Bhoomi Vandanam-Salutations to mother earth

Bhoomi Vandanam: 

It is Salutations to Mother Earth. Mother earth  rotates us around sun, giving us every morning and evening, giving birth and death,
giving rise and fall, giving knowledge and intellectuality, giving food and shelter, giving  good and bad. She is a living organism that nourishes and sustains us.

Cultural Beliefs:

In our Hindu culture, Mother Earth is looked upon as Goddess, and not merely one of the five elements of creation. Therefore, placing one’s feet on her is looked upon as an act of disrespect. In seeking  forgiveness from the Goddess, one acknowledges the divinity around. We have to transcend our debilitating ignorance, our destructive lifestyles, our cold selfishness, and transform ourselves into higher beings of Collective Consciousness.

Significance:

Mantra: when touching  the ground with the hand before keeping the first foot on the ground in the morning when we get up from the bed after the sleep.

samudravasane devi
parvatasthana mandale
vishnupatni namastubhym
padasparsam kshamasva me

Meaning:
It says, mother earth, you are with the rivers and mountains on you. Salutations to the wife of Vishnu deva. Forgive me for keeping my feet on you. The mother earth is the wife of the protector Vishnu. Earth is the mother who feeds all of us. The mother with the mountains and the river flowing from that mountain is the breast milk that is being fed to its kids. This sloka is a salutation and begging the forgiveness for stepping on her.

Scientific Reasons:

• Sitting in the  same bed  where  you sleep everyday, without cleaning the  teeth-face-body,  mantra  is chanted, because  the body was  horizontal   for the whole night while  sleeping  and it is going to  become  vertical ( suddenly) when you get up. 
• In  the  vertical position of the body  the   force  exerted by the heart  for pumping the blood is  more, hence  the change of position of the body  from horizontal to vertical level  should be  slow  and  steady. Hence  we are  instructed to  sit on the bed  for few seconds ( it has been   statistically estimated that  23% of the heart  attack deaths  take place  in the heart patients  when they suddenly get up  and stand/walk from the lying position ). 
• Similarly  with  a mantra  we  touch the floor  samudra vasane devi parvatha sthana mandale Vishnu patnee namasthubhyam paada sparsam  kshamaswa me.   The bio static electricity in the body  gets earthed through the  fingers  instead of the  feet, reducing the  chance of  arthritis  and many other  nervous based  disorders.
• We have bio-energy in us that supports our life, thinking and every other inner and outer activity. While sleeping, it has a calm working, and not much of energy is used. There is much energy around us; all in the form of subtle electromagnetic energy. Energies in the form of electromagnetic subtle particles settle around other energy and settle at peripherals.
• At sleep one may have bad dreams and the other thought processes that also burn the bio-energy and thus disposes some electromagnetic energy around. These energies will settle around our AURA. Thus by the time we wake up in the morning, the AURA will have an energy cover, which is not useful for us. This bad energy needs to be disposed off.
• Electric equipment has a plug with the earth-pin for the disposal of the extra-unwanted energy. The unwanted energy that is around our body will automatically get earthen as we step from bed. This happens through the leg in the first step itself.

Interesting Facts:

Most of the paralytic and heart attack happens during the time when one gets out of the bed during when the earthling happens through the leg. It is proved that energy transfer trough hand is safer than the legs. That could be the reason for the sapa / beating and asirvada / patting being given with hands only.Thus touching the ground for some time before the leg touch the ground is a good health practice in life.