Commentary on the Bhagavadgita

by Swami Krishnananda

Daivam evapare yajnam yoginah paryupasate, brahmagnav apare yajnam yajnenaivopajuhvati (4.25).
Srotradin indriyananye samyamagnishu juhvati, sabdadin vishayan anya indriyagnishu juhvati (4.26).
Sarvanindriya-karmani prana-karmani capare, atma-samyama-yogagnau juhvati jnana-dipite (4.27).
Dravya-yajnas tapo-yajna yoga-yajnas tathapare, svadhyaya-jnana-yajnas ca yatayah samsita-vratah (4.28).
Apane juhvati pranam prane’panam tathapare, pranapana-gati ruddhva pranayama-parayanah (4.29).
Apare niyataharah pranan praneshu juhvati, sarve’py ete yajna-vido yajna-kshapita-kalmashah (4.30).

In these verses from the Fourth Chapter there are further details as to actually putting the spirit of yajna into practice in daily life. We have heard a lot about yajna – sacrifice – in the earlier chapters. We envisaged in a philosophical light what yajna, or sacrifice, is. Now in a very, very down-to-earth, practical way we are told how we can practise spiritual sadhana as a yajna, or a sacrifice, and what the methods of actually manifesting yajna in our daily performance are.

Varieties are the ways of the daily performance of yajna. Some people offer everything, including themselves, to the gods in heaven. They worship Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, Ganesha, Devi, Durga, Surya. Every day there is a dedication of oneself in an act of submission and surrender, through prayers offered by way of Veda mantras or verses from the Puranas and Epics, or from the Tantra and Agama Sastras. The gods are worshippedaccording to the injunctions that are given to us mostly in the Agama Sastra, which is a scripture dealing with the rituals of worship.

We may have seen people worshipping gods either in a large temple of public worship, or personally in their own house, to a little image kept in front of them: a Siva linga, or Vishnu’s image, or Surya’s sphatika, or whatever it is. They perform varieties of entertainment to the god who comes to their house as a royal guest. Actually, the ways of worship in temples, particularly in large temples of public worship, are similar to the ways in which we receive a king into our house. Suppose we are informed that tomorrow the emperor is paying a visit to our house – what do we do? There are a series of things that we do. We clean the premises and make everything tidy. We arrange a beautiful seat for him. We receive him with honour and say, “Please be seated.” Afterwards, in Indian tradition, we have to wash his feet. This system may not be there in the West, but in India one of the important gestures of reception given to an honoured guest is to offer him a very, very comfortable seat and wash his feet. Afterwards we enquire how he is and whether there is anything we can do for him, and then offer him something to eat or drink, give him some clothing or jewels, and place before him fruit and all the delicious dishes that we have prepared. We wave a sacred light before him, called arati, and then calmly sit and enquire about his welfare. We serve him a meal, and afterwards – very, very honourably – we bid him farewell. This is what is done in worship in very large temples like Tirupati. They do not go into all these details in small temples.

God comes to us as an emperor, and he comes every day by way of invocation. After some time, we bid Him farewell (and so the next day, we have to invite him again). After bidding a guest farewell, the person leaves. Every day this gorgeous reception is given to the honoured guest who is God; and finally, we offer ourselves: I am Thine.

Daivamevapare yajnam yoginah paryupasate: Some of the spiritual seekers or yogis worship gods in a ritualistic manner by chants, by performances of ritual, or even by actual contemplation. Brahmagnavapare yajnam yajnenaivopajuhvati: Or we contemplate the Supreme Absolute in our own personality. We surrender ourselves to that ocean of the Absolute so that we melt into that Supreme Being Itself. The greatest worship we can think of is where we offer ourselves instead of offering delicious dishes, clothes, gold and jewels, etc. They are secondary in comparison with what we ourselves are. We offer ourselves in the great brahmayajna that we practice – the contemplation of the Supreme Absolute. Brahmagnavapare yajnam yajnenaivopajuhvati.

