Shri Guru Gita—The One Indispensable Text
by Baba Muktananda

Since the beginning of the year, I have been reading the translation of Shri Guru Gita out loud. This practice has brought me great joy and has transformed the quality of my life. Day after day after day I feel reborn!
 

Wortegem-Petegem, Belgium

I try to recite Shri Guru Gita every day, either with the recording on the Siddha Yoga path website or on my own. There is something special and crystal-clear about my relationship with Shri Guru Gita. Because of my recitation of this text, I feel so enriched, as if my entire being, my entire life, is filled with abundant auspiciousness.
 
I have come more and more to understand just how important the recitation of Shri Guru Gita is to my sadhana as a disciple. I have experienced that this practice brings about tremendous purification within me. I have felt many times that something great is happening within. As a result of my regular svadhyaya practice, I feel happy, blessed, and rejuvenated. No matter what is going on in my life, my recitation of Shri Guru Gita is a constant boon. I am so grateful to Baba ji for making the recitation of Shri Guru Gita part of Siddha Yoga sadhana.
 

Nagpur, India

Lately, I have been reciting Shri Guru Gita whenever and wherever I can. I made a vow to chant this sacred text every day for at least a year in order to gather strength and support to go through a difficult period. I have noticed, just within the last month or two that my love for this text is growing exponentially.

When I first started my daily recitation practice, it often felt as if I was just trying to get through the verses and reach the end. But now, my main purpose is to enjoy and immerse myself in the recitation. Instead of checking what verse number I am on, now I am focused on correctly pronouncing each syllable. 

For me, this is a very powerful practice. It enables me to witness my mind, with its myriad ideas, thoughts, and feelings. It is helping me to understand myself more while offering my heart to God. I believe that I am beginning to more and more see God in everyone.
 

California, United States

This morning I woke up very early. I wanted to continue sleeping, but a voice inside me seemed to be inviting me to listen to Shri Guru Gita. So I did. Once the recitation had finished, I opened the computer and looked at the home page of the Siddha Yoga path website. To my surprise, I discovered the posting “Shri Guru Gita—The One Indispensable Text.”
 
Recently I have been feeling sad because of what the world is experiencing. Yet the power of this example of synchronicity has lifted my heart.

I read with great attention Baba’s words about Shri Guru Gita. To me, they so lovingly describe why it is the one indispensable text. I am so thankful to Baba for the enormous wealth he has given us.
 

San Giorgio a Cremano, Italy

My fourteen-year-old son has been reciting Shri Guru Gita for the past few weeks almost daily. As delighted as I am for his embrace of this practice, I was curious as to what inspired him to renew this particular discipline. He shared with me that he was moved by reading the shares on the Siddha Yoga path website, which he visits daily. His face lit up as he described for me what other Siddha Yogis have shared.
 
I am so immensely grateful for this path. As a mother, knowing that my fourteen-year-old takes refuge in this practice, I firmly believe he has the tools to navigate through this life.
 

Oakville, Canada

I feel blessed to have these words of Baba’s to reflect upon and take deeper, and also to be able to read how other lovers of Shri Guru Gita express their experiences of reciting this sacred text.
 
When Baba speaks about how “only those... who are themselves fully immersed in devotion to the Guru and who worship him by identifying themselves with him” are worthy to comment on Shri Guru Gita, I glow inside with wonder. I feel myself sitting up taller, breathing deeper, and feeling a soft wisdom envelop me. Such is the power of just recalling the power and glory of this sacred text.
 
Then, sitting quietly as I read the shares written by my fellow sadhakas around the world brings me a wonderful heart-expanding connection. I am grateful that we are able to learn from one another in this way via the Siddha Yoga path website. I often feel such an affinity with the person sharing that it’s as if I’d been invited into a glimpse of the same sacred experience.
 

Oregon, United States

My job has intensified in recent years. Often the pressure is so heavy that I feel like a tiger trapped in a cage, desperately searching for an exit to get back to freedom. When my mind feels like this, I recite Shri Guru Gita, even in the evening after work. My mind calms down, the pressure falls off me, and I feel that Gurumayi is listening to me and helping me. 
 
At these times, I get inspirations and then—suddenly, the “cage” opens and I see the exit, the solution to the situation that was weighing on me. I get the power to change the things that need to be changed and the clarity to identify problems and good solutions to them that I can bring to my team at work.
 

Unterlangenegg, Switzerland

Like the mantra Om Namah Shivaya, Shri Guru Gita is one of my best friends.
 
When I was new to the Siddha Yoga path, reciting it was challenging for me. But I’d heard that if you want to be close to the Guru, you should recite Shri Guru Gita. So reciting it became my daily practice and refuge for over a year. During that time, I was alone and not in good health, so some days I needed to whisper it instead of singing out loud. The Guru’s grace enabled me to feel Gurumayi’s presence and her support.
 
