A Heart of Meaning : The Sri Rudram

Dedicated to Sri Sathya Sai Baba, He is the doer, my pen does not move without His will. There are no coincidences and nothing can happen without His willing it. This has been the long running strand that follows me throughout my time with the Vedas.

It started about 7 years ago, when I learnt my first chant, the Sri Rudram. It happened by chance and stayed with me for years. I would sit and listen to my father chant everyday at our usual 5pm time, every day just reading the words in the small blue book, just following along nothing more. Overtime you pick up a few words here and there starting with the "namos", "namaha’s" and the "ca me’s". Give it a little bit more time and suddenly you’re chanting from start to finish.

Father and son praying together

This was my first taste of the Vedas, nothing special or spectacular, just sitting down everyday at 5pm.

Looking back I can’t say why I sat down everyday or why I didn’t get bored, sometimes somethings happen in life without conscious effort but rather by the will of that supreme being. For me I feel this was the case, it was so long ago it feels as if someone else learnt it and I just happened to know it.

The thing about chanting that’s always drawn me in, was the challenge, understanding the nuances of intonation and figuring out the often strange conglomeration of words. But this is just the beginning of the process, go deeper and you get closer to the heart of the chant.

Sri Rudram is split into two parts namely the Namakam and the Chamakam. The themes of Renunciation and desire are balanced in the two halves respectively. We offer all that we are to that Rudra in the Namakam with the awareness that all that we are and all that we possess is not because of our own Individual effort but rather by the will of the Rudra. Various mantras of praise are also given to the splendour and glory of this supreme being.

The chamakam, is an interesting one, it shows a very practical understanding of what it means to be in this world but not of the world. In this second half of the Rudram , every line ends with the words ‘ca me’ meaning ‘to me’ or ‘add on to me’. The rishis of the Vedic times, knew that desire does not mean something negative, if we are in this world then of course we will desire and so the Chamakam comes into play, with each mantra asking for wealth, spiritual achievement, success and even a couple of cows .

Rishis of Vedic Times

But who is it that we offer ourselves to ? Who is it that we come with our desires to? It is this Rudra , but who or more aptly what is this Rudra?

The Rudra can be closely related to an old Vedic version of Shiva. Throughout the Rudram, there are depictions of this being. We may perceive it as a blue man who sits on the mountains draped in tiger skin, but this idea of the Rudra is tied to too much of mythology and may loose any connection to us.

Another understanding is that the Rudra, is consciousness, the "Atma", in a very Vedantic sense this Rudra is you. Seeing the chant like this makes it very easy to understand why it is important to us.

‘Rudra’ means the one who roars, the story goes that in the beginning this Supreme being existed even before time and material substance. This being ‘roared’ creation into existence. In western cosmology they call it the Big Bang, the seed of creation, that which existed before time itself.

picture credit : "https://www.mayiliragu.com/2020/01/shri-rudram-and-cosmic-dance-arudra.html"

Being the Atma yourself and not this body or mind, you are the Rudra, the source of creation from which all this universe has come forth.

When we chant with this kind of awareness our connection deepens to the chant. We don’t need to believe in mythological figures, we only need to believe that we exist and that we are aware of our own existence (we are aware of it by the fact that we are conscious of our lived experiences, in fact we can only be sure of one thing , that we exist). We renounce our desires in the fire of the Atma that burns within us and we ask for material desires to sustain the body and mind that cloak the consciousness that we always are.

Sri Sathya Sai Baba puts it perfectly “I am God and you are also God. The only difference between you and me is that I am aware of it , and you are not “ .

With a better understanding of the Rudram , what are the benefits of chanting it ?

Everyday we wake up, brush our teeth and have a bath, we go to work or we go to school , we come back, we eat, we sleep and we do it all over again. Notice how throughout the day we put so much of our attention on taking care of a body that will one day grow old and die and a mind that will soon degrade ( this is not to say we should not take care of the body and mind we are given). We are trapped taking care of things that will leave us one day , ignoring that which is never born and will never die, that which is us.

Chanting the Rudram gives attention to this eternal consciousness, the goal of human birth and the purpose of this universe. For a few minutes of chanting we come back home (a sort of prodigal son moment) and connect to our true selves, the Rudra.

The more we chant the more we become comfortable with home, the consciousness within us ( “us” used here refers to the egoic self , not the Atma that we are ) , the more we are able to let go of our tight hold on the body and the mind.

Chanting the Sri Rudram, broadens our awareness and clears our understanding of why we have taken birth.

Chanting is not a mechanical process that we are forced to do, it’s an opportunity to come into awareness of our true selves. We leave that which we are not, and offer it into the fire. In the food prayer, Brahmarpanam, we chant “Aham Vaishwanara” meaning “ I am the fire called "Vaishwanara" the fire that burns away impurities and delusions of body and mind.

By some greater will of the supreme being, we have all been given the opportunity to chant or at-least to listen. This gift comes to only a few, and how lucky we have been to receive it. Take it with open hands and a willing heart and free yourself from bondage, from suffering and from this cycle of birth and death.

I end this message with a verse from Adi Shankaracharya’s Niravan Shatakam.

The story goes that young Shankara, a renunciate at an early age, encountered a great sage who became his Guru. The Guru asked this boy “who are you?“ (a very vedantic question, that we should ask ourselves, “who am I?”). Shankara did not respond with his name, lineage or background but rather expounded on his self-realised state in the six verses of the NIrvana Shatakam.

Painting: Depiction of Sri Shankara meeting his Guru, Sri Govindapada.

The final verse goes :

"aham nirvikalpo nirakara rupo

vibhut vatcha sarvatra sarvendriyanam

na cha sangatham naiva muktir na meyaha

chidananda rupah shivo'ham shivo'ham"

The meaning of which is :

I am devoid of duality, my form is formlessness,

I am omnipresent, I exist everywhere, pervading all senses,

I am neither attached, neither free nor limited, I am the form of consciousness and bliss, I am Shiva (that which is not)...

Thank you for taking the time to read my humble message on chanting and the Rudram. I offer it all to Sri Sathya Sai, my Guru and God. He is the one who writes the ,the one who reads and the act of reading and writing itself. May we all, with his blessing and love reach the highest state of realisation in this life time.

Written by a YA who wishes to remain anonymous.