Bhagavat Gita - 13

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Bhagavat Gita - 13

 

The law of Yajna (Chapter 3 verses 9-18)

 

God created man with the law of Yajna as the means for his worldly prosperity

and for his higher spiritual evolution. Yajna means self-sacrifice - the

offering of what one considers precious, for the service of God and one's

fellow beings. If our fellow beings can be looked upon as the very tabernacle

of the Divine - for God dwells in everything and everything is the body of

God - this service becomes the highest form of worship too. Yajna, at the

lower levels is one of give and take. Man lives in community which can thrive

only by the exchange of commodities and services among its members. Each gets

certain services from others and gives back certain other services in return.

One who fails to do his part of the work but insists on getting his share of

the good things of social life, is an exploiter and a thief. He violates the

law of Yajna and gets morally degraded. Rights and duties therefore go

together, and to claim the former without due insistence on the latter,

begets corruption and decadence and leads to ruin ultimately. The Vedic fire

sacrifice, where thanks giving offerings are made to the Devas for the

benefits that they have bestowed on man through Nature, is symbolic of this

great law of life. Both the ritual Yajna, and Yajna in a social sense

consisting in the discharge of ones duties to the body politic, are based on

action. And one who gives up action will be abandoning yajna too and thus

violating the basic commandment of the Creator - the ethical law of a life

of non-exploitation.

 

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Based on " Srimad Bhagavat Gita - The Scripture of Mankind "

a translation by Rev Swami Tapasyanandaji, published by

Sri Ramakrishna Math - Chennai. http://www.sriramakrishnamath.org/

 

 

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