That period of reciting Shri Guru Gita changed me from the inside out, and those inner changes gave me the strength to face some outer changes I needed to make. That inner strength and courage have remained within me as blessed gifts, for which I will be forever grateful.
 

North Carolina, United States

I am so grateful to Baba and Gurumayi for introducing us to Shri Guru Gita and reinforcing its importance as “the one indispensable text.” Reciting Shri Guru Gita is my rock and salvation; it allows me to shed tears when I am going through challenges, and to experience joy and serenity in happier, smoother times. It is always there to provide me the pathway to the inner Guru and inspire direction in my life. For this, I am forever grateful.
 

Toronto, Canada

Ever since I began to walk the Siddha Yoga path, my wife has told me the importance of reciting Shri Guru Gita. So I have tried to recite it every week or every day that I am free. But since I learned more about it during the satsang celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Baba’s introducing Shri Guru Gita to the Ashram Daily Schedule, I have made an effort to recite it every day. Even on a day of great sorrow in our family, my wife and I both recited Shri Guru Gita with the same discipline, and we are still continuing this practice. We want to be blessed with being able to recite Shri Guru Gita in all lifetimes and realms.
 

Noida, India

Shri Guru Gita has saved my life innumerable times over the last forty-five years of my sadhana, especially during times of great loss and challenges. Listening to and reciting this sacred text, and absorbing the divine energy of the Guru’s shakti in it, have restored my inner strength and brought my focus back to the Heart, the source of all. I am infinitely grateful to my Guru for the powerful Shri Guru Gita!

North Carolina, United States

I love Shri Guru Gita deeply, not only reciting it but also studying its meaning. In fact, in order to understand this text more fully, I wrote out all the verses of Shri Guru Gita, and under each verse I wrote Baba’s comments relating to the verse, as well as teachings that seemed relevant from Siddha Yoga texts.

Also, to visualize and better understand the sacred symbols described in the text—such as the thousand-petaled lotus in the sahasrara, or the lotus of the heart with the crescent moon—I made drawings of them.

My research into Shri Guru Gita has been, for me, a journey into the Guru’s love. No matter how much I have studied Shri Guru Gita, the text remains ever new to me. I know that many more revelations are still there to be discovered.

I’m immensely grateful to the Guru for Shri Guru Gita. It feels like a diamond that Gurumayi has placed in my heart, which continually spreads its golden light in me.
 

Milan, Italy

I have been dealing with some challenging situations on a personal level, so I have taken refuge in reciting Shri Guru Gita. Previously, I used to think I didn’t have enough time to recite this sacred text. Now, though, I feel as if I miss an opportunity whenever I don’t do this practice.

Each time I recite Shri Guru Gita, I have the intention to make this world a little lighter. Reciting Shri Guru Gita has deepened my sadhana. I feel that it has helped me to become more aware of how the Guru’s grace is guiding me in my work and daily life. I also notice that I am more focused, that I speak less, and I listen more.

I am grateful for the shift in my priorities. I now know that chanting Shri Guru Gita fills my days with the Guru’s wisdom and guidance.
 

Cher Asile, Curacao

I first recited Shri Guru Gita with Baba Muktananda in 1978 in Gurudev Siddha Peeth. Ever since then, I have been reciting it regularly, and it has become my favorite practice. As I fell asleep last night, I was wondering when I would get time to recite Shri Guru Gita the next day, given my full schedule. Unexpectedly I woke up at 2 a.m. and started hearing Shri Guru Gita playing in my mind—verse by verse. I could not sleep until the whole text was completed. I was filled with joy and gratitude.  

I had the intention to recite Shri Guru Gita, and time was found.
 

Mumbai, India

At one point when my life was very challenging, I didn’t know how I would get through it. During that time, I recited Shri Guru Gita every day. I experienced that reciting Shri Guru Gita gave me strength. I then had the will to move through the situations.
 

Brossard, Canada

Reciting Shri Guru Gita is one of my favorite practices. It’s hard for me to put into words the joy this practice gives me.
 
I recite Shri Guru Gita to the Self! I focus and connect with each verse, with each word. Sometimes my eyes become moist with gratitude. And always a joyful smile forms on my face!  
 

a Gurukula student in Gurudev Siddha Peeth

I remember Baba ji and the Siddha Yoga practices came into my life when I was in second or third grade. Reciting Shri Guru Gita was my parents’ favorite practice. Each day they would recite it with their tape recorder. All of us siblings could hear it. Although we did not yet participate in it actively by actually reciting it, we participated in it by listening. 

If their friends or other family members ever had any difficulty, my parents would say we are offering it with the intention of helping them with it. Once my dad had extreme headaches and could not sleep at night. After giving him his medicine, my mother decided to recite Shri Guru Gita and offer it for him. When she finished, she went to check on him, and he was fast asleep. 

