Jnana Yajna is specially recommended by scriptures for all. Jnana does not simply mean knowledge gained from scholars and books, but actually conducting in accordance with that knowledge. Knowledge can never ripen into wisdom so long as the ego persists in craving for results to satisfy its desires. When ego fades away, knowledge shines as Wisdom. When yajnas are performed solely for the peace and prosperity of the world (Loka-Kalyan), they reach God. Jnana reveals that in every sacrifice, God is the Prompter, the Promoter, the Sacrificer, the Sacrifice, the Product achieved and the Recipient of the product. God is the consumer of every sacred offering (Yajnabhuk); He is guardian of the yajna (Yajna-bhrith) and its performer (Yajna krith).He is all; it is only when He is all that the act becomes a genuine yajna. If this attitude can soak into every activity, it will sanctify every moment of your life and make it a yajna.
If we think that thought of the day over we first have to jump over the obstacle of Sanskrit expressions what gives us the feeling we don't understand it. Some days ago he explained very clearly the expression of yajna, the sacrificial rite and sacrificial fire. If God is the goal, God is also the yajna. To get the right feeling for it, a feeling not only an idea, we have to get closer to the universality of oneness and the divine as omnipresent unity and we have to understand that if he is the goal, he is also the source and the path to reach that goal. To understand those words right depends on how much work we have done by listening, thinking it over and now being able to absorb the meaning of it. It is expanding consciousness and it grows and develops with practice.
Jnana Yajna is specially recommended by scriptures for all. Jnana does not simply mean knowledge gained from scholars and books, but actually conducting in accordance with that knowledge. Knowledge can never ripen into wisdom so long as the ego persists in craving for results to satisfy its desires.
Jnana is usually translated as knowledge or wisdom. A yajna is therefore a sacrificial rite to reach the goal of oneness, the divine.
If we see it in our own life and take as example a study circle we share our own experience in the circle. The study circle is part of a center activity and therefore, it is a practice in the purpose to reach the divine oneness and as he is telling us here or confirming with his words, if the goal is divine, the source and path to get there is also divine. In the circle everybody tells about his own experience without being interrupted by others, the participants have to learn to listen, what we think over is wisdom and as we know that knowledge through Swami, we listen to his words and we have to think it over. If we would go into discussions and arguing it would be on the mind level and only half a circle and Swami explained that it can go on forever if we don't go deep into the wisdom.
Knowledge can never ripen into wisdom so long as the ego persists in craving for results to satisfy its desires. When ego fades away, knowledge shines as Wisdom.
As it is a center activity is it organized already and we can to it without the ego coming up and without craving for results, but also that has to be learnt by practice.
The benefit of seeing it in our own life and to see it in the light of our own experience is only possible if we think it over, by thinking it over thoughts come up associations and memories and by that we get a feeling for it and it grows into wisdom, we should hold on to every experience and listen to his words to be able to understand our feelings and experiences right and not wrong. The aim of the yajna when it is done as rite, like Veda singing it is for the peace and prosperity of the world and it reaches God.
When yajnas are performed solely for the peace and prosperity of the world (Loka-Kalyan), they reach God. Jnana reveals that in every sacrifice, God is the Prompter, the Promoter, the Sacrificer, the Sacrifice, the Product achieved and the Recipient of the product. God is the consumer of every sacred offering (Yajnabhuk); He is guardian of the yajna (Yajna-bhrith) and its performer (Yajna krith).He is all; it is only when He is all that the act becomes a genuine yajna. If this attitude can soak into every activity, it will sanctify every moment of your life and make it a yajna.
We understand it on an experience level if we see it in our own life and not just a sacrificial rite.
In a traditional, Vedic yajna, the ritual calls for the invocation of Fire in a sacrificial trough. Devotees offer oblations and chant Sanskrit mantras for blessings and protection, and hymns of praise. The term jnana yajna, is as well scriptural study and regular contemplation on the deeper import of the teachings heard, kindles the fire of knowledge in an intelligent spiritual seeker, who thereafter offers his false values and negative tendencies as oblations into this fire. Jnana yajna is also a term used by Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, where he uses it to refer to the student who, through scriptural studies, performs the ritual of worship (yajna) at the altar of wisdom (jnana).
If we are not in regular contemplation of the divine wisdom, we don't hear the deeper import of the teaching and we don't get that fire of knowledge burning into a constant flame of wisdom. Only if we see it in our own life and in our own experience we will be able to get aware of the false values and negative tendencies in our mind and to offer it as our oblation into the sacrificial fire.
If we study the divine words and through scriptural studies, we perform the ritual worship at the altar of wisdom. Yajna is here translated as worship and Jnana is the altar of wisdom.
For us it matters that we can put it into practice, it is important to do so and to think it over, to see it in our own life to get aware of every small experience to be able to understand it and by that the knowledge grows into wisdom. As Swami told us a few days ago with those words, if we can get sacrifices in the highest order if performed by ourselves or even through scholars versed in Vedic ritual and we can master the highest scriptures and teach them even and make the others experts, we still didn't master our own bodies, senses and the mind. It is not a way to turn the attention inside if we just accomplish on the outer level a yajna, we have to turn the attention inside and how is that done?
