A Study of the Bhagavadgita - Chapter 6.6. Swami Krishnananda.

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Monday, June 14, 2021. 8:05.AM.
Chapter 6: Sankhya – The Wisdom of Cosmic Existence - 6.
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1.

So there is a danger, especially in the case of a spiritual seeker, when one is prone to imagine that sitting quiet is a state of inaction, and freedom from the bondage of action. Action binds because of the thought involved in it. Action by itself does not bind, because consciousness is not connected with it. The binding factor is the charging of consciousness. When consciousness vitalises action, it becomes a specific action. When there is a devitalisation of the action process by the withdrawal of consciousness or mentality in it, it ceases to be meaningful action. Knowing this, one has to try to reconcile in one's finite existence here the two aspects of one's nature, the phenomenal and the noumenal.

2.

The verse of the Third Chapter says when God created this world and the individuals of various species, He ordained that there is a binding factor perpetually operating between the individuals and the cosmic process. Sahayaj–a? praja? s???va purovaca prajapati?, anena prasavi?yadhvam e?a vostv i??akamadhuk (Gita 3.10). At the beginning of creation, Prajapati, the Creator, willed, as it were, that all created evolutes are to be bound back to the universal perspective through some bond, which is known as sacrifice. 

Yajna is the clue to the way in which we have to conduct ourselves in this world. Life is considered as a sacrifice. I mentioned to you briefly that sacrifice is something like charity, the giving away of one's own being in some extent. That is, you share the finitude of your personality for the welfare and survival of other such finitudes with which you are all internally connected. By this process you diminish your own finitude and, simultaneously, you produce an alternate effect of increasing the dimension of your personality. You gradually become more and more non-finite by charity.

3.

'Yajna' is a word which is well known. Yajna, sacrifice, is generally understood in the popular sense to mean some offering in a sacred fire, somebody performing a yajna somewhere. When you are told this, you understand that some sacred fire is lit and oblations are offered for the satisfaction of the gods. This is one way to understand yajna because as a sacrifice, yajna may be external or internal. It can also be universal. This threefold aspect of yajna will be dealt with when we come to the Eighteenth Chapter of the Gita.

4.

So, externally yajna would mean offering oblations in a sacred fire. This yajna, which is offered externally by ritualistic chanting of mantras, etc., is also one kind of sacrifice. You offer something in the sacred fire for the satisfaction of a divinity as you have observed priests, pundits offering oblations. The yajamana, or the conductor of the sacrifice, is asked to repeat the word 'namama'. Indraya svaha indraya idam namama: May this be to the satisfaction of Indra, not for me. Namama: I am not doing this yajna for my satisfaction. It is for the satisfaction of the god. Who is this god? These Indras, Varunas, Angis, etc., in the Veda mantras are actually the adhidaiva. 

The adhyatma is the performer of the sacrifice, the adhidaiva is the deity to whom the offer is made for his satisfaction. So even in external sacrifice, yajna is very valuable, provided it is done with a pure spirit of understanding of the offering, the adhidaiva, and the adhyatma yajamana. The kunda, the actual altar, is the adhibhuta preparation. The sacred altar that is prepared for the performance of this sacrifice, ritual performance or yajna, is part of the adhibhuta-prapancha because it is made of bricks, mortar, etc. On the basis of this adhibhuta preparation of the altar, the adhyatma, which is the individual concerned, offers a symbolic gift, as it were, to that invisible, internal connecting link of divinity, the adhidaiva. So you understand to some extent the meaning of these external homas, yajnas, sacrifices, etc.

To be continued ...

Swami Krishnananda

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