The liberation mantra known as Oṁ Tryambakaṁ, or the Mṛtyuṁjaya Mantra, comes to us from a tantric text known as the Mahānirvāṇa Tantra. It is traditionally chanted in order to overcome any kind of ailment or restriction — which pretty much makes it appropriate for nearly any situation! Ultimately, the kind of ailment we’re looking to overcome is the sickness of avidyā, or the ignorance of ourselves as anything other than purely divine and self-effulgent. The kind of restriction we’re looking to overcome is the bondage and drama of our life, and that liberation is called mokṣa.
oṁ tryambakaṁ yajāmahe
sugandhiṁ puṣṭi vardhanam
urvārukam iva bandhanaṁ
mṛtyor mukṣiya mā amṛtat
We bow to the three-eyed one, who is fragrant and supremely nourishing and represents the supreme Light of inner wisdom. May we be released from all bondage and suffering just as the stalk gently releases the cucumber. May our minds be overtaken by this supreme Light, which is the immortal nectar of Śiva.
This mantra is heralded for its healing properties — whether you want to heal an illness of the body or the mind. It is also a great mantra to use when something has ended, whether it be a relationship or the life of someone close to you. This mantra expresses a desire for freedom or release from something that needs to be shed, so it can also be used as a “birthday” mantra to celebrate the release of the old year and the hope for something new and fresh in the next.
In all the mantras in this book, the translation of Sanskrit words into English is rarely directly one-to-one. However, translations of this mantra take more grammatical liberties than usual, otherwise it would be unintelligible. For this reason, I haven’t tried to match the line breaks in the original Sanskrit. When learning this mantra, going line by line will help make the memorization of the whole stanza easier, and it can be taught to others in a call-and-response fashion. Eventually, chanting the whole mantra and repeating it will help focus the mind on the freedom it seeks.
The Oṁ Tryambakaṁ mantra gives praise to Śiva as the three-eyed one, meaning, one who has the ability to see beyond any false illusions. It talks about puṣṭi, or a sense of fullness that appears to be almost self-evident, or self-nourished — as when a cucumber becomes so nourished by its parent stalk that it falls from it. This refers to the release from any kind of bondage or ailment, but in particular it is the release to immortality, which is a state of mokṣa, or enlightenment.
Until we get to that point, there are many little ailments and restrictions that this mantra can be helpful in overcoming. It is designed to restore health, to elevate our awareness to our center of higher consciousness at our third eye, and to provide protection from any negativity. It was originally given as a healing mantra for the moon, Candra (Chandra), so that he would be protected by the powerful god Śiva.
As Candra, the moon is imagined as a powerful force who presides over the mind and emotions. He is a grand figure whose chariot is drawn by ten white horses nightly across the sky. But the moon is a changeable force whose heart is a fickle lover. Once, while churning the ocean of milk in an attempt to make an elixir of immortality, Candra nearly blinded the gods who created him, so he was immediately banished to the outer atmospheres. From his far-off residence, he became known for his ability to provide romantic lighting and for the gift of divine nectar, which often appears in the form of morning dew.
In one story, because of his nightly parade, Candra is noticed by the great king Dakṣa, who offers his lovely daughters, known as the Nakṣatra, as wives for Candra. There are twenty-seven young ladies in this group, and Dakṣa requests that Candra love them all equally. Candra promises Dakṣa that they’ll all have an equal place in his heart, and so the Nakṣatra sisters follow Candra into the night sky. Each one of the lovely ladies takes up her post as a bright star along the ecliptic plane through which the moon traverses on his nightly journey in the heavens.
There is one gorgeous star, however, that the illustrious charmer Candra cannot seem to stay away from. She’s a little bit brighter than most of the others in the sky, and she blushes every time she sees the moon. The beautiful Rohiṇī (which in Western cultures is the star Aldeberan) captures Candra’s heart, and he spends most of his nights with her, dancing in the sky. Her sisters become quite jealous of this preferential treatment; they are left to their own devices with no additional illumination in the darkness. Their loneliness turns to rage, and they go to their father, King Dakṣa, to complain. Well, what father can resist the pleas of twenty-six lovely daughters? He hears them all out and then calls a meeting with Candra. Candra arrives at Dakṣa’s doorstep full of luster, beaming with love. He smiles proudly and extends his hand to Dakṣa in greeting. But instead of a warm welcome, Dakṣa curses Candra, fating him to whither away. Candra is immediately struck and begins to lose his shine. Little by little, every day, Candra’s brightness fades as he wanes into the darkness. Before his light goes out completely, he seeks help from his friend Śiva. If anyone can help him in this time of crisis, it’s the mighty lord Śiva, who is the remover of calamities, the restorer of fullness, and the liberator from death.
