should get added to us. And Death is such a taboo that we simply avoid thinking about it.
So, let us think together about this Prayer. There is a natural sequence in these words. Truth leads to Light, Light leads to Immortality, Immortality leads to Peace; that Eternal Peace, The Peace that passes understanding.
Truth is the starting point. What is Truth? That which is changeless can be called as Truth. When we look within and without it is difficult to find something which is changeless, permanent. But if we persist in our contemplation, we will be able to see that in the whole creation ORDER is changeless. All forms are perishable but the Order creating and sustaining them is permanent.
Brahmavidya, a spiritual science, teaches us the Order/ Truth of human life. Prakash Yoga teaches definite methods to live this order in our life.
Living the Order, we progress toward Light, then Life and finally Peace.