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Though Kurukshetra battle was for establishing dharma and putting down adharma, a noble act, it did involve some ignoble notes. Closely studied, this is the truth of all acts upon this earth. This is how Krishna states all actions do involve a note of sin. However, by adopting the note of Yajña, one can wipe off the sinful blemish of all his actions. What a great relief, assurance!

Dear and blessed souls:

Harih Om Tat Sat.

Sanctifying pañca-prāṇas – five-fold life-forces

The concept of Yajña is very ancient in our country. Because of the primacy of the prāṇas in life, our thinkers discreetly interwove prāṇas with the daily rituals and practices. For a dedicated Vedic votary, life is an embodiment of Brahman, the Supreme Reality. So, he prefers such practices and  introspections as would repeatedly remind him about this highest truth. Thus, before eating for himself, he aimed at the lofty concept of feeding the five prāṇas first, by offering one pinch of rice for each of them. The last pinch, climaxing the offer, is for Brahman.

What does this mean? Our body is designed and maintained by Nature, and prāṇic functions are part of Nature’s complex sequences. It is through the body, its birth, growth, activity and interaction that we live in the world, experiencing and knowing all that we do. If that body is sustained by prāṇas and the food they receive and process variously, then the daily offering to prāṇas is of indescribable and significant importance. Nothing is done for our own constricted self. Everything is for and by prāṇas. See how subtly divinity is infused into daily life and the act of eating is itself spiritualized!

To mark the conclusion of our offering, the last offer is made to Brahman. Nothing in our eating or the subsequent nourishment, is meant for the  eating person at all, thus scrupulously avoiding any selfish note. Everything is for Brahman, through the body. What a lofty concept! This fits in with what Krishna said in the third chapter while introducing the concept of Yajña (3.9). Whatever one eats is described here as offering to the five prāṇas and Brahman. Krishna urges the same there as well. Whatever be the process and linkage, the spirit and content of Yajña should be ensured.

Scientific background of prāṇas – life forces

Each of the five prāṇas has its specific function. Prāṇa represents all forms of intake, inhalation and propulsion. Apāna causes elimination and excavation. Samāna sources digestion and assimilation. Udāna leads the upward movement, vocal expression. Vyāna does circulation of energy throughout the body.

It is amazing how the ancient thinkers had probed into all these abstruse, invisible, inner functions assessing the source of each and determining how the five complemented one another, engendering an amazing composite. They felt it was indispensable to instil the finding as a cultural refinement by intertwining it with daily life. By linking it fastidiously to eating, a daily habit to nourish and sustain the body, the act and the obligations it meant, became so pronounced as to make it inseparable like breath itself. The food received by the mouth is processed and the outcome reaches throughout the body. In enabling all the abstruse functions enroute, the five prāṇas have their invisible roles to fulfil.

Food thus becomes an undeniable offering to the five prāṇas, each of which empowers its unique processing, leading to all the composite functions in the body like respiration, digestion, assimilation, circulation and evacuation.

Self, though unattached, the real substratum

Performing this daily ritual of prāṇic and Brāhmic offerings reminds one of the inmost Self, which, essentially different from the body, is not involved in any of the bodily or sensory functions. It is but the substratum for all functions and functioning entities, enabling the smooth and orderly running of all, but remaining fully distinct from them.

Self and the body – complementing each other

Food is a need of the body and prāṇas. The Self needs nothing at all. It is ever full and still. This supreme Truth is conveyed by the indispensable daily feeding of pañca-prāṇas as a precursory while having the daily meals. In fact, such a message is there when Krishna stated in the third chapter that all activities are caused and preserved by Nature alone, and it is a sheer delusion if any one thinks that it is he that does everything (3.27). There also the emphasis is that in any and all actions none has any causality whatsoever. The overall Nature initiates and leads all activities, small or big, in an individual or in the pañca-bhūtas themselves. Seekers should link up the statements and revelations to absorb the message without fail.

Understand and negate the blemish caused by activities

Having described the various kinds of sacrifice, Krishna now makes a concluding assessment (4.31):

Performers of all these sacrifices are alike in their performance. Their performance will remove all the blemishes that accrue to them during their activities. This is a point to be specially thought of. First, do all activities imply a kind and measure of blemish? Are not activities indispensable and hence to be regarded as good, benevolent, desirable? Answer lies in Krishna’s very words: Has he not emphasized the indispensability of having to conform to the wheel of activity? Has he not also specified that any one who is negligent about this is living a sinful life (3.16) of waste?

Being so, how are we to understand the blemish activities cause? Are activities not good, noble and benevolent? “Not fully” is the answer Krishna, Bhagavad Gita and Vyasadeva give. In the 18th chapter (18.48) Krishna clearly says that whatever be the activity one is given to, it certainly contains a measure of evil, as is fire coupled with smoke. A very clear but strong assessment indeed.

