And the last line goes thus:
Dhiyo yo nah pracodayat: May my intelligence be illumined or may my intelligence and understanding be stimulated.
Bhargo devasya dhimahi; Dhiyo yo nah pracodayat
May my intelligence be stimulated, may my intelligence be woken up. Woken up from the sleep of ignorance. May my understanding flower so that I can understand the Supreme Being, who is called Savitur, the one who pervades everywhere.
This is the mantra.
You’ll notice, that it is not a mantra that is asking for this material thing or that. It’s not a mantra that is saying–give me a house, give me a car, give me a wife and so on. It says, illumine my intelligence; stimulate my intelligence. ‘May my intelligence open up!’–which means that the Rishi who has been given the mantra knows, he has figured out that anything is possible, that life becomes livable only when intelligence is illumined and ignorance is destroyed and one wakes up into the knowledge of the Supreme.
Since it says illumine my intelligence, it’s not merely a mantra for spiritual realisation. It’s a mantra for day-to-day living because it’s meant to be chanted by a student or by the person who is living in this world. It was not meant for only the monks or the sanyasins who run away from this world.
Today, it is rare to find someone chanting even during one Sandhya. Even if you can’t form or follow the entire ritual of Sandhya Vandana, one can just sit down quietly and chant it (Gayatri mantra) as many times as one can.
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