Srotradin indriyanyanye samyamagnishu juhvati: Some yogis offer the very powers of the sense organs into the fire of self-control. Self-control is visualised as a kind kunda, yajnasala – a special pit in which the holy fire is lit. Our performance, or act of self-control, is itself a holy fire that we have lit in ourselves into which we offer the very sense organs themselves, which we pour as an offering of ghee into this holy fire. The perception and all the perceived objects of perception are offered into this fire of complete withdrawal. All the five senses – the eyes and the ears and the other perceptive sense organs – in their capacity as powers of perception and cognition are abstracted from their involvement in the objects, brought back and offered, as ghee is offered, into the fire. The sense organs are offered into the fire of total withdrawal – pratyahara, we may say. Here pratyahara is described as the offering of the very powers of the sense organs into the fire of self-restraint.

Srotradin indriyananye samyamagnishu juhvati, sabdadin vishayan anya indriyagnishu juhvati. There is another reverse action to what has been mentioned, which is also regarded as a kind of sacrifice. What we mentioned first is that the sense organs which are involved in the objects are withdrawn and poured into the fire of self-restraint. Here, in this second half of the verse, it is said that all the objects of sense are offered into the fire of the sense organs through the media of the perceptive organs. The very objects of perception are offered into the mind, and from the mind they are offered into the intellect. This is the reverse process of self-control. We may either withdraw our connection to the sense objects and then offer the powers of the senses into the fire of our self-control; or we may melt the very form of the objects themselves, as is done in samadhi, samapatti, etc., according to Patanjali’s Yoga Sastra. This is also mentioned in the penultimate verse of the Second Chapter of the Bhagavadgita: All the desires and the desired objects come and pour themselves into the ocean of the seer – apuryamanam achala-pratishtham samudram apah pravisanti yadvat, tadvat kama yam pravisanti sarve sa santim apnoti na kamakami (2.70).

We need not be afraid of the world. This is a higher form of self-control. The lower form of self-control is to sever connection of the sense organs with objects, and to pour their energy into the mind in self-control. The other is more difficult, which is to melt the very concept of objects. Objects do not exist. They are only configurations of cosmic force. Objects are only energies – sattva, rajas, tamas – concentrated in their permutation and combination, and when they are thus melted, as hard ice may melt before the sun’s hot rays, the objectivity vanishes and the entire cosmos of physicality may melt into liquid, as it were; and like rivers flow into the ocean, the whole world will flow into us. This is a kind of higher self-control, which only great masters can perform. We cannot melt the world so easily and make it flow like a river into our own ocean-like Self: sabdadeen vishayananya indriyagnishu juhvati.

Sarvanindriya-karmani prana-karmani capare, atma-samyama-yogagnau juhvati jnana-dipite: All the sensations and the very activity of the pranas are concentrated in the Self. There are five sense organs – seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching – and these are the five sensations. There are also five forms of breath – prana, apana, vyana, udana, samana. The prana causes the breath to exhale, and the apana causes the breath to inhale; and when we put a stop to this process of inhalation and exhalation it is called kumbhaka, (mentioned little later in further verses). Vyana is a pervading sakti, or force, which causes circulation of blood throughout the body. Samana equalises the forces; it digests food.

These functions of the pranas, together with the fivefold function of the sensations mentioned, are concentrated on the Self and emanate like rays of the sun from the self of one’s own existence. The five pranas and their functions, and the five sensations, may be visualised as the rays of the sun, as it were – the sun being our own Atman. So sarvanindriya-karmani prana-karmani: All the sensations and all the prana activities are concentrated in the Self. Atma-samyama-yogagnau juhvati jnana-dipite: Lit up with the highest form of wisdom, endowed with the knowledge of the Ultimate Spirit of the universe, a yogi or a spiritual seeker is enabled to perform this otherwise very difficult task of concentrating the pranas and the senses in his own Self, so that there are no multifarious activities taking place. There is a total action taking place, total perception taking place; and that total perception is called insight or intuition: atma-samyama-yogagnau juhvati jnana-dipite.