Chapter 3: Karma Yoga – Transforming All Activities into Yoga: Verse 15
कर्म ब्रह्मोद्भवं विद्धि ब्रह्माक्षरसमुद्भवम् ।
तस्मात्सर्वगतं ब्रह्म नित्यं यज्ञे प्रतिष्ठितम् ।।
karma brahmod-bhavaṃ viddhi brahmākṣara-samudbhavam
tasmāt-sarva-gataṃ brahma nityaṃ yajñe pratiṣṭhitam – 3.15
Know that actions including rituals inhere in the sanctifying Vedic revelations. Vedas themselves have their source in Brahman, the supreme Reality. Therefore, the all-pervading Brahman ever rests on yajña.
Chapter 3: Karma Yoga – Transforming All Activities into Yoga - Verse 15
Swami Nirviseshananda Tirtha
Vedas ensure all-fold welfare of humans. Their declarations cover the secular and divine aspects of existence. Vedas are the primary and ultimate source for everything that man looks for, the Kamadhenu (3.10). That is why they provide rituals and societal activities intended to benefit the individual and the society alike.
Brahman is the source of entire Creation. It can bestow everything divine and secular alike. Yajña connects one to this singular source, rewarding him with worldly and divine gains, including liberational fulfilment.
Sufficiency of food crop as well as other flora, indispensable to sustain life, depends upon timely rainfall. This inheres in yajña.
Thus the spiritual dedication of humans, the expression of which is yajña, is indispensable and supreme in human life. Krishna gives yajña paramount importance. He links it to various factors, exhorting all to conduct every activity as yajña alone, as otherwise it is bound to cause bondage to the mind and intelligence. He expatiates the point.
Do not think that yajña is a religious concept and is relevant to the faithful alone, others not having to bother about it at all.
Think of the human society and its life upon earth. The need for living with mutual help, cooperation and contribution cannot be set aside at all. An individual or a family alone cannot have a benevolent and fulfilling life any time, anywhere.
Life in its full sense is possible only with many common facilities like roads, markets, schools, hospitals and allied services, none of which lies within the scope of an individual alone. That is why public collections in the form of various levies and taxes are put into effect, which go to make all public facilities. Tax money always belongs to the people, though collected and spent by the Government.
United Nations and allied institutions serve the cause of yajña. Welfare State is also an allied concept. In some countries taxes are as high as 45 per cent of individual earnings. Moral and ethical ground for all this is yajña, on which world welfare rests.
Viewed in whichever manner, the concept and expression of yajña become indispensable.