Krishna’s dexterity in handling dharma and adharma

Take the Kurukshetra scene, which unnerved the illustrious fighter Arjuna. 4.5 million warriors were assembled there. The major number was supporting adharma, unrighteousness, and the lesser alone opposed them. If the war was to be, both armies would be slaughtered alike. To think of so many righteous fighters having to be killed is sinful to any good and noble human mind! Despite this, the war was to be fought and dharma to be restored for the welfare of mankind.

It was exceedingly hard. Krishna had to interfere now and then to see that the war progressed effectively. Arjuna’s son was encountered unrighteously by Bhishma, Drona and others together, a forbidden step by all reckonings. They all admired and praised Abhimanyu’s bravery, but killed him thereafter unrighteously.

Equally so, Krishna chose to employ Ghatotkacha to encounter Karna, whereby Bhima’s son was lost. While all of Yudhishthira’s side bewailed deeply, Krishna laughed hysterically. For, by this move, he wanted to divest Karna of his deadly spear, which could be used only once. Karna was compelled to use it against Ghatotkacha, thereby making it easy for Arjuna to slay Karna. That was a dexterous move, Krishna alone could think of and effect!

Yajña attitude wipes out sin

Like this, other means and methods were also employed, all of which did contain a measure of undesirableness. Though Kurukshetra battle was for establishing dharma and putting down adharma, a noble act, it did involve some ignoble notes. Closely studied, this is the truth of all acts upon this earth. This is how Krishna states all actions do involve a note of sin. However, by adopting the note of Yajña, one can wipe off the sinful blemish of all his actions. What a great relief, assurance!

Seekers will have to reflect upon this in full depth and incorporate their finding and conclusion in their own life.

It is in this context that Krishna says that the performance of Yajña alone redresses all blemishes one’s activities involve and invite. This will  necessarily mean that if the performance of Yajña is ignored, one’s activities, bound to incur blemishes, will bring severe sinful consequences.

Yajña – the only benevolent note

So, in the matter of transforming all activities into Yajñas, none has any option or excuse at all. Gitasamhita excels in bringing up hidden truths about the world as well as human life, by discussing them in such a manner that none has any option to disregard the message the least. Yajña is the only benevolent note which will ennoble, elevate and fulfil the dignity and purpose of human life.

By making the preliminary offering to the five prāṇas and Brahman before one takes his food every time, the entire food intake becomes ‘Yajña-śiṣṭa,’ meaning, the divine remnants of Yajña. In other words, all that one eats becomes a prasada (food blessed by Yajña). Such a prasada, says Krishna, will lift the partaker to the eternal Brahman. What a wonderful reward and fruition!

It is for every one of you to understand the message as well as the exposition in all their depth, and gain the consequent sublimation and enrichment without fail. This is the positive aspect Krishna discusses about Yajñas and their devout pursuit.

Gratitude – ennobling emotion

Gratitude and gratefulness are ennobling emotions. They enrich and empower the human mind and intelligence greatly. Our first and last gratitude are to the cause and source of the world. Whatever or whoever has created the world, to that source we owe ourselves wholeheartedly. We have the earth to live and move in, water to drink and grow grains, cereals and vegetables. We have materials to build residences. To whoever has gifted us all these, what else than gratitude can we think of and express?

It is this allegiance that we try to express variously through Yajña, by offering several items using the medium of fire. Fire has the property of burning everything offered to it into ash. So, we derive the satisfactory notion of having given and the offering having been accepted. After all, what we give are materials we procure or prepare like ghee and boiled rice, using the resources we have acquired in one way or the other.

Without Yajña one incurs a colossal loss

Generally, everyone will have possessiveness about whatever he has. To use part of these possessions and offer it as an act of Yajña means something deep and spiritual. The whole impact is in the mentointellectual plane inside. Naturally, the habit of offering as well as the offering itself bestows a very rare impact, invaluable in every way. The whole life and whatever possessions we have, become purified and sublime. Krishna says that those who are given to these sacrifices will, as a reward, attain the eternal Brahman.

To make his statement and revelation amply effective, Krishna adds a significant rejoinder, which is also equally important (4.31). “Arjuna”, says Krishna, “one who does not perform Yajña at all, has neither this world nor the other .”

In other words, any one not performing Yajña the way Krishna exhorts, will incur a colossal loss. Life of any kind and style led here by such a one will be a sheer waste. Do not miss the depth and emphasis of these words.

Animals, birds and reptiles are not expected to change their lives the least. The carnivorous beings indulge in slaughter to appease their hunger. That is their nature. None can find fault with them. But the human is not so. His life, with the grace of emotional mind and rational intelligence, is definitely meant to be good, noble, moral, ethical and great. By no stretch of imagination can these qualities be neglected or sacrificed. Thus, there is a great deal of meaning and relevance in what Krishna says about the non-performanc e of Yajña.