Knowing the drama that is occurring between her father and Candra, Dakṣa’s youngest daughter, Sati, also comes to Candra’s aid. She has long been a fierce admirer of Śiva, and Sati teaches Candra a special mantra — the Oṁ Tryambakaṁ mantra — in honor of Śiva that will allow Candra to prove that he is worthy of the great Śiva’s assistance. Through reciting this sacred prayer, Candra wins Śiva’s favor, and Śiva offers Candra refuge high up in his hair, where Candra can drink the amṛtam, or nectar of immortality, any time Candra’s form wanes too much. This special drink restores Candra slowly to his fullness over a period of time.
With lessons learned and refuge given, Candra is returned to his post in the sky, where he traverses across the ecliptic spending each night among one of the shining Nakṣatra, not favoring one more than the others. The curse still stands, however, and he still must garner help from Śiva as he goes through his monthly cycle of waxing and waning. Today, we can see the close relationship between Candra and Śiva, this great bearer of nourishment and healing, any time we look at an image of Śiva and see the moon residing in Śiva’s great dreadlocked tresses.
Humans have long had a grand love affair with the moon. We chart our lives around it. In many cases, it has an actual pull on our life and body cycles. The moon has been associated with “lunacy” or craziness, and it is thought that the full and new moons possess particular holds on our psyche. Metaphorically, the moon is associated with the mind, which is changeable and only reflective of the light of the sun, unable to produce its own illumination. We can think of our phases of life in terms of the moon’s phases, beginning with our birth at the new moon, and the first quarter being the dawn of adolescence, the full moon being the turning point of adulthood, and the last quarter being the shift as we prepare for death.12 These lunar cycles and rites of passage reflect both an inner and outer story. It is a power that has a great hold over every one of our lives.
In Sanskrit, the term for this kind of hold is graha. It literally means “to grip.” As we see with the story of Candra, even he is fazed by the grasp of his own pull. His emotions and mind draw him to one bright star at the slight of the others. His story involves a sublimation of power to the mighty Śiva as he realizes he needs support on his journey. And, finally, he is restored to fullness, only to begin the cycle again. This is quite reflective of the phases of our mind, and it’s the reason why this particular mantra is so very helpful for overcoming the powerful fluctuations of the mind.
No matter how focused we may be on our spiritual practice, our thoughts and attention are still swayed. Though we may think we are on our way to enlightenment, we’ve still got to do the laundry. Our life goes on, and often we get pulled, just like the gripping tide, into the drama and story of our so-called reality. We fall in and out of love, we fall in and out of trouble, and we fall in and out of health. We rise up like the ocean when things are going smoothly, and we crash like breaking waves on a rock when things fall apart. No matter who we are, or where we are, or in what time we are living, our lives are reflective of the moon’s lunatic state and the changeable nature of its reflective light.
What if we had a remedy to change all that? What if we had a tool for understanding and unlocking this grip — to become free of it? For now, we work with this mantra. We can repeat it and embody its underlying message to overcome smaller ailments and restrictions. It can be like a medicine for us when we have a different kind of headache, the kind where our thoughts are running wild and heading into that downward spiral we have all experienced. As the mantra works its way deeper into our system, and we systematically root out some of these layers of bondage — to our career, our relationships, our ailments, our human condition, and our negative self-images — we see things differently. We basically shift the lens through which we look at the world, which makes the world appear completely different to us.
And a miracle is simply a shift in perception.
The miracle that occurs when we step out from this occlusion is that we see that we are not reflective beings, as the moon is, but that we are the self-effulgent ones. Joseph Campbell, in his comparisons of life to the phases of the moon, talks about a critical shift that can occur only at the point of fullness. During the stage of the full moon — which, astrologically speaking, is the point at which the full moon and the self-luminous sun are found at exactly opposite but equivalent positions in the sky — the full moon and the sun appear to be equal in size and luminosity to each other. They are each a shining reflection of the other. Metaphorically, this is a stage of fullness where we feel so nourished by our internal resources that we understand ourselves to be the only answer to our problems.
When we are ready to take responsibility for our lives, our condition, and our awareness — when we become unafraid to say “yes!” to life and face it head on — then we are no longer pulled or gripped by the moon. We then make the leap from the reflective condition of the moon to the self-effulgent, fully aware condition of the sun, which represents full conscious awareness, or the state of mokṣa, or liberation.
As the mantra says, we become free of all calamities and bondage. We know ourselves as Śiva, in this regard. We are the ones who can offer nourishment and light to those around us. We hold the moon in our hair, just above us, and we are rarely touched or swayed by drama and emotion. They are still a part of our lives — we walk around with them and hang out with them daily — but the forever-light of the sun resides in our heart. We become free.