Verse 133 says, “Even one letter of Shri Guru Gita is a supreme mantra.” I thank our Siddha Yoga lineage for this practice.
 

New Jersey, United States

On the first day of my stay in Shree Muktananda Ashram, I remember entering the Muktananda Mandir hall early in the morning. I was so amazed to recognize the room I had visited in many dreams. I sat down and opened the sacred chanting book.

As soon as the recitation of Shri Guru Gita began, everything became familiar. In a vision, a young Indian lady in a white sari appeared at my side, and I heard a woman’s voice whispering in my ear. She taught me how to pronounce each syllable. After a few verses, giant tears filled my eyes; the vision vanished as I became an ocean. I felt the Sanskrit words flowing inside my ears and my body, filling me up with their power and with waves of love. My body and all the bodies in the room were radiating this unique color of love.

Later I learned that what happened to me is called shaktipat initiation and the teacher who had appeared to guide me was Gurumayi. Shri Guru Gita had given love a visible and tangible form.
 

Waterville, Canada

I used to recite Shri Guru Gita only occasionally because my mind was too restless to sit still for it. During the last quarter of 1999, my wife was diagnosed with cancer. I was on the verge of panic when I remembered Gurumayi’s teaching to the effect that we do not chant because we do not know what to do; we chant because we know what to do.

I started reciting Shri Guru Gita every morning and suddenly knew that everything was going to be all right. I had the strength to be positive and reassuring. Since then, I have not missed a day’s recitation. Shri Guru Gita is essential to starting my day off right.

Right now it's almost 7:00 a.m. where I am, and it is time for me to start reciting Shri Guru Gita. Since it’s a day off from work, I have the time to open the Siddha Yoga path website and treat myself to the joy of reciting along with Gurumayi.
 

California, United States

I don’t remember exactly when I first heard Shri Guru Gita or started reciting it, but it was probably around 1996. But what is still vivid in my memories are the verses 44 and 79, both of which emphasize the importance of taking refuge in Shri Guru.

In the years since then, there were times when I was less assiduous in my practices, but these verses were always an anchor to bring me back with full enthusiasm to my practice of svadhyaya.

I’m still on the journey to absorb all that Shri Guru Gita offers. Shri Guru Gita, to me, is like a wish-fulfilling tree to which I do not even need to recite my wishes. It knows what I need the most; I never come back empty-handed after each recitation.
 

Bhopal, India

I don’t remember how I ended up at the recitation of Shri Guru Gita thirty-two years ago now, but I went. Perhaps it was spoken about in the Shaktipat Intensive I participated in that weekend. The first time I heard it, I felt it had come straight from the heavens.
 
I didn’t understand anything at all—yet I knew I had to come every morning to the local Siddha Yoga meditation center for Shri Guru Gita. Even if I’d been up all night, I would still drive the half hour for the morning recitation. 
 
Shri Guru Gita, the sound body of the Guru, is my best friend. Even though I understand that Gurumayi is always with me, Shri Guru Gita opens me to partnership with her, and to hearing and recognizing the Guru’s guidance from within. It removes blocks within me and helps me become more willing to follow that inner guidance. I know that Gurumayi is always in divine conversation with me. Shri Guru Gita opens my ears to hear that conversation.
 

New York, United States

Every word that Baba says goes straight to my heart. Shri Guru Gita is “my sole refuge” for me as well. Whatever mood I am in, Shri Guru Gita is there every day for me to receive strength, solace, bliss, knowledge, and satisfaction on all levels. How fortunate we are to have our Baba, who introduced the recitation of Shri Guru Gita to the Ashram Daily Schedule for us to drink the divine sweetness of the Guru’s love.
 

My day begins with the glorious recitation of Shri Guru Gita. I feel it nourishing and re-energizing every cell in my body. It centers me and carries me into a wonderful state of heightened awareness and love. My recitation of Shri Guru Gita strengthens the awakened kundalini as I feel it rising from the base of my spine to the top of my head in the utmost joy and delight! Such a wonderful way to start the day!
 

I was so happy to read these words by Swami Muktananda. Twenty-six years ago, when I attended my first recitation of Shri Guru Gita, I found it very hard to follow along. Not knowing at the time how to read the transliteration, I turned to the front of the chanting book, where I found Baba’s introduction. For the duration of the recitation, I read and re-read his words, inspiring myself to keep at it.
 
Eventually, I taught myself how to read transliteration, and have recited Shri Guru Gita all through these twenty-six years, with Baba’s words continuing to inspire my study and practice. 

After reading Baba Muktananda’s teachings about Shri Guru Gita and contemplating the image that precedes them, these words arose within me: “Why do I want to be so small when Baba Muktananda gives me so much love?” Surely the ultimate gift is shaktipat diksha, spiritual initiation, which is inspired and maintained by recitations of Shri Guru Gita.