We know if we repeat a mantra, the mind is going inside and the thought process slows down and we get deep rest and when we stop with the mantra, it will turn outwards again by itself and that is needed to perform our every day duties. But when our mind is focused on the intellect instead of the senses, discriminating between senses and watcher, we turn it inside. We don't just follow the instinct anymore, but we use our discrimination.
If it is done for the glorification of the highest or the divine, if the goal is the universal oneness of the divine, he is the yajna. He is the performer as well as the receiver, there is only one and if we participate in the center activities we are able to make that experience of oneness between all, that is what the centers are for. It is for the glorification of the divine and all together participating we can get aware of it, see it in our own life, realize our experience and the ego will not even surface.
But we should not be surprised if things first feel disturbing and as that lady said in our last meeting, she cannot breath anymore there are too many people and not enough air and I told her to stay at the door and to go outside there is enough fresh air.
It has to do with obstacles in the mind and we have to go on no matter what obstacles are there, but for that she should first realize that it is not the air, but her own mind.
Anyhow it is her experience and she has to get aware of it. I am glad I am too busy to listen to that one voice only during devotional singing and I love to remember Swami giving Darshan and walking around in the midst of people, I am too busy to keep my focus to get disturbed by the air, but if I would not be focused and in the mind and just listen to voices it would be disturbing, I would get a headache and go home with an awful feeling because I would not have been able to focus on the oneness in that devotional singing and that is after all the goal. It is why we practice it to be one with the divine or to get aware of the oneness in all of us. It is an amazing insight to get aware that there is only one and that we are all the same higher self and we are all the same divine Atmic principle, the 'I am that'. We can experience it if we focus on the singers and listen to our own self in the heart, there is only one and all are one at that very sacred place and as we are all one, it is beyond the body and the mind, it is beyond the individual, the universal divine is the prompter and he is as well the way getting there and he is the goal. In unity consciousness everybody melts, it is like a big melting pot and what is left is the one, the divine and bliss and as Swami said in our interview, where bliss is there is God.
Jnana reveals that in every sacrifice, God is the Prompter, the Promoter, the Sacrificer, the Sacrifice, the Product achieved and the Recipient of the product. God is the consumer of every sacred offering (Yajnabhuk); He is guardian of the yajna (Yajna-bhrith) and its performer (Yajna krith).He is all; it is only when He is all that the act becomes a genuine yajna. If this attitude can soak into every activity, it will sanctify every moment of your life and make it a yajna.
That is the aim of the sacrifice we get aware that divinity is the prompter, the promoter, the sacrificer, the sacrifice and the product achieved and the recipient of that product, there is only one, we listen to it and we focus on the one voice we hear in the singers the oneness.
That is why he is all and only when he is all and there is only one it will be a genuine yajna. If someone doesn't get air and tells us that she will not participate at a big event coming up, we think that the obstacles in the mind are too big and she is not focused on oneness in her experience and she will have to go on and somehow overcome that obstacle in time.
What matters to us is that he tells us that it is a genuine yajna only when that oneness is achieved, so every act for the glorification of the divine can become a yajna if we get to the underlying oneness of all people present and if we do not get there, it is not a genuine yajna, not the fire or the sacrifice of the practice alone makes a yajna, when we reach the divine the act becomes a genuine yajna, in that sense not the quantity matters and how much we do, but the quality that it has to reach the universal level of oneness and afterwards it is easy to understand. If we have the experience of it, we know why he is the prompter, the promoter, the sacrificer and the sacrifice, the product achieved and the recipient of that product.
God is the consumer of every sacred offering (Yajnabhuk); He is guardian of the yajna (Yajna-bhrith) and its performer (Yajna krith).He is all; it is only when He is all that the act becomes a genuine yajna. If this attitude can soak into every activity, it will sanctify every moment of your life and make it a yajna.
The miracle of all being one makes us aware of it that he is all there is, but it is only when the act becomes sacred and we can find that attitude in every activity so that it sanctifies every moment in our life and makes it a yajna.
How amazing is this! You can get sacrifices of the highest order performed by yourself or through scholars versed in Vedic ritual. You can visit and praise the holiness of diverse shrines and inspire others to journey thereto. Similarly you can master the highest scriptures and teach them to many and make them experts. But how many of you have succeeded in mastering your own bodies, senses and wayward minds, and turned them inward to gain perpetual and unchanging equanimity? You embark upon an undertaking with a purpose, goal, or an end in view. But the endeavour is sublimated into a yajna (sacrificial rite) only if the purpose, goal or end is the glorification of God. God is the yajna, for He is the Goal. His grace is the reward. His creation is used to propitiate Him; He is the performer as well as the receiver. Every act, where the ego of the doer does not surface, becomes a Divine offering.
No comments:
Post a Comment