The Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity : 11.1. Swami Krishnananda.
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Monday, May 10, 2021. 06:15.PM.
Chapter-11. Participating with the Intention of the Universe -1.
The First Six Chapters of the Bhagavadgita
(Spoken on Bhagavadgita Jayanti)
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The Creator released His creation of beings with the injunction that everyone is necessarily associated with a sacrifice.
BG. CH-3. SLO-10.
saha-yajnah prajah srishtva purovacha prajapatih
anena prasavishyadhvam esha vo ’stvishta-kama-dhuk
BG 3.10: In the beginning of creation, Brahma created humankind along with duties, and said, “Prosper in the performance of these yajñas (sacrifices), for they shall bestow upon you all you wish to achieve.”
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This is a very famous statement in a verse of the Third Chapter of the Bhagavadgita:
saha-yajnah prajah srishtva (BG 3.10).
A wealth of meaning is hidden in this little half-sentence, as it were. Everyone is born by the ordinance of the Creator with an association with sacrifice, and is necessarily connected with sacrifice. Unconnected with sacrifice, nobody is born, which is something very strange and interesting to hear. Sahayajñ?? is the srishti. Creation is connected, unavoidably and invariably, with sacrifice.
Wonderfully deep is the meaning of the word ‘sacrifice’. Anything can be conjoined with the meaning of that word. The Sanskrit word yajna means ‘sacrifice’. We may translate it into the English language as ‘sacrifice’, ‘self-abnegation’, ‘self-alienation’, ‘sharing’, ‘parting with’, ‘giving’, ‘exceeding oneself by parting with a share of oneself’, and so on. Deep is the meaning of the word ‘sacrifice’.
We have a pithy statement in the Vedic lore which states yajño vai vishnu (Yajurveda 6.2.9.2) : The ruler of the universe is sacrifice.
Vishnu is the supreme cosmic administrative ruling principle. The supporting power of the universe is Vishnu. It is identical with sacrifice, which means to say, we are supported by the principle of sacrifice. ‘We are supported’ means that we are enabled to live, that we exist because of this sacrifice. But for the existence of such a thing called sacrifice, existence would not be possible.
Now, this is a little hint in the beginning of the Third Chapter of the Gita. What is meant by ‘sacrifice being connected with all beings’? We are all living beings, and everything is a being. It is necessarily connected with a sacrifice, which means to say, an obligation to render in respect of everything else an act of sharing and cooperating for the purpose of not only one’s own sustenance but a mutual sustenance. This mutuality of sustenance is brought out in the second passage of the very same chapter.
BG-CH-3, SLO-11.
"Devan bhavayatanena te deva bhavayantu vah
parasparam bhavayantah shreyah param avapsyatha."
BG 3.11: By your sacrifices the celestial gods will be pleased, and by cooperation between humans and the celestial gods, prosperity will reign for all.
Worship the gods, adore the divinities and share what you have with these divinities, so that they may bless you with their grace and enable you to live comfortably and securely.
There is, in the midst of these two little verses, a complete philosophy of life, as it were. As we have noted in our earlier sessions, there is a cooperative activity automatically going on in all of nature, so that every part of creation is sustained by the very fact of this cooperative movement and sustenance. It is a balancing of cooperative contribution that gives the appearance of the existence of an individual. We exist as individuals, and seem to be living as persons independently by ourselves.
Are we really independent persons? Or are we appearing to be independent?
We may, in our blinded vision of things and clouded idea of our own selves, think that we are really independent individuals, but a wider vision and a deeper probe into the secret of things will reveal that we are not independent individuals. There is a fabric of interconnected constituents which gives the appearance of the sustenance of every part. The part seems to be balanced in its position on account of energy in the form of a sustaining contribution coming from every other part. The balancing of forces in a particular manner, a type of concentration of this balancing of energy in a particular point in space and time, looks like an individual, tentative existence.
To be continued ...
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