Don't you put it in your mouth...

Every morning, sometimes before I practice, sometimes in the middle of my practice, I say the following words with a room full of other people:

Vande gurunam caranaravinde
Sandarsita svatmasukhave bodhe
Nisreyase jangalikayamane
Samsara halahala mohasantyai

Abahu purusakaram
Sankhacakrasi dharinam
Sahasra sirasam svetam
Pranamami patanjalim
Om

And, even as I write this, I am embarrassed to admit, that for the better part of a year, I had NO CLUE what the heck any of this meant. Ya, I know. This is the internet era...if I want to access information, all I need to do is type something into Google and BOOM, there it is. But for some reason, I never bothered to look this up and went on my merry little way, chating and practicing...practicing and chanting...and then I looked it up and the actual translation was way weirder than what I had imagined! Here's the translation with my commentary:

I bow to the lotus feet of the guru

okay, I can get behind this, although I am a little worried about someone having lotus for feet - how can you do tadasana if you have feet flowers going on?
Who awakens insight into the happiness of pure Being

Score!
Who is the refuge, the jungle physician

What does that even mean...Jungle Phsycian? I'm sure this is one of those cultural context things...next time i am in India, I should ask someone on the street.
Who eliminates the delusion caused by
The poisonous herb of samara (conditioned existence)

 Oh conditioned existence...I'm going to miss you...oh wait, no I'm not...that's the whole point.

I prostrate before the sage Patanjali
Who has thousands of radiant, white heads
(in his form as the divine serpent, Ananta)
and who has, as far as him arms, assumed the form of a man
holding a conch shell (divine sound), a wheel (discuss of light,
representing infinite time) and a sword (discrimination).

Wha? Discuss of light? Why didn't Frank tell me that Patanjali had thousands of radiant white heads? Is Patanjali a white supremest? I'm so confused...oh wait...I know this part coming up...
Om

OOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMM!

 And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why you shouldn't put unfamiliar things in your mouth without reading the packaging first...oh ignorance was bliss was nice when ignorance was an option...